Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Rollo could stand it no longer. “Please. What’s the matter? Is Fitz injured? Is he ill? Is he…is he dying?”
Mr Elliot threw him a long look. “Only of incurable stubbornness.” He shook his head.
“But it’s making him ill. He’s stopped doing…
everything. Eating. Sleeping. Masquerading as an honest upright member of the noble classes.
You need to come back. Or at least explain to him why you haven’t come back. You owe him that.”
Lucy darted forward again. “He’s painting a canvas he’s called Hopeless Last Dawn, sir. Fills half a wall, it does. He’s at it for hours. Can’t get him down from the nursery, sir. It’s…it’s…”
“Hopeless?” Rollo supplied, his belly plummeting. He could well imagine it.
“Bloody awful, ’scuse my French. Cook says it needs putting on the bonfire. Even worse than Bloated Dead Salmon Floating Down the River.”
“That doesn’t sound possible,” murmured Kit. He exchanged a glance with the earl. “I have a suspicion I know where all this is heading, don’t you, Lando?”
“I wouldn’t wager against it, darling.”
“And Berridge says his lordship has annihilated the Third Corps,” supplied Jack. “Marshal Davout is beyond repair. The wooden mantel too. The Fifth Corps is on its knees. Made a right mess of it.”
Will Elliot nodded. “All true. He’s spiralling fast, and I’m not sure I can do much to halt it.”
“But I wrote to him! A dozen letters. With pressed pink petals from the hydrangeas in the walled garden here at Rossingley folded in the crease. Daubed with the scent of lavender oil.” Rollo’s eyes filled with tears.
“I explained about Willoughby’s dreadful fall and how he almost perished and how I must delay my return…
and…and…how much we would enjoy our London season together and…
how much I miss his silly little bow and his Count Rodolfo…
and…and how I would gladly follow him through the annals of time! ”
Hot, salty tears spilled down Rollo’s cheeks.
A deep and profound silence ensued, during which his father contemplated their unusual visitors before settling his steely gaze on his second son.
Rollo tried not to wilt under the strength of it.
Willoughby was mended. Lyndon needed him by his side.
He needed to go. This minute. He’d walk to Norfolk if he had to.
On bare feet, wearing only the banyan on his back for warmth and with thruppence in his pocket.
He’d sleep in hay barns on beds of straw, drink from ice-cold bubbling streams, and scrounge kitchen scraps from—
A delicate dry cough interrupted his bleak travel arrangements. All eyes swivelled to the earl, who raised a beautifully arched brow in Lucy’s direction at the same time as he rang a small silver bell. “Miss…”
“Lucy, Your Lordship.” She bobbed again. “One of Lord Lyndon’s maidservants. And this here is Jack, the stable boy.”
“Naturally a stable boy would feature somewhere,” Kit muttered.
“Quite,” agreed the earl. “Thankfully, on this occasion, I don’t believe he has a starring role.” He eyed Jack severely. “You don’t, I trust?”
“No, my lord. Only here to escort and assist Mr Elliot, my lord. Berridge’s orders. Don’t hold no truck with all this travelling abroad, myself. Never left Norfolk afore, never will again.”
The earl breathed a sigh of relief. “Excellent.”
As if pulled on casters, the butler materialised in the doorway.
“Inglis, dear,” the earl instructed. “Miss Lucy and young Jack have journeyed an awfully long way. Take them to freshen up somewhere and make sure they are well fed.” His pale gaze narrowed. “They are my valued guests.”
As all three servants departed, and Rollo dabbed at his eyes, the earl pinched a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.
“Rollo, darling. Correct me if I’m misinterpreting things, though I believe I have the gist of it.
” His lips thinned. “It would appear that your lavish, lively correspondence from Goule, addressed to Kit and myself, may have omitted one or two tiny details? Lord Lyndon’s Count Rodolfo, for instance?
” He shuddered. “Four words I had never envisaged putting in a sentence when I breakfasted this morning. Or, indeed, ever. Though I am of the opinion that you’ve been putting his Count Rodolfo somewhere else entirely. ”
“Um…possibly.” Rollo’s wet cheeks heated. “Except we…um…don’t call it that. Count Rodolfo is a character in a book and is really of no relevance here, Papa.”
“But I can surmise that you and Lord Lyndon have been rather more intimate than you have led me to believe.”
He impaled Rollo on his pale, glittery gaze.
“Yes. Um… quite intimate.”
The earl digested that with a nod. “And through some postal misunderstanding, of which I am yet to reach the bottom, he is of the belief that you have discarded his suit and is making himself ill.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Have you discarded his suit? Indeed, is it welcome?”
“Most welcome, Papa. More than welcome. As welcome as one could imagine.”
Though Rollo had a million things to say on the matter, he bit his tongue and stared meekly at the carpet. At least he’d learned something since his last dressing down.
“I wrote the day after Willoughby was injured. And a thousand times since. I am at a loss to explain how he did not receive any of my correspondence.”
Kit spoke up. “Just a thought, and I might have to check the date and the routes. But regarding that mail coach accident near Winchester, where the horse sadly perished and that poor driver was injured. There’s a chance your letter regarding Willoughby’s fall is languishing at the bottom of the River Test.”
Rollo sucked in a deep breath. His poor, poor Fitz. “Kit might well have hit upon the reason for the first letter going astray, but that doesn’t explain the others, does it?”
“No.” The earl pursed his lips, his clever mind whirring. “You say Fitzsimmons has not received any of these missives?”
“Not one, my lord.” confirmed Mr Elliot. “And they don’t sound easy to overlook.”
“No,” Rollo’s papa agreed thoughtfully, then switched his attention back to Rollo. “You say Fitzsimmons is a changed man,” he stated in a disbelieving tone.
“Yes, Papa. He is terribly hard on himself. All the pain and destruction and unhappiness he has caused in the past have hurt him deeply. And…and made him fragile, though he doesn’t know it. Nor would he ever admit it.”
The earl’s pale eyes swivelled back to Will. “Is this the description of a man you recognise, Mr Elliot?”
“Always been a good one, my lord. He just forgot for a while. Events of the past got the better of him.”
“And you are friends.”
“Yes. Since we were but lads. I live in one of his cottages rent free, and he pays a village woman to tend to me. I’d like as not be in the poorhouse otherwise. Most days, he comes himself; he reads to me, helps me eat. Digs the vegetables.”
The earl cocked his head on one side. “May I enquire as to why he is so attentive? Why he takes these tasks upon himself?”
“Because we were the best of friends growing up. And his father, the old duke, treated mine something terrible when my mother passed, and I had an accident, leaving me like this. You may ask any of the folks in Goule. They’ll all tell you the same thing.
He’s a good man, and he doesn’t leave anyone behind. ”
His expression turned mulish. “And that’s why I’m here today.
For what it’s worth, I’ve never been out of Norfolk either.
” Clumsily, he patted the arm of his chair.
“Didn’t imagine I ever would, since being stuck in this thing.
But I’m not leaving him behind. I’m not letting him ruin himself over your lad and a pile of lost letters.
I’d never forgive myself, and nor would anyone else. ”
“He has also built a home for the infirm,” Rollo added.
“Gosh, he is good with his hands.” The earl and Kit exchanged a look.
“In more ways than one, by the sound of things,” Kit murmured with the glimmer of a smile.
“He’s not actually built it himself. What I mean to say is, he’s used the Fitzsimmons name to persuade the church and the council to allow it. And he’s provided half of the funds and overseen the build personally.”
The earl rose from his seat and paced a few steps. “In his absence from society, it seems Lord Lyndon has become a model of morality. How one treats those who can do one absolutely no good is a true measure of a man.”
“Samuel Johnson,” slurred Mr Elliot.
Surprised, the earl looked up.
“Fitzsimmons reads a lot of books to me,” Mr Elliot explained. “In truth, I prefer gothic horror, but as you can see for yourself, I’m a captive audience. Don’t tell him I said so, but he even does the voices. Women too.”
At this, Rollo’s eyes sprang another leak. “His Count Rodolfo is masterful, Papa.”
Willoughby made a choking sound. Rollo gave him a teary glare.
“He’s terribly misunderstood,” he continued.
“But goodness shines through him, I promise you. He warned me about Lord Stapleton’s gambling debts, for instance, so I could alert Willoughby to his machinations.
” Rollo scrabbled around for more examples, determined to impress on his father how desperate everything was.
“And he prevented me making an absolute cake of myself at a dance.”
The earl paused in his pacing. “Do tell,” he said coolly.
The truth would out sooner or later. Rollo might as well get in first as his father had an uncanny knack of conjuring it from thin air.