Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
A Brother’s Ambition
Iwas in my study working through several pieces of correspondence—a ten-page report from my estate manager about matters that needed to be addressed, a tedious letter from my solicitor about a property in Shropshire, an invitation from a widow to a private dinner I had no intention of attending, when a knock sounded on the door, and Milford stepped into the room.
“Lord Nicholas, Your Grace.” His tone suggested a certain fondness for my brother, but then there was a lot to like about Nicky.
His arrival before noon suggested he had something on his mind he wished to discuss, as that hour was practically dawn for him.
He kept late hours as a rule—between the balls and dinners where every hostess in London vied for his company and the evenings at his club where he dissected the affairs of nations with men who shared his passion for politics, my brother rarely saw his pillow before two.
He was five years my junior, thirty to my thirty-five, and bore the Thornburn stamp clearly—the same dark hair streaked with white, the same height, though leaner in build.
Where I had been told my features tended toward the severe, Nicholas’s face was more open, quicker to smile, though at present he was not smiling.
Just the contrary, he stepped into the room with the energy of a man bracing for a difficult conversation.
“Nicky, good to see you.”
“Warwick.” He clasped my extended hand. “Thank you for seeing me. I know you’re busy.”
“I am always busy. Sit down.” I gestured to the chair opposite my desk, then reconsidered. The desk placed too formal a barrier between us. “Actually, let’s take the chairs by the window. Milford, coffee, if you please.”
“Already in hand, Your Grace.” Milford vanished with the silent efficiency that was his particular gift.
We settled into the pair of leather chairs that flanked the tall window overlooking the square.
From here, I could see Rosehaven House across the way—its cream stone facade bright in the morning light.
I pulled my gaze away. Nicholas did not need to see me staring at Rosalynd’s home like a besotted schoolboy.
“How was the Langley ball?” Nicholas asked. The question was casual. His posture was not.
“Lady Rosalynd was in fine form. Chrissie was the belle of the evening, as usual. A young lord managed to offend her by speaking out of turn within her hearing.”
Nicholas’s mouth twitched. “You make it sound delightful.”
“You did not come here to discuss the Langley ball, Nicky.”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
Milford returned with a silver tray bearing coffee, poured two cups with absolute perfection, and withdrew.
Nicky wrapped his hands around his cup but did not drink. "I've decided to sit the examination for the Diplomatic Service."
I had suspected this was coming. Nicky had been circling the idea for months—attending lectures at the Royal Geographical Society, spending his evenings poring over dispatches and Blue Books with the dedication other men reserved for horse racing.
"The competitive examination is in September," he continued. "My French is more than adequate. I have the income requirement. And I've spoken with Lord Salisbury's private secretary, who believes my candidacy would be well received."
That gave me pause. Lord Salisbury served as both Prime Minister and his own Foreign Secretary—an unusual arrangement that placed the whole of Britain's diplomatic apparatus under one man's direct control.
If Nicholas had cultivated a connection to his private secretary, he had been laying the groundwork for this ambition far more strategically than I had realized.
My brother, it seemed, had moved well beyond Blue Books and lectures.
He had done his preparation. I would have expected nothing less.
“The examination is the beginning,” I said. “Not the destination. You’re aware of what follows? Six months as an unpaid attaché at the Foreign Office in London, then two years of probationary service at a posting abroad. Also unpaid.”
“I’m aware.” A flash of dry amusement crossed his face. “The Diplomatic Service was designed to ensure that only men of independent means need apply. Fortunately, I am a Thornburn. Independent means are not in short supply.”
“And after the probation?”
“Third secretary of legation. An actual salaried position, though the salary is largely ceremonial.” He set down his coffee. “Warwick, I am not asking for your permission. I am thirty years old.”
“I’m well aware of your age, Nicky. I was present at your birth.
” My father—sadist that he was—had insisted on my attendance, hoping I would witness my mother’s suffering.
But my mother had given birth in silence, denying him the pleasure of her screams. Still, his birth had been the most traumatic event of my five-year existence.
I pushed the memory aside. Some doors were better left closed.
Nicky, mercifully unaware of where my thoughts had gone, laughed.
It was a genuine sound—one that reminded me, as it always did, of the boy he had been before our father's cruelties had taught us all to be guarded.
Nicholas had preserved more of that lightness than either Phillip or I.
It was, I sometimes thought, his finest quality.
“I am not asking permission,” he repeated, more gently now. “But I would like your support. Particularly when Mother learns of it.”
Ah. There it was. The true reason for the early morning visit.
“She doesn’t know yet,” I said.
“No.”
“And you would prefer not to face her alone.”
“I would prefer,” Nicholas said carefully, “that she hear it from me, but with the knowledge that her eldest son considers it a sound decision. It would carry weight. You know it would.”
I did know. Our mother had survived a marriage that would have destroyed a lesser woman, and she had emerged from it with a fierce protectiveness toward her sons. The idea of Nicky leaving England—leaving her reach—would not be well received.
“Which brings us,” I said, “to the matter of postings. Where do you intend to go?”
Nicky leaned forward, and for the first time that morning, the carefully measured diplomat gave way to something younger and more alive. “Constantinople.”
I had expected Paris.
“Constantinople,” I repeated.
“It is the most strategically vital posting in the service.” Nicky was on his feet now, pacing before the window with the contained energy of a man who had been rehearsing this argument for weeks.
“The Ottoman Empire is weakening. Russia is pressing south. We control Egypt and the Suez Canal, but the entire eastern Mediterranean is in flux. Constantinople is where the next great contest of empires will be decided, Warwick. Not Paris. Not Berlin. Constantinople.”
He spoke with conviction. More than that—with passion.
I recognized the quality. It was the same fire that had driven me to the Lords, to investigation, to the relentless pursuit of truth and justice that had defined my adult life.
Nicholas had found his calling. One did not stand in the way of such things.
“Mother,” I said, “will point out that Constantinople is very far away.”
“And I will point out that it is considerably closer than it once was.” Nicholas turned from the window, a gleam in his eye.
“Are you aware that a direct rail service from Paris to Constantinople commenced just this month? The Orient Express. Sixty-eight hours, Warwick. Three days from Paris. One can board a train at the Gare de l’Est and step off at the shores of the Bosphorus. ”
“Mother,” I said again, “will point out that sixty-eight hours is still sixty-eight hours.”
“Yes, well.” Nicholas ran a hand through his hair—a gesture so like our father’s that I felt a brief, involuntary chill, though Nicholas shared nothing else with the man. “That is why I need you.”
I studied my brother. The earnestness in his face. The set of his jaw. The way he held himself—squared, determined, braced for opposition but unwilling to yield.
“Paris would be easier,” I said. “Closer. The most prestigious posting. Mother would accept Paris.”
“Paris is a drawing room,” Nicholas replied. “Constantinople is the arena. I did not choose this career to attend dinner parties and make small talk with ambassadors’ wives. I chose it because there is work to be done—real work, work that matters—and I intend to do it where it matters most.”
The room fell quiet. Outside, a carriage rattled past on the square. Somewhere in the house, a clock struck the hour.
“You have my support,” I said.
Nicholas exhaled—a long, slow breath that told me precisely how much he had feared a different answer. “You mean that.”
“I do not say things I do not mean. It wastes time, and I have very little to spare.” I rose and crossed to the side table, where Milford kept a decanter of brandy for moments that warranted something stronger than coffee.
It was not yet noon. I poured two glasses anyway.
“Constantinople. The Orient Express. The great contest of empires.” I handed him a glass.
“You always did think in large terms, Nicky.”
“Someone in this family has to.” He accepted the glass, his eyes bright. “You think in evidence and deductions. Phillip thinks in—well, God knows what Phillip thinks in. Someone has to look at the larger picture.”
“And that someone is you.”
“That someone is me.”
We drank. The brandy was excellent. It always was.
Milford would accept nothing less in the household—and for a moment, the study felt less like the command center of a dukedom and more like what it had been when we were young: a refuge.
The one room in Steele House where our father never spent any time.
I set down my glass. “When you tell Mother, I suggest emphasizing the train. Sixty-eight hours is a number she can hold onto. It makes Constantinople sound less like the edge of the known world and more like an inconvenient distance.”
“An inconvenient distance.” Nicholas smiled. “I shall use that exact phrase.”
“Also mention the ambassador’s wife. Mother will want to know there is a respectable woman keeping an eye on you.”
“Is there a respectable woman keeping an eye on me?”
“There will be by the time I’m finished writing letters.”
Nicholas laughed again, and the sound filled the study with a warmth that had nothing to do with brandy or sunlight.
He departed shortly after, his step lighter than when he had arrived.
I watched him cross the square from the window—a tall figure with the Thornburn white streak catching the light, moving with the purposeful stride of a man who had just secured the one thing he needed most: the certainty that he would not face the coming battle alone.
I returned to my desk, but the correspondence held no appeal. My thoughts lingered on Nicky. On his conviction. On the fire in his eyes when he spoke of Constantinople.
Our father had tried to extinguish that fire in all three of us.
He had come closest with Phillip, whose recklessness I sometimes suspected was a form of defiance against a dead man’s expectations.
But Nicky had kept his flame banked and steady, waiting for the moment when it could be put to proper use.
That moment had arrived.
Mother would object. She would worry. She would very likely appear at Steele House in a state, demanding that I talk sense into my brother.
I would listen. I would sympathize. And then I would tell her what I had told Nicky: that a man who has found his purpose must be allowed to pursue it, even if the pursuit takes him to the far side of Europe.
Even if it frightened those who loved him.
I picked up my pen and began a letter to Sir Philip Currie at the Foreign Office. If Nicky was going to Constantinople, I would ensure he went with every advantage I could arrange.
It was the least a brother could do.