The Lawrence Browne Affair

by Cat Sebastian

  His family—it occurred to him that Oliver was family too—was carefully refraining from asking him any questions. Occasionally, Jack opened his mouth, only to receive a pointed glare from Sarah and a jab in the side from Oliver’s elbow. They were treating him with kid gloves, as if he were fragile and in danger of breaking.

  He was fragile, truth be told. Whatever had happened with Lawrence had left his heart pulpy and exposed, like flesh after a bad burn. He wanted to bury it back away, pretend he had never found it in the first place.

  Draining the last few drops of wine in his glass, he glanced at his brother, who was flicking a crumb off Oliver’s lapel. How, despite their shared origin, was Jack’s heart a functioning organ, while his own was a putrid and vulnerable wound?

  “I’m going back to Cornwall,” Georgie said impulsively, answering the question they weren’t asking, the same question he had been torturing himself with all day.

  “You’re in no state to travel,” said Sarah. At the same time, Jack coughed, choking on his wine.

  “Have you, ah, been invited?” Oliver asked tactfully.

  “Not precisely,” Georgie admitted. “Not at all, in fact.” He thought of Lawrence’s parting words. “Far from it.” But it was worth trying.

  “You don’t need to go anywhere,” Jack protested. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

  “Or don’t leave at all,” Oliver added. “We always meant that room for you.”

  Georgie hadn’t known that and now felt tears welling up in his eyes. “Thank you.”

  “But how will you . . . ” Jack’s voice trailed off. “What will you do there?”

  What would he do there? He’d sort Lawrence’s correspondence and make sure the smugglers didn’t set foot on Penkellis soil. He’d write a stern letter to the headmaster at Harrow, demanding that he make sure Simon got enough to eat. He’d invite Lady Standish for a few weeks in the spring, he’d talk to the vicar about holding a fete for the village, and he’d train Barnabus to do something other than sleep.

  He’d kiss Lawrence every chance he got.

  “What Jack is getting at is whether you have any particular thievery in mind,” Sarah said. “He’s wondering whether to start bribing magistrates in Cornwall.”

  Georgie winced. “Nothing like that.”

  “A job, then?” Jack asked hopefully.

  “Not that either.” Although he’d like to continue as Lawrence’s secretary.

  Three pairs of eyes were fixed on him. Georgie supposed that after a lifetime spent in relentless pursuit of wealth and security, the idea of running off to Cornwall without even the prospect of common wages demanded some kind of explanation.

  “I want to be with him, if he’ll let me. As far as money . . . ” That was the crux of the issue. There was no guarantee that things would work out with Lawrence, and then he’d be older and poorer and with no better prospects than he had now. “I’ll have to hope for the best.”

  A silence descended on the room. Sarah and Jack exchanged a look of concern. Georgie thought he saw his sister’s mouth form the words send for a doctor.

  In the continued silence, they were able to hear a tap at the front door and the subsequent patter of the housemaid’s boots across the vestibule. Jack and Oliver pulled apart, reverting to their usual role of cordial business partners.

  “Who could that be at this hour?” Sarah murmured.

  A moment later, Lawrence was standing on the threshold of the dining room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Georgie had never hallucinated, but there was a first time for everything. If his mind were to dream up any possible vision, surely it would be that of Lawrence, with Simon and Barnabus by his side, no less. Georgie glanced around the room and saw that everyone’s gaze was riveted to the doorway where Lawrence stood, so perhaps this was actually happening.

  Finally, Oliver spoke, a stream of polite meaninglessness that bridged the gap between the impossible and the real and gave Georgie a moment to acclimate himself to a world in which all the people he cared about were here, safe, crammed into one small dining parlor. Oliver and Sarah murmured and gestured until everyone was seated in the improbable space—Simon perched on Lawrence’s knee, Barnabus’s head on Georgie’s lap, and Jack leaning against the wall with his arms folded as if he might just oversee some bloodshed before the evening was through.

  Simon, Oliver, and Sarah were the only ones capable of conversation, which meant that the company was treated to an enthusiastic disquisition on the topic of Astley’s Amphitheatre. The child looked exceedingly well, his cheeks rosy and his eyes bright. Whatever had happened in the past week, it seemed that carriage travel agreed with him.

  The same could not be said for Lawrence, who was pale and drawn and looked very much like he had lost half a stone. The hand that wasn’t wrapped around Simon’s middle was clenched, clawlike, into the arm of his chair. He looked . . . well, Georgie supposed that he looked like a man who would much rather be anywhere else.

  And yet. Here he was. He hadn’t gone back to Penkellis. He had come here, and now Georgie felt something like hope.

  Georgie finally caught his eye, and Lawrence’s mouth twitched up in the ghost of a smile. Georgie smiled back and knew his own effort was equally pallid.

  Somebody—Sarah?—turned the conversation so that Oliver was leading Simon to the mews to inspect the horses, and Sarah was bodily tugging Jack out of the room. When the door finally shut, closing Lawrence and Georgie into the dining room alone, Lawrence sank back into his chair and sighed.

  “Are you all right?” Georgie asked.

  “Not really,” Lawrence said. “But I suppose if a trip over muddy roads to London, a visit to the Admiralty, and an encounter with a den of thieves hasn’t combined to throw me into a state of irretrievable madness, then I’m quite safe from that fate. How about you?” He gestured at the fading bruise under Georgie’s eye.

  Georgie nodded. “What a pair we are,” he murmured. “A few days in London and we’re quite shells of our former selves.”

  “Are we?” Lawrence asked, his voice low and grainy. “A pair, that is? I thought we were. But then you left . . . ” He shook his head.

  “You know I had to go.”

  “I do. But I had thought we were . . . I thought you would be there, by my side. And then you weren’t.”

  “For what it’s worth, I would have much preferred staying at Penkellis, despite the mice and the drafts.”

  Lawrence huffed out a laugh. “Penkellis rates higher than an abduction. Good to know.”

  “Yes, and”—Georgie hesitated, his heart feeling like it was exposed in all its embarrassing gore on the outside of his clothes—“I was just telling my brother and sister that I mean to go back to Penkellis, whether you’ll have me or not.” This was what it felt like to plummet off a cliff without knowing whether one would land on jagged rocks or simply in shark-infested waters. He was terrified in all directions. Even if Lawrence didn’t deny him—especially if Lawrence didn’t deny him—his life as he knew it was over.

  Lawrence took hold of Georgie’s hand. “Are you certain you want to come to Penkellis, though? To be cooped up in a rotten tower? You deserve more.”

  Georgie wasn’t going to stand for one more second of this nonsense. He hauled his weary body into Lawrence’s lap. “If we’re going to talk about deserts,” he said, looking down into Lawrence’s tired eyes, “I can assure you that I’ve done nothing to deserve a life with a good, brilliant man. Nothing.”

  “Rubbish.” But he settled his hands proprietarily on Georgie’s hips. “I’m not certain it would be a life, Georgie.”

  Georgie shook his head. “It’s a life. It’s always been a life. Even if you never left Penkellis again—but I think you will, Lawrence—it would still be a life. And I’d be so happy and proud to be with you, if you’ll let me.”

  “Let you, my arse. Beg you, more like.” He let go of Georgie long enough to rummage around in his pock
et. “You left this behind.” He held out the heavy emerald ring.

  Georgie felt his heart—feeble, sordid thing that it was—soar.

  They got back to Penkellis in the first week of January, when the snow had melted but the landscape was still bleak and forbidding with no end of winter in sight. Simon was with them, and Lawrence felt a surge of raw delight whenever he saw his friend and his child together.

  The day after rescuing Georgie from that whoreson criminal, Lawrence, fueled by the residue of the courage he summoned for the previous day’s adventures, had paid a visit to the headmaster of Harrow.

  “I’m not going back this term,” Simon had told Georgie in tones that rang with awe. “Papa was fearsome. He said barely anything, just glowered like a bear and people did as he asked.” That had been Lawrence’s strategy the entire fortnight he spent away from Penkellis: speak as little as possible, glower and glare as much as possible. The headmaster had grudgingly agreed that eight years was perhaps premature for a boy to go to school, and that Simon’s seat could be kept open, should they choose to reevaluate the matter next year, or the year after.

  After Harrow, they had paid a visit to Simon’s maternal aunt and demanded Isabella’s portrait, which Simon was to hang in his room at Penkellis, where he would now be living permanently. Simon also had in his possession a sketch Courtenay had done of the villa where they had lived in Tuscany. Lawrence didn’t have the heart to tell the boy his uncle was a scapegrace of the rankest nature, so decided to swallow his criticisms for the time being.

  Penkellis was now visible on the horizon, a jumble of jagged lines and mismatched pieces. It was odd to see it at a distance after scarcely leaving its shadow for so long. He had no affection for the place, only the sort of desperate longing that a fox might have for its hole.

  That night, they collapsed on the sofa almost as soon as Simon had gone off to bed. Lawrence had asked one of the new servants—he had been half-astonished to find them still at Penkellis, sweeping and polishing and otherwise keeping the rot at bay—to move Georgie’s things into the old dressing room. After all, Georgie was supposed to be Lawrence’s secretary; if they both kept odd hours and found it convenient for the secretary’s bedroom to be moved closer to the earl’s study, there was nothing so very strange in that.

  “Lady Standish suggested building a new house,” Lawrence said tentatively, stroking Georgie’s hand and admiring the way the light played off the emerald he once again wore. “Something closer to the London road, with proper plumbing and chimneys that emit more heat than smoke.” Someplace that wouldn’t reek with bad memories and mouse droppings alike.

  Up until that point, Georgie had been lounging languidly against the arm of the sofa, his feet kicked up on Lawrence’s lap as he regarded Lawrence from beneath half-closed lids. But now his eyes sprang open. “Are you certain you would like that? You’re rather . . . attached to this place.” He gestured to the study at large.

  “True, but that’s because it’s mine. It’s . . . I don’t know, safe. Which sounds ridiculous, I know—”

  “It doesn’t,” Georgie said firmly, squeezing Lawrence’s hand. “At all.”

  Lawrence squeezed back. “Well, a new house could truly be my own. We could put more of that stuff on the walls to dampen the noise.”

  “Hot water,” Georgie added wistfully. “Windows that shut properly.”

  “A library that isn’t being consumed by fungus.”

  “Floors that don’t threaten to give way under your feet.” He knelt up and arranged himself so he was straddling Lawrence’s lap. “Building a house would put a good many men to work.”

  “It’ll also spread goodwill, which ought to get you and Halliday off my back for a while.”

  “About that.” He bent to kiss Lawrence’s jaw, which was once again stubbly with what would likely be a proper beard by spring. “I think Mrs. Ferris has the goodwill situation in hand.”

  “Oh?” Lawrence found it hard to concentrate with Georgie kissing the soft underside of his jaw.

  “I think she’s been using talk about cauls”—kiss—“and hexes”—kiss—“to keep people away from Penkellis.”

  Lawrence shook his head. “Can’t be that. The villagers already know about the smuggling ring. This is Cornwall. Nobody needs to be told twice not to look too closely at the contents of empty barns.”

  “No, not that.” Georgie started to unwind Lawrence’s cravat and kiss the skin beneath. “She knew you wanted to be left in peace, so she did everything in her power to keep people away.”

  Lawrence let that sink in. “As a kindness?” Georgie murmured an assenting sound into Lawrence’s collarbone. So, he had had a friend in the house all those years he had fancied himself alone. And Sally had less reason than most to befriend a Browne. “She will have a very good stove in the next house.”

  “I believe a monetary reward would not go amiss.”

  “I tried that years ago. Offered her a tidy sum to set herself and her son up.” He hadn’t been able to help her when Percy was alive, so setting things right for her was the first thing he had done after his brother’s death. “She accepted the help to buy Jamie’s commission, but nothing for herself.”

  Georgie’s body momentarily went rigid with alertness. “Oh, damn me. This is the boy in the navy. The navy.” He put his fist to his forehead. “That’s why she took that caul. She gave it to her boy when he first went to sea.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “She stole your neighbor’s caul—it’s supposed to be a talisman against drowning. Listen, write a letter to your friend in the Admiralty recommending her son for promotion. Really, whatever it takes to get her to retire from a life of crime.”

  Lawrence nodded. He could do that. “Speaking of which, I met with my solicitor while I was in London.”

  “Christ. You really went all in with unpleasant tasks.”

  “I settled a sum on you.”

  The kisses stopped. “No.”

  “Yes. It’s done, so you can burn the money or donate it to orphans. I don’t care.”

  Georgie pulled back. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “I know, and even if I didn’t, there’s a soap tin of jewels on my nightstand that testifies to your lack of mercenary motives. My point is, I need you to have something of your own. Just in case.” That way you’re free to leave, he didn’t say.

  But Georgie must have understood, because he took hold of Lawrence’s loosened cravat and wound it around his hand, tugging Lawrence close with false menace. “Listen here, my lord,” he said with a touch of his old insolence. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re out of luck if you think you can get rid of me. You can build a dozen new houses, and I’ll simply follow you about from house to house, like a bad case of bedbugs. Where you are, I am, so get used to it.”

  Lawrence didn’t think he ever could get used to it. He couldn’t imagine a future where he would take for granted the gift the universe had given him in Georgie Turner. So he settled for the next best thing, which was to close his eyes, smiling, as Georgie proceeded to undress him.

  Need more Cat Sebastian?

  Lord Courtenay’s romance is next!

  Coming Summer 2017

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CAT SEBASTIAN lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

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  Jake Stone has always been an outsider, even in his hometown. So when Apple Woodman comes poking her pert little nose around his business, trying to sniff out juicy bits for a book she’s writing on the town’s history, he decides he’s had enough. He’ll give her the answers, at a price: one piece of clothing for every question. If the town’s good girl librarian wants the dirt on this bad boy then she’s going to have to bare all to get it.

  Jake joined her at the bar, turning her attention, and she took a deep, steadying breath. It was now or never. She placed her elbows onto the bar, and leaned toward him.

  He scowled.

  Of course he did. He was always scowling around her. Earlier had merely been his five-minute reprieve. “Put those away before you hurt someone.”

  Now he was sounding downright grumpy too. Huh, funny thing. “Why would I do that?” She asked and gave her girls a little squeeze with her elbows and inwardly sighed at the lengths she was willing to go to for the things that mattered most to her. He muttered under his breath and scowled some more. Good. “I don’t see anyone here complaining.” She added just to taunt him.

  Not that anyone could, really. Her back was to the tables. Jake was the only one who was getting the full display, exactly as she’d intended.

  “I’m complaining.” He practically growled, yanked a white bar towel from its holder and began polishing the bar top.

  He sounded surly, but Apple knew that secret about Jake, and she was not at all ashamed to take advantage of it now. He’d forced her to it. “Why? Because you’ve been trying to scam a peek at my boobs since I started growing them in sixth grade?” She tipped her head to the side and blinked all big and innocent behind her oversized reading glasses. “Are you feeling sad about that?”