Down a short set of concrete steps with iron railings. Wakefield looked back. “Do you need assistance?” he asked as Ben took one step at a time.
Ben shook his head. “It helps my knee, to climb up and down.”
“It puts pressure on the tendon at a different angle, providing a moment of relief,” Wakefield told him.
Ben almost slipped, as he put together two stray thoughts. “That’s why you know about bruises and cuts. You’ve likely had your fair share of them over the years, from people like Geraldson, who find you threatening.”
Wakefield’s gaze was direct. Frank. “One learns to fend for oneself.”
Ben got to the bottom of the steps with a grunt. “Lead on,” he said breathlessly.
There were three doors leading off the basement room, which was cold and still compared to the hot August day beginning, outside. Wakefield moved up to the middle door. There was a bolt on the door at the top and he slid it aside and opened the door.
A lantern was burning inside. Over Wakefield’s shoulder, Ben could see racks of dusty wine bottles.
Wakefield stepped aside. “My magic wand,” he told Ben, waving inside the room.
Easton Wash sat on the floor, his back against the stands of wine, his arms around himself, shivering. He was bare-headed and wore no jacket or cravat. His shirt was rumpled.
“You!” Ben breathed, fury gathering in building waves.
Wakefield put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Wait, please,” he said. “Give me a moment.”
Ben fell back, reining in the need to inflict damage upon Wash with effort.
Wakefield dropped the fat pouch at Easton’s feet. “Inside that pouch is one thousand pounds.”
Easton stared at the pouch, his lips opening. His shivering lessened.
“You said you lost a thousand pounds when Hedley refused to throw the match,” Wakefield said. “There is your investment, returned to you.”
Ben stared at the pouch, too. A thousand pounds was a staggering amount of money. He didn’t think he had ever seen such an amount in cold, folding notes. “Wait, you’re just going to take a worm like Wash’s word that he lost that much?”
“Why not?” Wakefield said.
Wash licked his lips. He reached for the pouch.
Wakefield put his boot on it and Wash snatched his hand back.
“You get this when you return from Coventry Police Station and assure me that the warrant for Hedley’s arrest is canceled.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I’m not a policeman,” Wash said.
“You do it the same way you had the arrest arranged in the first place. Pay off Geraldson.”
“With what?” Wash cried. “I used the last of my funds on him!”
“Promise him a share of your thousand pounds. I care not. See to it and the money is yours.” Wakefield picked up the pouch and moved to one side. “Go now.”
Wash got up from the floor, moving stiffly. He sidled past Wakefield.
Wakefield grabbed the scruff of Wash’s shirt and held him still. “If you value your hide, Wash, do not cross either me or Hedley again. Straighten this out, or I will let Hedley do to you what he wants. You’ve seen him fight, I believe?”
Wash’s gaze moved to Ben and back. He gave a short nod, his chin bumping against Wakefield’s fist.
Wakefield tossed him toward the door. Ben stepped out of the way as Wash staggered the rest of the way through, found his balance and straightened. He almost ran up the stairs.
“Wash!” Wakefield called from the door to the wine cellar.
Ben wondered if Wash would stop when he was so close to escaping. Wash paused at the top of the stairs and reluctantly looked back at Wakefield. It was a measure of the control Wakefield had over the man, now.
The power of money, Ben realized. This time, Wakefield had found the effective element to manipulate Wash.
Wakefield flipped a coin toward Wash. Wash snatched it from the air and looked at it.
“For a cab to take you to the police station,” Wakefield told him. “Don’t dawdle on your way there, Wash. That would disappoint me. Now go.”
Wash turned and left.
Wakefield shut the cellar door. He was smiling. “I interrupted your breakfast,” he told Ben. “Come and have a second breakfast with me.”
“I should return home. My father will be anxious for news,” Ben said.
“Write him a note. I’ll have it delivered for you.” Wakefield moved over to the stairs. “You should remain here until Wash returns for his money. I encouraged him to move swiftly, although if he doesn’t get to Geraldson in time, the police may still arrive at your family’s doorstep, looking for you. It would be better if you were not there. It will delay the arrest until the warrant is cancelled.”
It was a sound idea, Ben admitted.
“Besides,” Wakefield added, “The threat of you, even walking with a cane, seems to act upon Wash as effectively as money. I almost wish I had seen you fighting, now, to measure for myself how good you were.”
“I wasn’t good,” Ben said, working his way over to the stairs. “I was angry.”
“Are you still angry?”
Ben considered his response as he climbed the steps, one at a time. “Sometimes. Often. Yes.”
“That can’t be a good thing,” Wakefield said.
“Don’t you ever get angry?” Ben demanded. “All the lies, the secrets in your life…the constant disapproval?”
“When I was younger, yes.” Wakefield admitted as they walked down the passage past the busy workrooms. “There was always trouble of some sort. Then something happened.” He hesitated. “A good friend died. After, I learned to release my anger. If one is angry, acceptance of the true situation is impossible. I can’t change anything, if I can’t see the truth.”
“You sound like a philosophy professor I knew at Cambridge,” Ben said.
Wash smiled. “My study of philosophy didn’t come from books.”
“From life, then,” Ben concluded.
“The learning is particularly effective, when life is the lecturer.”
* * * * *
Ben wrote his note on Wakefield’s stationery. He was sparing with the details and assured his father he would explain in full once he had confirmation that the warrant had been cancelled and the matter resolved.
Then Wakefield showed him to the dining room, where three places had been set, for an early morning tea.
Ben looked at the third setting, his heart skipping, as the footman placed a tray of still steaming scones on the table between them. Pots of preserves, each with a little silver spoon, were already there.
“Dane, you asked for me?” Sharla said from the door.
“Come and have some tea,” Wakefield told her.
Sharla glanced at Ben. “Has the situation been settled, then?” she asked.
“Not quite. Ben will remain here until it has. Do sit down,” Wakefield said. “I’m rather hungry.”
“Of course. I’m sorry,” she said. As Mayerick pulled out her chair, she glanced around the table. “Your mother will not be joining us?”
“The Dowager Duchess went to the Park, your Grace,” Mayerick said.
Sharla relaxed and sat. “Tea would be nice,” she admitted.
The conversation remained superficial and sparse until Mayerick left the room. As soon as he had gone, Sharla put her cup down. “Please tell me what has happened.” She was looking at Wakefield.
“How much do you know?” Ben asked, surprised.
“Almost nothing,” Sharla admitted. “I only know there is trouble of some kind. Dane spoke to that man—Wash, wasn’t it?—a few days ago and told him to stay away from you, Ben. Then you left and suddenly, you are back and both of you closeted in the library at the oddest hour. It is related to that man, yes?”
Ben let Wakefield decide how much he wanted to reveal to her. It was his secret.
Wakefield split open another scone. “I must ask you to conta
in your curiosity for a day, Sharla. Could you do that? I promise that tomorrow I will give you a full explanation of this odd day. By tomorrow, most of your questions will have been answered, anyway.”
Sharla considered his request. “Why tomorrow?”
“It will be plain why, tomorrow,” he said.
It was the first answer Wakefield had given that didn’t make sense to Ben, either. He remained silent, though.
Sharla sat back, dissatisfied. “I suppose I must wait, then,” she said, a scowl marring her brow.
“Thank you,” Wakefield told her. “Now, let us talk of trivial things, hm? Let us be three people with nothing more onerous on our minds but the weather and the latest gossip.”
Chapter Twenty
Wakefield called it an odd day, which was prophetic, Ben realized in hindsight. To begin, the day was one of extraordinary relaxation, something he would not have predicted last night.
After the early morning tea, the three of them settled in the morning room, where Sharla presided over her sewing box and Wakefield and Ben read the papers. Ben found his thoughts returning to Wash. He wondered what the man was doing, if the warrant had been cancelled, or if the police had arrived at Rhys’ house and were scaring his mother.
Then he would glance at Wakefield’s calm face and remember what he had said about acceptance of the situation in order to see the truth. Worrying himself into a tight coil would not give him any of the answers he craved. He might as well enjoy the waiting time as much as possible.
He would take a breath or two and return to absorbing the news. Each time he repeated the reminder, it became easier to let the worry go. What happened, would happen whether he worried or not.
Wakefield’s mother, the Dowager Duchess, returned from the park late in the morning. She walked into the morning room, shedding her gloves and hat as Mayerick followed her, collecting each item as she held it out.
Melody halted three paces inside the door, looking from Wakefield to Ben, to Sharla. “Good lord!”
Sharla looked up from her embroidery, which was considerably neater than her penmanship. “You remember my cousin, Mister Benjamin Hedley, from the wedding?”
Melody Wakefield was as gaunt as Ben remembered. He got to his feet and bowed. “Your Grace.”
“Mister Hedley,” Melody acknowledged. “I am afraid I do not remember you at all. It was a large wedding.”
“It was,” Ben agreed. Melody didn’t remember him because he had lingered in the shadowed edges of the event, drinking himself into a stupor. He had barely managed to breathe through the wedding itself. Watching Sharla at the breakfast, afterwards, sitting at the head table with her new husband, had been pure agony. Yet he had been unable to stay away, either.
Sharla’s mention of the wedding told him she and Wakefield had kept Ben’s presence in the house over the last week a secret from Wakefield’s mother. As far as the Duchess was concerned, this was the first time Ben had visited the house.
“Are you here on business, Mister Hedley?” Melody asked coldly.
“Ben is here to visit for the day,” Wakefield told her. “You can expect him at the lunch table and for dinner, too.”
“I see.” Melody’s mouth turned down. “You are most welcome, Mister Hedley,” she said with stiff formality. “Please excuse me, I must change for lunch.” She turned and left, with Mayerick following her.
Wakefield lowered the paper and looked at Ben. “I must apologize on behalf of my mother. She is one of those who believes the lack of a title diminishes a man.”
“You didn’t acquire the notion from her, then?”
“I did,” Wakefield said calmly. “Then I met and got to know your Great Family.” He lifted the paper back up once more.
Ben glanced at Sharla. She was watching them, her fingers twined in a lock of hair. Her gaze moved from Wakefield to him.
For a few wonderful heart beats, he let himself bask in her gaze. Before the urge to toss the paper aside and go to her became overwhelming, he turned back to the letters to the editors, amongst advertisements for hair tonics, surgeon dentists and vermin exterminators.
Lunch was a formal meal made almost silent by Melody’s presence. Sharla did not look in the woman’s direction unless forced to address her. As soon as the meal was over, Melody got to her feet and declared she was retiring to her room for the afternoon. Her gaze shifted to Ben and away.
Ben thought that even Wakefield was relieved by the announcement, although nothing showed on the man’s face.
The afternoon was spent in the drawing room. There were three callers, none of them announced, for Mayerick redirected them to the service entrance. Each knock, though, lifted everyone’s head, while they listened to hear who was at the door.
Ben stood at the chessboard, which was set up for a new game. “Do you play?” he asked Wakefield.
“I’m somewhat rusty,” Wakefield replied.
“As Sharla does not play?”
Wakefield glanced at Sharla and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Head-on attacks are more your style, are they not?” he asked her.
Sharla rolled her eyes. “Ben tried to teach me once.”
“What happened?” Wakefield asked.
“He won in two moves.”
“She never played again,” Ben added.
“Ah, so it is ignoble defeat you don’t like,” Wakefield said.
“I don’t like to lose, noble or not,” Sharla admitted.
“In every conflict, there is loss,” Wakefield replied. “It is inevitable.”
“And if the conflict is resolved peacefully?” Sharla asked.
“Peace is always arrived at via compromise. Some consider compromise a loss.”
“Do you? Consider compromise a loss?” Ben asked him.
“Sometimes, compromise is the only winning strategy.” Wakefield settled on the chair opposite Ben and picked up a pawn of each color and hid them in his hands and held them out. “Let us see how truly awful my skills have become.”
For a player out of practice, Wakefield was hard to beat. Ben changed strategies four times before he could corner the man and by then, he had a healthy respect for Wakefield’s abilities.
Wakefield easily defeated him on the second game.
The third was a long extended game that ended with a mutually agreed-upon draw.
As they played, the three of them talked. Sharla first settled herself in the chair with the footstool, a book on her lap. Soon after, she put the book aside and moved to the sofa, which was closer to the chess table. Then she pulled the upright chair from under the window over to beside the chess table.
The conversation ranged across subjects. Wakefield seemed to have no objections to his wife speaking her mind, as some men did.
Ben grew to appreciate the way Wakefield’s mind worked. It was reflected in the way he played chess—clean and direct, yet with unexpected detours that only made sense later. He was well-read, his reading material stretching well beyond the borders of what society considered acceptable.
“You would enjoy my family’s library,” Ben told him.
“Mine, too,” Sharla added. “I mean, the library that Elisa and Vaughn have collected.”
“And I saw the library at Innesford,” Wakefield added. “It was very impressive. It is family collections like yours that will preserve human knowledge.”
“You do not consider public libraries to be archival bastions?” Sharla asked.
Wakefield shook his head. “Because they are public and funded by public monies, they will eventually fail.”
Ben gaped at him. “How could they fail?”
“Public money is subject to the vagaries of politics and what is currently considered essential. It is always in short supply. Libraries enjoy plentiful funds now and will for the near future because society considers reading to be morally uplifting. There will come a time when reading is devalued and the funds will dwindle. Families with the means to collect books are not subject to
social censoring or financial limitations—they can collect what they wish.”
Wakefield made similar surprising comments throughout the afternoon. The conversation continued during dinner, for Melody sent word that she was dining in her room.
The wine flowed. The potted chicken pie was excellent and the cheese that followed perfectly aged.
After dinner, Wakefield got to his feet. “Sharla, would you join Ben and me in the library for a madeira? I would not banish you to the parlor to be alone simply because custom says it should be so.”
“I would like to come to the library, only may I have brandy? Madeira is far too sweet.”
“It is,” Wakefield said in agreement.
They moved into the library. Mayerick hurried after them, to pour the drinks. Wakefield dismissed him. “We can see to it, Mayerick, thank you.”
Ben lowered himself into the armchair next to the reading table, while Wakefield turned the barrel chair in front of his desk around, for Sharla to use. He poured three glasses of brandy and handed them out. “You look as though you’ve been struck by a thought,” he told Ben.
“I have.” Ben held up his glass. “Thank you.” He sipped. “It’s excellent,” he said. “I have come to expect no less.”
“It is good,” Sharla murmured.
“And your thought?” Wakefield said.
“I’ve just enjoyed the best dinner I’ve had in a long time. Dinner parties are too tense and formal and the food mediocre because of the number of diners. Family dinners have their own tensions—I’m sure you know what I mean. This dinner, though—this whole day, in fact—has been very pleasant.”
“Then my plan is working,” Wakefield said.
Ben looked at him, startled.
“Are you…teasing, Dane?” Sharla asked.
“Of course.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “If I’d had a plan, it was nothing more than to distract everyone while we waited for news. In the last few hours, though, I have wondered if the news will arrive today, or if I must go out in search of it once more.”
“You know where to find him?” Ben asked.
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