by Emily Larkin
Lucas’s brain was dull from lack of sleep. The cogs turned slowly—processed Smollet’s words—and jammed to a halt. “What?”
“Master Tom’s handkerchief.”
For several seconds his tongue refused to work, and then he managed to say, “Tom’s?”
“It has his initials, sir.” Smollet carefully laid three starched neckcloths over the back of a chair. “Will he be back?”
“No,” Lucas said.
Initials. No crest, but initials.
“That’s a shame, sir. It does you good to have him here.” Smollet held the fourth neckcloth out to Lucas.
Lucas took it, and turned to the mirror. What the devil had Smollet meant with that comment?
Maybe he doesn’t know?
He placed the neckcloth around his throat and fumbled with the folds. Of course Smollet knew. It wasn’t just the handkerchief. His clothes had probably been reeking of sex for the past six weeks.
His eyes winced shut. Mortification was cold on his skin, cold in his belly. Smollet’s known the whole time.
“Sir?”
Lucas opened his eyes and stared at the neckcloth. It was a mess. He stripped it from his throat.
Smollet selected another neckcloth and held it out to him. Lucas took it numbly, looped it around his throat, attempted a Barrel Knot.
“Perhaps you could invite Master Tom to Pendarve, sir? Before he leaves England.”
His gaze jerked to Smollet’s reflection in the mirror. The man’s face was as bland as his voice had been.
Lucas looked back at his neckcloth. The shape he’d tied made no sense to his eyes. It wasn’t a Barrel Knot. It wasn’t anything.
He unwound the neckcloth. Smollet handed him a fresh one.
This time, Smollet kept silent while Lucas tied the neckcloth. He helped Lucas into his tailcoat—claret red today—and then said, “Will there be anything else, Master Lucas?”
“No, thank you.”
Smollet picked up the three neckcloths—one still pristine, two needing starching and ironing—and departed.
Lucas stayed where he was, staring at the mirror.
Perhaps Smollet hadn’t smelled sex on his clothes. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed the semen in the handkerchief.
And perhaps pigs will grow wings and fly.
Chapter Twenty
Tom traveled by mail coach from Marlborough.
Late on the twentieth, he arrived in London.
On the twenty-first, General Wellesley was subjected to a lengthy examination, from which he came away as cross as a bear.
On the twenty-third, Tom gave his own evidence at the Royal College in Chelsea, in front of four generals and three lieutenant generals.
He told the truth: That after the victory at Vimeiro, Wellesley had been as mad as fire to pursue the French. That he’d urged an advance in no uncertain terms. That he’d protested against the conditions of the preliminary armistice. That he’d signed it unwillingly and only because a superior officer desired him to do so. That he’d had no part in negotiating the final convention.
Afterwards, he asked Wellesley if the general wished to rescind his leave.
“I’ve enough people under my feet,” Wellesley said sourly. “Don’t need you, too.” And then his face relaxed into something close to a smile. “Thank you, Lieutenant, for what you said in there. I appreciate your loyalty.”
On the twenty-fourth, Tom got drunk on cheap brandy. Halfway through the bottle, his rage fizzled out and he found himself weeping.
On the twenty-fifth, he woke with a sore head.
On the twenty-seventh, he departed for Yorkshire to visit his brother.
Chapter Twenty-One
December 2nd, 1808
Whiteoaks, Wiltshire
Lucas counted the days until he could leave. Three weeks until Robert’s birthday. Two weeks. Ten days.
When he had one week left, he came down to the salon, dressed for dinner, and found only Robert there. “Almeria and the girls are dining over at the Thorpes’, so it’s just you and me tonight.” Robert clapped him cheerfully on the shoulder. “Come and have a drink in my study. I told them to put dinner back an hour.”
Lucas followed his brother into the candlelit study. A fire burned in the grate, flanked by leather armchairs.
“Brandy?”
Lucas nodded.
Robert poured him a generous glass. “Sit, sit.”
Lucas sat.
He sipped in silence while Robert talked about the hunter he’d just bought—strong hocks, good movement—the new phaeton he had his eye on—a high-perch, and perhaps too dashing for a man of his age?—and the house he was hiring in London for Selina’s début—in Grosvenor Square, with a ballroom large enough to hold five hundred.
Finally Robert ran down. He refilled their glasses, sat in silence for a moment, and then said, “Lucas?” The tone of his voice was different, not heartily cheerful but quiet, almost gentle.
Lucas glanced at him.
“Look, I know it’s none of my business, but . . . did you and Tom have a row?”
Lucas looked away, at the fire. “No.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“He’s not.”
Silence drew for a moment, broken only by the hiss and crackle of the flames in the grate, then Robert said, “That painting he did of Oscar, it’s as good as any in the long gallery. He’s wasted in the army. Do you think . . . he’d consider selling out?”
“No.”
“Does he like it that much?”
“No.” And then, because Robert’s question seemed to require a more elaborate answer, he said, “He can’t afford to sell out.”
“Ah,” Robert said, and then after a moment, “If it’s a question of money—”
“I already offered. He won’t take charity.” Lucas drained his glass and set it down.
Robert poured again. “Almeria’s not here to tell us off if we get a bit bosky,” he said, with a wink.
Lucas dutifully smiled.
“You know . . .” Robert said, and then hesitated.
Lucas sipped the brandy. It was doing its job. Everything was becoming slightly hazy around the edges.
“You know,” Robert said, again. “When I was younger, I used to envy you, having a twin.”
Lucas halted in mid-sip. His gaze jerked to Robert.
“Hugh and I never got along that well—still don’t, truth be told—he gets so damned sanctimonious—and I used to look at you and Julia and . . . wish I had a twin, too.”
Lucas lowered his glass.
“And then you went to Eton, and the first time you came back for the holidays you brought Tom Matlock with you, and I envied you him, too.” Robert shook his head, pulled a shamed face. “I had scores of friends, and you had just one, and you were only eight years old, but even I could see that your friendship with Tom had more substance than all of mine put together.”
Lucas looked down at his brandy. He didn’t know what to say.
“I used to think you were lucky, having Julia and Tom. But you’re not. Because if you’re that close to someone and they leave you, you never get over it.”
Lucas’s gaze was unwillingly drawn to Robert again.
His brother’s expression was more serious than he’d ever seen it. “We’ve been worried to death about you, Lucas—and then Tom came back and you were happier—and now he’s gone again, and you’re not talking—”
“I talk,” Lucas said stiffly.
Robert lifted his eyebrows. “How many words have you spoken today?”
Lucas thought about it. “Not many,” he admitted.
“You’re not talking,” Robert repeated firmly. “And you’re hiding up in the attic again, pining yourself half to death.”
Lucas clutched his glass. “You know about the attic?”
“This is my house, Lucas. If one of my guests is up in the attic every day, of course I know about it.”
Lucas looked down at his brandy
.
Robert was silent for a moment, then he sighed. “You’re not like Almeria and me. You enjoy the balls well enough, but what you’d really prefer is a quiet evening with perhaps one or two people. Am I right?”
Lucas hesitated, and then nodded.
“Emma’s like you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. It worries me sometimes. I think she’ll find her first Season difficult.”
Lucas glanced at his brother.
“You like solitude, and you only let a few people close to you—and there’s nothing wrong with that, Lucas—but it means that if those people leave you . . .”
Lucas looked hastily back at his glass. A lump was growing in his throat. For God’s sake, don’t cry.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as lonely as you are right now,” Robert said quietly.
Lucas squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t cry.
Robert got up and attended to the fire. He took his time stirring the embers with the poker, selecting a fresh log, laying it precisely. By the time he turned back, Lucas was able to meet his eyes with composure.
“You remember Uncle George and John Wallace?”
Lucas stiffened.
“You and Tom remind me of them.”
Lucas opened his mouth to deny this, but his tongue was frozen.
“I’m not saying you should live in each other’s pockets if you don’t want to—but if Tom does want to sell out and it’s just a question of money—”
“He won’t take charity.”
“Who said anything about charity?” Robert sat again and reached for his glass. “Julia had quite a bit of money. I don’t need it. You don’t need it.”
Lucas processed this statement. “You mean . . . a bequest?”
“A bestowal. All Julia’s money came to me; I can distribute it as I see fit.” Robert sipped slowly, his eyes on Lucas’s face. “You knew Julia best. How do you think she’d feel about giving some of it to Tom?”
The answer to that question was easy. He could practically feel Julia’s approval. His imagination told him that she was leaning over his shoulder, whispering in his ear, Tell him I like it, Lu! He even smelled her perfume for a few seconds—bergamot—and then the scent faded. Lucas blinked twice, and swallowed hard, and said, “She would have liked it.”
“And what about you? Would you like it?”
That was a harder question. Did he want Tom to sell out?
He thought of the musket ball buried in Tom’s sketchbook. Yes. And then he remembered that moment in the dungeon: Selina and Emma almost finding them.
Lucas twisted his glass round and round. “I don’t know.”
Robert leaned forward. “Lucas.”
Lucas reluctantly met his eyes.
“I couldn’t do anything about Julia’s death—no one could—but I’m damned if I’m going to watch you go through this again. Not if it can be fixed.”
Lucas looked away. It’s not as simple as you think. Thoughts revolved agitatedly inside his skull. He gulped a mouthful of brandy. Another mouthful. “Did you ever wonder,” he blurted, and then stopped.
“Wonder what?”
Lucas gripped his glass tightly. “If Uncle George and John Wallace were . . . were . . .” The word lovers choked in his throat. His gaze skittered to the fireplace, to one candelabrum and then the other, and lastly, unwillingly, to Robert’s face.
Robert was watching him, his eyes disconcertingly shrewd. “Back door ushers?”
Lucas couldn’t control his flinch—or his grimace of revulsion.
“If they were, they were discreet.” Robert sipped his brandy. “Sophia said she saw them holding hands once, in the shrubbery. I never quite believed her—she was always making up stories—pixies in the garden, ghosts in the folly—but Hugh believed her. He ran and told Mother, and Mother gave him a deuce of a scold.” He chuckled into his brandy.
“Scold? Why?”
“For telling tales. Or maybe it was for spreading gossip. I don’t remember which. But I do remember she said that if her brother and John Wallace were holding hands, it was no one’s business but their own, and she was right.” Robert shrugged, and drank the last of his brandy. “Hugh didn’t agree, but he’s always been a bit of a prig.”
Lucas turned his glass in his hands. “I don’t remember that.”
“You were still in the nursery.”
Lucas stared down at the reflections in his brandy. He remembered Selina’s voice floating down the stone stairwell, her quick footsteps, her bright-eyed face, her question: What are you doing down here?
Robert wouldn’t be chuckling into his brandy if his daughters had come down those stairs five minutes earlier.
“So, it’s settled?” Robert said. “I’ll have a bank draft drawn up.”
Yes. No. I don’t know. He looked at Robert in an agony of indecision.
Robert huffed out a sound that was half laugh, half sigh, and shook his head. “Almeria always said that Julia did the talking for you both, and you did the worrying, and she was right. She’s usually right.” He reached over and gripped Lucas’s shoulder and shook him lightly. “Stop worrying, young clunch. And drink that brandy. Dinner’s in five minutes.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
December 6th, 1808
Riddleston, Yorkshire
When his father died Tom had been in the final week of his final term at Oxford. The funeral hadn’t been memorable, but the interview he’d had afterwards with his brother would live in his memory forever—the full extent of their father’s debts, the choice Daniel had given him: the clergy or the army. It wasn’t the words themselves that he remembered, but rather the tone of Daniel’s voice, the halting way he’d spoken. Daniel had apologized—apologized—as if the fault was his and not their father’s.
Tom had been relieved the crushing burden hadn’t fallen on him—and ashamed of himself for being relieved—and guilty that he’d been able to escape and Daniel hadn’t.
He still felt guilty.
Daniel had sold the town house in London and the hunting lodge in Leicestershire. He’d sold carriages and horses, jewelry and paintings and silverware—and it hadn’t come close to clearing the debt.
He’d kept Riddleston Hall—shabby, leaking, centuries old—and the farms that comprised the Riddleston estate. The hall was exactly as Tom remembered it from his last visit, but the farms were much improved and Daniel himself not so careworn. “It’s looking good,” Tom said, after they’d spent an afternoon riding around the estate.
“The yield’s tripled,” Daniel said, leaning down in the saddle and closing a gate behind them. “It’s finally bringing in good money. I think—I hope—we’ll see our way clear within the next fifteen years.”
Fifteen years seemed a long time to Tom. “That’s good,” he said, and felt the ever-present guilt.
Daniel smiled cheerfully. “We had a stroke of luck—Hetty’s aunt died and left her some money. Enough to enclose the last of the fields—and fix the roof. I don’t know if you remember how it used to leak—”
“I remember.”
“Well, it doesn’t anymore.”
They trotted along the lane, round the bend—and there was Riddleston Hall, a rambling half-timbered manor house of russet brick.
Daniel slowed, and halted.
Tom reined in alongside him.
“The next two years’ profits will go back into the farms,” Daniel said matter-of-factly. “After that, we’ll start repairing the hall. There’s a lot needs doing.”
Tom thought of his bedroom—curtains so faded there was no telling what color they’d once been, carpet threadbare, ceiling stained with damp, bedsheets so thin he’d put his foot through one last night.
“Hetty’s making lists—order of importance. Kitchen first. If we’re careful, we’ll get it all done in five or six years. Then a Season for Amabel and one for Chloe, and after that . . . Another seven years, I think. Maybe less, if the yield continues to increase.” Daniel didn’t look bowed down;
he looked optimistic.
“I’m sorry I can’t help,” Tom said.
Daniel smiled at him. “You have helped. You’ve never once asked for money, and I know it can’t be easy.”
Tom felt himself flush with embarrassment. Daniel thanking him? “It’s not that difficult.” Each time he received his pay, the choice was simple: alcohol, or sketchbooks; gambling, or pencils; whoring, or watercolor cakes. Easy.
Daniel shrugged as if he didn’t quite believe him and then said, “I hope you know that if you ever find yourself in trouble, you can ask for help.”
And dig you deeper into debt? “Thank you,” Tom said, even more embarrassed. “But I’m twenty-seven; I can look after myself.” And I’d rather sell my painting kit than ask you for money.
“Sometimes the unexpected happens.” Daniel’s gaze returned to the hall. His lips thinned, not in bitterness, but in determination. “I’m going to leave my boys more than debts and a ramshackle estate. By the time Hetty and I are finished, this place will be worth inheriting. Harry and Lawrie won’t let it fall to rack and ruin again.” His face relaxed into a smile, his pride in his sons clear to see. “They’re good lads. Got Hetty’s common sense. Very steady.”
Tom heard the silent addendum: Not like Father.
They eased into a slow trot, along the lane, down the long drive, across the forecourt, around to the back.
The Whiteoaks stableyard was a bustling, noisy place, grooms hurrying about their work, scores of horses—hunters, riding hacks, carriage horses. The stableyard at Riddleston was modest, quiet, shabby. Tom dismounted and handed his horse to the single groom.
“Letter just came for you, sir. Express it were.”
“Express?”
Tom hurried inside. Did General Wellesley need him?
But the letter had come from Wiltshire, not London, and the handwriting, that tidy black copperplate, was as familiar to him as his own messy scrawl was.
All his anger, his hurt, came flooding back.
