Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
He went out to the stables and told one of the grooms to go into the house and fetch his saddle bag and a waistcoat and a tailcoat. And some money.
Jackson came to the stables himself, carrying the clothes and his bag.
“You should get some sleep, Jackson.”
“And you should eat, my lord.” He helped Thomas into the waistcoat and tailcoat and insisted Thomas sit down and let Jackson put some hose on his legs because his boots were not meant to be worn without some protection for the feet.
“My feet!” Thomas exploded. “Why does everyone care so much about my blasted feet? What about Harry’s hand?”
He collapsed onto the bench next to Octavius’ stall. Octavius, already saddled at his direction, came over and gave his hair a friendly nibble. Jackson knelt down to remove the boots and roll the hose onto Thomas’ legs.
“Begging your pardon, my lord, but Lady Drake came to your room as I was fetching your bag and asked me to tell you something.”
Thomas held his breath.
“She said—and I hope I am remembering this right—she is very sure you actually meant London when you said hell, and she said . . .” Jackson hesitated and then plunged ahead.
“She said after you are finished at the brothel, please to remember she particularly wants the Babbage, Peacock, and Herschel translation of the Lacroix and not any other.”
Thomas swore, pulled on his boots, swung himself up onto Octavius, and thundered out of the stables at a full gallop, scattering straw, stable boys, and a few loose chickens in his path.
He rode straight to Madame Flora’s and elicited a promise from the most reliable groom at the stable that Octavius was to be brushed and watered and fed. Then he climbed, two steps at a time, to the parlor where gentlemen selected their whores. It was very late evening now.
He considered the women on display. This one was too plump. This one was too short. This one’s hair was too dark. This one was also wrong. And this one.
Where was a tall, slender elf queen with curly brown hair? Surely, there must be one here. He must find her and teach her to call him Tommy.
But his voice had gone hoarse and the room started spinning and he thought he had really better sit down. Someone led him to a chair.
“Lord Drake.”
He opened his eyes and looked up. It was Madame Flora herself.
Over sixty years of age and famous for having spent twenty years as the serial mistress of only the most powerful men in the House of Lords.
The heavily rouged but conservatively dressed owner of the brothel rarely came out to the parlor.
She usually stayed in her office, where she kept the books.
Thomas tried to stand, but she put a hand on his shoulder and kept him in the chair.
“Lord Drake, you are upsetting the other gentlemen.” A glass of water was pressed into his hands, and he drank it thirstily. And then another.
“You look quite rough. I am going to arrange for you to have a bath and a bed.” Madame Flora turned and spoke in the ear of Nancy, easily the most maternal of the whores. Thomas had rejected her just moments ago as having breasts that were too large.
Nancy led Thomas to a room with a bathtub and ordered the hot water to be brought.
She gave him a jar of soap and a banyan and told him to put the banyan on after he had enjoyed a long soak.
And he really should use the soap. She left the room, and a trembling Thomas took off his clothes and did what she said.
When she came back to take him to a chamber with a bed, he caught her arm.
“Nancy, I will pay, of course, but I just want the bed tonight.”
She did not look surprised even though he had never asked for such a thing before. She curtsied. “Yes, my lord. I will make sure you are not disturbed.”
He wept a little, alone in the bed that night.
For himself. For the ten-year-old boy who had lost the woman who was both his mother and sister.
For the thirteen-year-old boy who had thought he had found a cure for his pain and loneliness.
And for the man who had then pursued that cure over and over again even when he knew it gave no relief to the gash in his heart left by the ruination and death of Jane at the hands of a fiend.
Finally, he slept and dreamed he was sitting by the fire in Harry’s bedchamber. She was not there. He thought he should go look for her, but something kept him from doing so. It’s all right. She’ll come. But she didn’t, and in the dream, he was very disappointed she did not ever appear.
When he woke in the morning, he decided he was done feeling sorry for himself. Now he must find a way clear to repairing the damage he had done. To righting things. He knew where to start. His wife had told him where to start. But as he crossed the parlor to leave Madame Flora’s, he heard his name.
“Tom!”
He turned. His friend James was coming forwards to shake his hand, saying, “I am very glad to see you.”
“Jamie!” Thomas looked around the otherwise empty parlor. “It’s a little early to be starting at Madame Flora’s, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been waiting for you. Last night I heard you were here last and thought I might catch you in the morning, so I trotted down here early. Shall we find a coffeehouse?”
They walked out of the brothel together and down the street.
“I’m the Duke of Middlewich now.”
Thomas stopped and bowed. “Your Grace. I hadn’t heard of your father’s death. I am sorry.”
James clapped him on the back. “Thank you, but, of course, you must keep calling me Jamie. As you know, one of my sisters is named Grace, and it’s all become very confusing at the castle.
No one knows who is talking to whom. And I’m rather angry at the old fellow, actually.
He left me with all my sisters still to marry off.
Good thing they seem not to be too fussy. Too bad you’re not available now.”
Thomas was able to laugh at that and then tease his old friend about all the women who must be throwing themselves at his head now that he was a duke.
“It’s not a joking matter.” James wiped his neck with a handkerchief. “Unfortunately.”
At the coffeehouse, Thomas asked James if he knew of a bookseller nearby.
James tilted his head quizzically. “Don’t you have a library full of books you’ve never read?”
“I’ve read two of them now.”
James laughed. Thomas finished his coffee before explaining, “The book is for Harry.”
“Ah.” James nodded and paid their bill.
They made their way to a bookseller, and Thomas was pleased to find the Lacroix.
He was assured by the owner of the shop that it was the only published English translation.
The name Babbage on the cover seemed familiar.
But then he was astonished at the cost of this book Harry wanted.
He looked at the few coins he had left after paying for Nancy’s time, but not her services, as well as his bath and his bed at the brothel.
“I am the Earl Drake,” he said to the wizened bookseller. “Will you do me the courtesy of extending me some credit?”
Before the bookseller could answer, James interrupted, saying, “But wait, I never got you a wedding gift,” and James bought the book for Harry.
“She’ll love you for this, Jamie,” Thomas said, picking up the sizable parcel, wishing he would be able to tell Harry truthfully it was from him, her husband.
James looked down rather sheepishly and said, “Good, good.”
As old friends could, they walked together down the street in silence. When they arrived back at Madame Flora’s, a carriage with the Middlewich ducal arms on the door was waiting outside.
“It’s going to be tough to be anonymous from now on, Tom.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way, Your Grace.”
This led to a little scuffle between the two of them with James mock-shouting that Thomas was not to call him Grace and Thomas laughing and trying to make sure Harry’s book didn’t get damaged.
They embraced, and James climbed into his carriage, promising not to stand on ceremony and saying that he would come to Sommerleigh soon for his country respite, just as he had in the old days.
Thomas walked into the stable adjoining Madame Flora’s and came upon the reliable groom sitting on an overturned bucket, eating a bowl of steaming mutton stew.
He gave the rest of his coins to buy his own bowl of stew, which he ate like a starved man, standing up, Harry’s book squeezed between his legs.
He found Octavius well-fed and shiny. He saddled him and headed home, holding Harry’s book before him like a tablet from Mount Sinai.