Chapter 1 #2
Dawn. Dawn for one who communed with ledgers far into the night was inhumanly early. Needs must.
“Until tomorrow, then,” Bernard said, finishing his drink and rising. “My thanks for a very pleasant evening.”
“The pleasure was entirely mine, Huxley. Shall I send a footman with you, or would you prefer to take my coach?”
That question, like so much of Bernard’s London experience, baffled him. “Neither will be necessary. I know my way. I’m three streets from my own quarters, but I thank you for the offer.”
“Huxley, you are in London. At this hour, a pickpocket bides on every corner, two footpads lurk in most doorways, and an abundance of rats and stray dogs will menace the unsuspecting simply for entertainment. You will stroll along, mentally comparing Greek and Latin translations of some old prophet and find yourself relieved of your purse, cloak, top hat, and boots.”
St. Didier was genuinely concerned. Bernard could not think why.
“You would expect a footman, anywhere from six inches to a foot shorter than my skinny, scholarly self, to make his way back alone here safely, when I—sword stick in hand, knife in my boot, and fists at the ready—am somehow unsafe without supervision. You need to breathe some fresh country air, St. Didier. The coal smoke is addling your wits.”
“But you—”
Bernard held up a hand. “I know to carry little coin. The thieves are welcome to the small amount on my person, and I will not fight them over it. No honest work is available for most of them and, especially for our gallant former soldiers, that leaves only crime or starvation. I am no longer a churchman, but I still hope to claim a share of basic human decency.”
A bit preachy, but St. Didier merely smiled and nodded. Like a good host, he accompanied Bernard to the door and helped him on with his coat. Wished him a pleasant evening and peaceful dreams…
Bernard walked out into the damp evening air feeling a little like he’d just escaped tea with the bishop and his wife. One bore up under the strain of duty and was permitted some relief when that duty had been faithfully executed.
As he strolled along in no particular hurry, footsteps sounded behind him in the same relaxed tempo. St. Didier had sent along an escort, no doubt, or might even be himself keeping pace with Bernard.
Not surprising. St. Didier was something of a nanny-for-hire where the peerage was concerned, though coin was probably never overtly discussed even with him. His specialty was shepherding reluctant heirs into their new duties and into Society’s good graces.
Thankless notion, though Bernard, having been handed management of Cam’s businesses and now guardianship of two half-Scottish children, appreciated the show of support.
“I miss Yorkshire.” Bernard had put the sentiment in quiet Latin, a habit, along with preaching, that wasn’t likely to leave him any time soon.
How would one say, I am partly Scottish, in Latin? Partim Scotus sum, or something of that nature. Partly Scottish, a duke for an uncle, very likely possessed of Scottish cousins.
Truly, pigs might be winging their way aloft somewhere high above London’s dark and dreary skies.
“What can you tell me about Mr. Bernard Huxley?” Sorcha’s mare stepped delicately around a pile of horse droppings steaming in dawn’s early gloom. “Is he as stodgy as his name suggests?”
Stodgy would be bearable. When the late Lord Barclay had been stodgy, Sorcha had known how to deal with him. Walk softly, speak only when spoken to. Wear mauve and stitch dull samplers featuring boring platitudes and intricate floral borders.
A former vicar almost had a right to be stodgy.
“Huxley is…” Leopold St. Didier paused to navigate his gelding past a pothole in the cobbles. “He is at sea, I believe. The Church suited his intellectual appetites, though he has taken to commerce with astonishing aptitude. He’s logical—always a good thing, in my estimation—and also cautious.”
“Will he meddle?” The only question that really mattered.
“He will be a conscientious guardian to your children. If his assessment of their best interests differs from your own, you will at least have a fair hearing.”
“Leopold, I do not want a fair hearing from some pious stranger whose aptitude for greed is excelled only by his ignorance of child-rearing. Why are you smirking?”
St. Didier comported himself at all times with decorum and discretion, but his dark eyes occasionally took on a sparkle that hinted at hidden merriment.
“You grow more Scottish when impassioned. You can always apply to me for aid should Huxley prove dunderheaded.”
They reached the corner of the park occupied by Tattersalls horse-trading establishment. No auction was to be held that morning, and Sorcha wouldn’t have set a booted foot on the premises in any case. The activity nonetheless characterized the typical busy stable early in the day.
Barrows of pungent manure and damp straw came out of the shed rows, and fresh straw went in. Horses at the water troughs slurped noisily. Other steeds waited, saddled and bridled, for a morning hack.
Homesickness hit Sorcha with a vengeance. A longing for the mist rising over the Scottish hills, for the sharp springtime sunlight in Perthshire. An ache that yearned for impossibly tall pines and painfully fresh air.
“That’s him,” St. Didier said, gesturing discreetly with his chin. “On the gray at the corner.”
Sorcha halted her mare, and St. Didier did likewise with his gelding.
Both Mr. Huxley and his horse needed some extra weight. The gray had the excuse of coming off winter rations.
“Mr. Huxley is woefully English-looking,” Sorcha said. “English vicarish-looking, or he might be a headmaster at a particularly severe public school.”
A disquieting thought.
“He was a vicar for years and well liked by his congregants. Given to brevity in the pulpit, from what I heard. Take heart, my lady. The guardianship has not yet been formally transferred, so Huxley is merely a family acquaintance at this point.”
“Of the scandalous variety.” Sorcha urged her mare forward.
“Lord Jerome has long since gone to his reward, the scandal was old news thirty years ago, and Jerome provided adequately for his offspring, even to the point of finding Huxley a decent fellow to serve as the legal papa. Smile, Sorcha. The evidence of my own experience tells me that you can be charming when you wish to be.”
Sorcha. So few people called her that anymore. She mustered up the requisite cheerful expression and brought her mare to stand two yards from Mr. Huxley’s ribby gray.
“Huxley,” St. Didier said, “good morning. Lady Barclay, I am honored to introduce to you Mr. Bernard Huxley, whom you know to be a cousin to your children and a friend of mine. Huxley, Lady Barclay.”
Sorcha held out her gloved hand. Introductions on horseback could be awkward, but she’d not wanted to put off an assessment of her foe—if a foe he was.
“My lady, I am at your service.” Huxley took her hand briefly and nodded over it. “Shall we find a bridle path? I am still unfamiliar with all Hyde Park has to offer, having come to London as winter set in. Perhaps you might show me your favorite trail?”
He was correct to a fault. He sat his horse as if he were posing for a Stubbs portrait, Gentleman Contemplating Philosophy Atop His Hunter. The words were polite, the overture appropriate to the occasion. Huxley’s attire was perfect for a morning hack in polite society’s backyard.
“I keep to the quieter choices,” Sorcha said. “The Season is upon us, and the popular paths can be congested with those interested in socializing rather than riding.”
Mr. Huxley slanted her an unreadable look. “The quieter the path, the better. Lead on, your ladyship.”
Sorcha set her mare on a tree-lined course on the northeast side of the Serpentine. “How do you find London, Mr. Huxley? Town does not show at its best in winter, though spring is a different proposition.”
Thank heavens for the weather.
“I find London…” He glanced over his shoulder at St. Didier, toddling along to the rear like a bored groom.
“I find London perplexing. What is the attraction of cramming so many people together in one place? Food and fuel must be brought in from greater and greater distances, refuse taken out. The river is hopelessly befouled by this great mass of people, the roads and turnpikes congested to impassability. I am at a loss to understand what happens in Town that could not happen in more healthful and appealing surrounds.”
“You don’t care for London?” The only question Sorcha could think to pose. Mr. Huxley’s small talk was a bit peculiar, which made no sense. He’d been a vicar, and vicars should be the dukes of small talk.
“I do not understand London. I grasp that port cities are busy and that docks are a necessity. London is so much more complicated than a simple port. Would it be too forward of me to ask after your children?”
Yes, it was too forward. “Of course not. Jordan is seven, Bridget six. They get on well, enjoy good health, and can give a good account of themselves in the schoolroom.” Sorcha made herself say the next part. “If you’d like to meet them, I will happily arrange that.”
“I would very much like to meet them. They are my cousins.”
That last part apparently discomfited him.
He was new to London, and Sorcha grudgingly admitted that he was new to his ducal connections as well.
Society would carefully avoid describing him as part of the ducal family, all the while acknowledging that Huxley’s titled father had provided for him—the present duke had made that much plain to the gossips—and Huxley had been ordained and was technically legitimate.
As scandals went, Huxley only just qualified, and only in the outdated-nigh-to-irrelevance category.
“How are you and Chanderton getting along?” Sorcha asked.