Alfred, Lord Pomfrey
He fires a dueling pistol at a man leaving his wife’s bedchamber, having himself just come home from an actress. That shot is the first event of the novel and everything else follows from where the man he missed landed.
Alfred, Lord Pomfrey. CVM Sekai original art.
Lord Pomfrey exists to pull a trigger and be a hypocrite about it, and the novel is careful to establish both in the same paragraph. He shoots at Nigel over his wife’s infidelity while returning from his own.
He is also the reason the plot has any urgency at all. A rake caught with a married woman is a scandal. A rake shot at by a husband is a man who has just come very close to dying exactly the way his uncle Lionel did, which is what puts his father in the library with a six-week ultimatum.
The book’s own verdict on him is short and comes from the most respected man in it: a lecherous idiot who deserves what he gets for marrying a woman half his age.
The file
| Name | Alfred, Lord Pomfrey. His first name is given at page 58 |
|---|---|
| Wife | Letitia, Lady Pomfrey, roughly half his age |
| Residence | The house next door to the Melvilles’, separated by a tall garden wall |
| Household | Keeps no dogs, which becomes a running joke in the garden scene |
| Weapon of choice | A dueling pistol, discharged at Nigel Cavendish |
| Own conduct | Returning from an actress on the night in question |
| On the page | Never directly. Seen once at a distance through Felicity’s spyglass, arguing at a lit window |
| Status as of page 80 | Alive, married, and unlikely to prosecute |
| Book and series | What a Lady Wants, Last Man Standing book 2, by Victoria Alexander |
The shot
The unmistakable sound of a shot rang out in the night.
Felicity has just finished wishing on a star for a man who will make her days an adventure. A dog barks. Then this. The comic timing is the whole opening of the book.
One tends to be impatient when one has been shot at, forced to climb down a building, scaled a wall, and lost one’s favorite coat in the process, all with the proverbial hounds of hell nipping at one’s heels.
There are no hounds. Felicity points out at some length that the Pomfreys keep no dogs, that there are no hounds of hell in London, and that dogs cannot climb walls in any case.
The actress
And as Lord Pomfrey had returned home straight from the arms of an actress of considerable reputation that had nothing to do with her skills on the stage, he too would wish to avoid public exposure.
This is why Nigel assumes the whole thing will stay quiet. Both Pomfreys have something to lose, so neither will talk. He is wrong, but not because of the Pomfreys. He is wrong because servants talk, and specifically because Felicity’s maid Nancy has a flirtation with the greengrocer who also delivers next door.
What the Viscount says
Alfred Pomfrey is a lecherous idiot and deserves what he gets for marrying a woman half his age.
And then, immediately, refuses to let his son use that as cover.
You do understand, the failings of Lord and Lady Pomfrey in no way excuse your own behavior.
That pairing is the Viscount’s whole method. He will happily tell you the other man is contemptible and he will not accept it as an argument.
Why the shot matters more than the scandal
Nigel treats the night as a social inconvenience. His father does not, and the reason is a portrait hanging in the same room where they discuss it.
The Viscount’s brother Lionel, whom Nigel closely resembles, “met his fate in a duel at the hands of a jealous husband.” Days before this conversation Nigel was fired on by a jealous husband and survived. See the Viscount and Nigel.
So Lord Pomfrey’s contribution to this novel is not the scandal. It is that he very nearly repeated the family’s worst outcome, and the near miss is what triggers the inheritance ultimatum that drives the plot.
What the book withholds
Whether he knows who he shot at. Never established in the pages read.
His exact age. Given only as roughly twice his wife’s.
Any dialogue. He does not speak. He is seen once through a spyglass, arguing.
What the argument at the window was about. Felicity watches it happen and cannot hear a word.
Where he connects
Letitia, Lady Pomfrey
His wife, and the reason he was holding a pistol.
CharacterThe Honorable Nigel Cavendish
The man he missed.
CharacterEdmund Cavendish, Viscount Cavendish
Calls him a lecherous idiot and still refuses to let it excuse his son.
CastAll characters
Everyone who speaks or is spoken to in this book.
The RaeRae take
The outraged husband is usually a joke in this genre and this one is written as a joke, right down to the hounds of hell that turn out to be one neighborhood dog. But the book is doing something sharper than it looks with him.
He is contemptible on the page for two reasons that are given equal weight: he married a girl half his age, and he shot at a man over an infidelity identical to the one he had just committed. Neither of those is about being cuckolded. The novel is quite specific that what makes him ridiculous is the double standard, not the horns.
And then it does the thing I keep admiring about this series: it refuses to let that be a defense. Nigel would very much like the Pomfreys’ failings to settle the matter. His father agrees the Pomfreys are appalling and tells him it changes nothing. That is a better moral position than most romance novels bother to take about their own rakes.
Sources
Primary source is the novel itself: What a Lady Wants by Victoria Alexander, Last Man Standing book 2, 389 pages, read front to back on Kindle and currently complete through page 80, with further page-numbered receipts gathered by in-book search on the term Pomfrey.
No secondary source, wiki, blurb or adaptation has been used. Where the book does not say something, this page says that it does not say it.