Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
I n all his travels, Lucius had never encountered a more miserable place than London outside the Season. When it came to absolute misery, even the rather uncomfortable comfort stop in the middle of the Flemish countryside or the particularly arduous coach journey across the Bavarian Alps could not hold a candle to it.
The heat which had been welcome in the countryside had stewed into a thick, smoky miasma in the city; a Turkish steam bath flavoured with fish markets and rotting refuse. There was no company to speak of. Everyone of quality – and everyone who liked to pretend to be of quality – had long fled to the peaceful comforts of their summer homes.
In a peculiar way, it was exactly what Lucius needed. Even if he’d had the inclination to seek out company, the state of his pocketbook could not support it. His father’s beholden fifty thousand pounds were not so much burning a hole in it as unleashing a wildfire. Lucius had spent days traversing the length of London to sweet-talk their creditors, and now, slumped in an armchair before the unlit fireplace in his once-comfortable townhouse, he was faced with the fact that all his efforts could only suppress the flames for a few more weeks. Doom was still coming for the Whitbys, and there wasn’t a soul in London or out of it that he could trust with the truth.
No, that was not quite true, was it? Such a soul did exist. Had already been entrusted with his deepest fears. And had been promptly abandoned in Whitby Manor, either to mourn him or marry another – or both. Lucius had no power to change the course of her history either way.
Isobel deserved so much more than he could give her.
He’d managed to forgive his father for all the rest – barely – but the loss of Isobel was a wholly new kind of agony. And Lucius suspected it would have something in common with a punch to the face. The initial pain was really more of a numbness – a shock to the system.
The true hurt would only reveal itself with time.
Lucius peeled off a glove with his teeth and began for the thousandth time to sift through the sheaf of papers on the desk beside him. Some were ancient, some brand new. Many were yellowed and stained by their voyage from one end of Europe to the other. But the work itself was sound. The diagrams were clear, the record of specimen-gathering exact.
And as for the fruit of his labours…
Three round oranges, plucked from the hothouse at Whitby Manor, sat plump and ripe and full of juicy promise atop an empty drinks tray. Lucius’s mouth watered at the sight of them.
Not because his stomach was empty – though it was.
These oranges – and the small, square, velvet-lined box beside them – represented something far more important than a full belly.
He picked up the ring box and cupped it reverently in his hand, tempted to crack it open. Just to make sure. Just once more.
He set it aside. No time for sentiment now. He had one final call to pay. The one upon which all the rest depended.
Lucius stood and surveyed his appearance in the mirror above the cold fireplace. A scruffy, unhappy, ill-shaven fellow looked back at him, every bit as pathetic on the outside as Lucius felt within. His clothes, dusty and bedraggled from a long day traipsing the London streets, let off an unsavoury aroma every time he moved.
He tugged off his cravat, forcing his leaden limbs to move through the fog of exhaustion. On the mantelpiece, before the unlit fire, he had carefully hung a suit. It was a little creased from the journey, but at least it was fresh and clean.
Every one of the servants had been dismissed the moment he arrived, sent off with thanks and pay till the end of the month. The house, so full of happy, raucous memories from that winter and every winter before, was utterly empty, furniture covered in dust sheets, every room dark and cold. The first prospective tenants were expected on the morrow. If any of the Whitby ladies required a further London Season to make a match, they would have to rely on the hospitality of their friends… should any friends still remain.
Lucius shrugged off his frock coat, leaving it crumpled on the floor, and went to the wash basin. At least the summer heat penetrated the townhouse. The water was tepid, unrefreshing, a far cry from the steaming bath Clarkson would have had waiting for him at home. But it was clean, and Lucius was not. He unbuttoned his shirt.
Somebody knocked at the front door.
Lucius hesitated a moment, glanced again at his unsavoury appearance in the mirror, and resumed undressing. He was in no fit state for company. And there was not a single person on earth to whom he wished to speak.
The knocking persisted as Lucius dipped his hands into the water and splashed the dirt of the day from his face. His efforts succeeded in making matters significantly worse. Little muddy rivulets tracked down his chest.
How much water would it take to wash away all the muck he’d accumulated over the course of his life? To scrub out the stain of extravagant living on borrowed money? To rinse away the last traces of his former life?
And he knew that no matter how hard he tried, there was one mark on his innermost soul that would never be removed. He did not even wish to try it.
His heart had been dyed the colour of Isobel. Deep, rich, lasting ink that would remain no matter what tawdry browns or dreary pauper’s greys were layered on top of it.
The knocking intensified. Whoever was at the door had no respect at all for Lucius’s miserable solitude.
Damn their eyes. Couldn’t a man nurse his wounds in peace?
Just as Lucius was making up his mind to march, shirtless and dripping, to the front door and give the insistent caller a piece of his mind, the knocking stopped.
It was replaced by the sound of shattering glass.
Lucius’s blood went cold. His eyes went immediately to his three plump oranges.
“Devil take it,” he whispered. He could ill afford to let anything in the house be stolen. Not when he’d spent the antisocial hours of the previous morning writing up an inventory and pricing out each item of furniture.
And the oranges must be protected at all costs.
He thrust the ring box into his pocket, seized a poker from the fireplace and crept past the shut-up rooms and sheet-covered furniture to the hall.
The bright stained-glass window at the side of the front door had been broken. Carefully, exactingly broken, in one particular panel. The rest was untouched.
Two eyes peered through the resulting gap. Two familiar eyes. At the sight of Lucius, half undressed and clutching the poker in the dusky darkness of the hallway, they grew wide with terror.
“Mr Whitby!”
Lucius froze, not sure whether to believe the evidence of his eyes and ears. His hand moved of its own accord, lifting the poker into a defensive position.
“Oh, Mr Whitby,” tutted his valet. “This will never do. I did warn you that your whiskers grow at an alarming rate. And I wish you had taken my advice on the best clothes to choose for a long journey.”
“Clarkson?” Lucius’s voice was a hoarse whisper. He stopped, collected himself, coughed, and tried again. “Clarkson! What the devil are you doing here?”
“I apologise most sincerely, Mr Whitby. I did try to let myself in at the servant’s entrance, but I found everything locked and barred. Then, when my knocking went unanswered, I’m afraid I had to resort to vandalism. I will make no objection at all to the window’s repair coming out of my wages. Would you be so gracious as to let me in?”
Lucius unbolted the door and flung it open. Clarkson pushed his spectacles up his nose and beamed up at him. Despite the arduous journey from Whitby Manor to London, he looked as crisp and fresh as always. A rather large suitcase was sitting beside him.
“I didn’t mean, what are you doing here at the front door,” said Lucius, still struggling to make sense of the sight before him. “I meant to ask, what on earth you are doing in London? I had absolutely no intention of your following me. Did you not receive my letter of dismissal?”
“I certainly did, sir, and while I am extremely grateful for your offer of a reference and your advice to seek new employment at once, I could not consider my duties discharged until I had assisted you in choosing an adequate replacement.” Clarkson looked Lucius up and down and wrinkled his nose. “I’m afraid that whichever gentleman has been assisting you of late is clearly not at all up to the task.”
“I’ve been managing perfectly well on my own, Clarkson.” Lucius crossed his arms, blocking Clarkson’s way inside. “Your services are no longer required.”
Clarkson sighed. “It’s exactly as I feared, then. Mr Whitby, I entreat you to permit me entrance and allow me to perform my usual duties. The consequences of your refusal, I am afraid, will be rather significant.”
“Don’t you understand, man? You been dismissed. It’s not a question of professional pride – or indeed, professional anything. I’ve no money to pay you with.”
Clarkson nodded. “I surmised as much, sir, when I heard from my cousin who was a footman here that every last servant had been sent away. I shall not distress you at this juncture with a report of your father’s reaction. I must ask you one last time, however, to please let me inside. You are in no fit state to receive company at present.”
“Clarkson, what on earth gives you the impression that I’m expecting company?”
Clarkson winced. “Once again, Mr Whitby, I must beg your forgiveness.”
“ Forgiveness for what ?”
By way of answer, the little valet stepped aside. Lucius registered for the first time that there was a carriage standing at the townhouse gate.
A carriage bearing the crest of the Duke of Loxwell.
A lady’s white-gloved hand pushed open the carriage window. “We are quite sick and tired of waiting, Mr Whitby! For heaven’s sake, put on a shirt so that we can come inside without averting our eyes.”
Lucius locked eyes with Clarkson, who, despite his numerous requests for forgiveness, did not in fact look at all sorry.
“You can forget that reference,” he snapped, slamming the door shut in Clarkson’s face.
“Quite understandable, sir.” Clarkson had stuck his cane through the door at last minute, wedging it open. After a moment’s wrestling, his hand emerged through the gap bearing a soft, white, rose-scented towel. “Do make haste, Mr Whitby. The ladies are now approaching the front steps.”
Lucius growled in frustration but took the towel anyway and stalked off down the corridor, trying not to appreciate the freshly laundered softness as he scrubbed it over his face. He seized the clean shirt from the mantelpiece and dragged it over his head.
Out in the hallway, he heard Clarkson apologising to the guests – it sounded like quite a number of them – for the darkness of the entrance and the unprepared state of the house, asking if they would please allow him to take their coats and hats, and assuring them he would soon be able to rustle up some refreshment.
Lucius threw the towel over the back of the chair and made his way to the bookshelf on the other side of the room, stepping over the jacket crumpled on the floor as he did so. He scanned the bookshelves until he saw a weathered, leather-bound copy of Robinson Crusoe . He gave it a tug, and a hidden panel on the wall beside the bookshelf slid open.
“If you would please follow me into the library,” Clarkson was saying. “I shall get the candles lit in a matter of moments, and then we can see about uncovering the furniture.”
Lucius glanced back at the jacket on the floor. Cursing himself, he darted back to pick it up, brush it off, and hang it over the back of a chair. That done, he slipped into the hidden passageway and shut the door behind him.
In the cool, secret darkness, he took a moment to breathe and steady his pulse.
He knew exactly what Isobel’s brother wanted to do to him. It presumably bore no small resemblance to the violent retribution Lucius wished to wreak on Lord Bell. With some additional bruising necessary, no doubt, for the indignity of subjecting Isobel to an engagement and a broken betrothal on the same day.
He let his head knock forwards against the stone wall. Loxwell would be absolutely within his rights to beat Lucius to a pulp. And part of Lucius would even welcome it. No fist or steel-toed boot would ever match the degree of pain he’d already inflicted upon himself.
But until he had made his final call that evening, he could not risk a black eye and a burst lip. So the Balfour family’s vengeance would have to wait.
As the sound of voices entered the room from which Lucius had just escaped, he crept down the hidden passageway. A left turn and then a right brought him swiftly to the exit that led into a discreet alcove on the other side of the house.
Lucius swung open the hidden door with a sigh of relief that was abruptly cut short when Malcolm Locke, Duke of Caversham, laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Hello, Whitby,” he said, with a smile that promised dreadful things. “Good to see you again.”
He turned Lucius around and marched him forcibly back down the hidden passageway. They were joined partway by George Bonneville, the Earl of Streatham, coming from the direction of the library with his hands in his pockets and an infuriating grin just visible in the dim light filtering through the cracks in the passageway walls. “Ah, Whitby! I see you’ve bumped into Caversham already. Shall we go ahead and join the others?”
Lucius wrested his shoulder from Caversham’s grip. “What the devil do the lot of you mean by breaking into my house like this?” he demanded. “I ought to call the Bow Street Runners and have you all turfed out onto the street!”
“Drag us off in chains if you like, Whitby, but first, we need a word with you.” Caversham’s eyes were hard and glittering.
“I’ve no intention of discussing my private business with either of you,” protested Lucius, setting his back to the wall as the two men advanced on him. “If Loxwell wishes to black my eyes, fair enough, but ganging up on me like this isn’t fair!”
“Oh, no, I’m afraid it’s much worse than that,” smirked Streatham. He took Lucius by one arm and Caversham took him by the other, and together they marched him firmly back the way he had come. “It’s the Balfour ladies you have to face up to now.”
They had reached the exit to the library. Mustering what little remained of his dignity, Lucius shook off their guiding hands and opened the hidden door himself, trying to look as though he had not just made a failed attempt at running away.
Streatham was right about one thing. While the Duke of Loxwell’s grim expression was certainly alarming, it was nothing to the chilling glare of Isobel’s sisters.
“Good evening,” said Lucius. “Do forgive the state of the place – and the state of myself. As you can see, I was not expecting company.”
Selina, Isobel’s eldest sister, rose from her chair and prudently closed the passageway door behind him. “There’s no need to stand on ceremony, Mr Whitby. I hope we are all friends here.”
She really did make the perfect match for Caversham. They both had the knack of imparting the chill of absolute power and dread using nothing but a well-turned phrase and a smile.
Anthea, Streatham’s countess, gave a disapproving sniff. “Speak for yourself, Selina. I intend to reserve judgement until I hear what Mr Whitby has to say for himself.”
They turned to their brother, the duke. He ran a disturbingly perceptive eye over Lucius, taking in every detail from Lucius’s unshaven chin to his half-undone shirt. There was no conceivable way that Lucius looked like the sort of man a duke might consider worthy of his sister.
But Loxwell merely sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hardly dare ask how you two knew where to find him.”
“Oh, this funny little hidey-hole was a great deal of fun when we were lads,” said Caversham smoothly. “I’m amazed I remembered where it goes. Haven’t been there since our Cambridge days. Have you, Streatham?”
“No,” said Streatham, the picture of innocence. “Not at all.”
“Really, Alex,” said Selina. “I can’t imagine where you got the idea that two respectable peers of the realm would spend their time engaging in nefarious business inside secret passages.” She took Caversham’s arm, and they shared a glance that suggested Caversham didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to lecturing Lucius about intrigues with Balfour women.
Loxwell looked infinitely weary. But before he could say anything more, his bright-eyed little duchess took pity on Lucius at last.
“Poor Mr Whitby! I can see that we have caught you quite off guard. Do sit down. I sent your man to the kitchens to see if he can find the makings of a nice hot cup of tea.”
It wasn’t quite the thing for an uninvited guest to instruct the host to sit down in his own house, but when a duchess gave you an instruction, you obeyed it. Particularly when that duchess was related to the woman whose name you had just dragged through the muck of your family’s own private disaster.
Lucius sat. Cleared his throat. “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” he said, and stopped.
He had absolutely no idea what Isobel’s siblings knew about what really happened at Whitby Manor. Truth be told, he had no idea what Isobel now made of it all herself. He didn’t even know whether she’d accepted Randall’s proposal. He had studiously avoided even glancing at a newspaper since he left the manor, for fear of finding out.
Could it be that she was pining away for him, gazing hopelessly out of windows and composing sorrowful melodies on the harp? He hated the thought of it – and hated even more the thought that it might not be true.
Fortunately – or not – he was saved from saying more by Selina, who fixed him with a glare so penetrating that it took him a moment to be sure she had not just run him through with a sword.
“Oh, no, Mr Whitby. We have something to explain to you . All you need to do is keep your mouth closed and listen.”
“But –”
Caversham’s hand landed on his shoulder again, not half as menacing as the flash of his duchess’s eyes.
Lucius closed his mouth. Selina gave a nod of satisfaction.
“Good. It appears that your wits have not entirely deserted you. Believe me, sir, we realise this is unorthodox. But judging by the report my husband brought us, you are no stranger to unorthodox behaviour. Isobel, as you know, lacks the guidance of our dear late parents. So it falls upon us, as her siblings, to express to you the depth of your recent – how can I put this delicately?”
“It is impossible to put it delicately,” said Anthea, a malicious glitter in her eyes.
“Quite true. It falls upon us to impress upon you the depth of your recent clot-brained idiocy.”
Lucius opened his mouth. Selina raised an eyebrow. He closed it again.
Anthea rose to her feet and produced a sheet of paper with a flourish. “Our youngest sister, Edith, is away in Italy and in too delicate a condition to travel. She has sent her own remarks upon your behaviour by way of this letter, which I shall now read to you.” She made a show of running her eyes over the first few lines. “Edith wishes you to know that only the worst sort of scoundrel, a wretched, drooling imbecile, lacking enough matter within his skull to feed a mangy dog, would imagine that he could treat our beloved Isobel in this manner and get away with it.”
Daisy, the Duchess of Loxwell, shook her head sadly. “Dear Edith has such a temper.”
“Even that preening peacock Randall has managed to muster up a proper proposal,” Anthea continued. “But you, Mr Whitby? We are sorry to see that you are the sort of lily-livered coward who cannot even declare himself to the kindest, sweetest, most loving girl in the world – even when he is absolutely certain of her feelings for him.”
Lucius could no longer bear to sit still. Mindful of Selina’s admonition to remain silent, he leapt out of his chair and began to pace furiously from one end of the room to the other.
Clarkson – that treacherous rascal – entered bearing a tea tray.
“Wonderful!” said Daisy warmly. “If it’s not too much trouble, Clarkson, I wonder if you could hunt down a glass of something stronger for Mr Whitby? I think he’s going to need it.”
“And not only that,” declared Anthea, warming to the theme, “but you had the temerity to imagine that there was the slightest possibility of Isobel actually accepting goat-witted Randall. I can only imagine that you contracted some kind of horrendous parasite during your travels on the Continent, and the fevered worm is now eating into your brain.”
“Or so says Edith,” said Selina delicately. “I’m sure we would not all phrase it in those exact words.”
“She turned Randall down?” Lucius’s voice was a hoarse rasp. He was extremely grateful, despite himself, when Clarkson moseyed up with the tumbler of brandy.
“You’re a damned fool if you thought she’d have him,” said Loxwell quietly.
Lucius took a gulp of the brandy and sank back into the chair. “I’d be a damned fool to think she’d have me ,” he said. “That’s what none of you understand. You couldn’t possibly understand it – Isobel certainly would not have told you. The truth of it is that I will not be able to support her in anything like the manner she deserves.”
“Perhaps your brain really has been eaten by worms,” said Anthea. “Do you truly think that Isobel desires an enormous fortune more than a man she cares for? Isobel, who is happiest sitting out every dance at a ball so that she can chat to our old aunt and listen to the music? Isobel, who wouldn’t notice whether she were in a palace or a hovel as long as she had her instruments at hand?”
“It’s not a question of the size of my fortune,” said Lucius. “It is my utter lack of it. And the hopeless task of clearing my father’s debts.”
That was enough to shock the assembled Balfours into silence. Lucius couldn’t look any of them in the eye. His vision narrowed to the three round oranges sitting on the tray.
“I ask for your discretion, knowing I have done nothing to deserve it. Besides, it will all be public knowledge soon enough. I have a scheme which I believe should bring in enough income to get by. My brother has his career in the Navy, and though he must do without an allowance, he is clever enough to fend for himself. My sisters… Well, I will confess to you that the reason I agreed to that foolish deception with Isobel was for love of them. To protect them. To buy them some time. I can buy them precious little else.
“My intention this very evening is to meet with the gentlemen of the Horticultural Society of London and present to them the fruits – literally – of my experimentation with a new style of hothouse. I hope to ask them for a recommendation that will allow me to find myself a place on the staff of the groundskeepers of some great house or another. Perhaps I could offer my services in consultation over the great glasshouse in development at Kew. Should I manage to secure enough investment, there is certainly a market for the tropical propagation system I have designed. In time, I hope to make a respectable tradesman’s living. But I am not now and never will be again the class of man that Lady Isobel could marry.”
The silence was broken by a loud, wet sniffle. Lucius glanced up from his misery to find the Balfours dry-eyed.
Clarkson, however, was sobbing into a handkerchief. A spotlessly white one, with lace around the edges.
“Beg pardon,” he choked out. “It’s only – oh, Mr Whitby, I am so terribly distressed for you!”
“Clarkson,” said Daisy, “would you be so good as to fortify yourself with a tot of that brandy? You are the only person who knows his way about downstairs, and we simply cannot manage if you are overwhelmed by emotion.” She turned her eyes to Lucius. “Do you truly believe that Isobel would refuse you if you made her an offer, knowing your circumstances?”
She would not. Lucius’s heart spoke the answer, as though he had known it all along. Isobel would not refuse him. And that was precisely why he could never ask her.
“She’d be shunned by polite society,” he said. “How many doors that open gladly to Lady Isobel Balfour would remain open to the wife of Mr Whitby, apprentice gardener at Kew? She’d be made the object of gossip and ridicule. Her life would be unalterably changed – diminished.”
The Duke of Loxwell folded his arms and held Lucius’s eyes with a steady, serious gaze. “So you thought it better to take the choice away from her entirely? To run away, without giving her a chance to hear the truth?”
“The truth is a scandal.” There was no trace of shame left in Lucius now. It had all been burned away by his sudden, incandescent rage. “The truth is a nightmare from which I cannot escape. I am not na?ve enough to think that all my love, my tears, my labour, would replace the brutal loss of Isobel’s entire world. Do I believe she’d refuse me? Never in a thousand years. But I am in love with her. Don’t you all understand? I will never ask her to sacrifice her place in the world for me. I’d never forgive myself.”
For a long moment, the only sound was Clarkson blowing his nose.
Then Loxwell gave a brief, decisive nod. “Very well. You’ve made your point, Whitby.” He smiled wryly. “I only hope you can find it in yourself to forgive her .”
“What?” Lucius had thought that all the hunger and the agony had sharpened his mind to a fine point, but he could not follow Loxwell’s meaning at all. “What do you mean?”
“My sister Isobel has taken it upon herself to abandon the gentle classes of her own accord. She has decided to reveal herself as the true composer behind the name Isidore Babbage, who apparently has quite a following. She has arranged…” Loxwell winced. “…a public music hall in which to unveil herself and perform her first concert.”
Anthea turned the letter around to face Lucius, only to reveal that it was not a letter at all. It was, in fact, a poster announcing a musicale to be performed by
A Noble Lady,
formerly styled (without her family’s knowledge)
as the esteemed composer
Mr I. Babbage .
“Edith did not really have time to send a letter all the way from Florence,” said Anthea, half-apologetic, half pleased. “But she would have been terribly sorry not to be included, so I… embellished.”
“Isobel has sold tickets,” said Loxwell, in the tones of a man to whom it had been explained at great length that he must not voice any objections.
“A great number of tickets!” interjected his duchess, beaming. “And we are all quite certain that, once her secret is out, her future concerts will be extremely popular.”
“I had a feeling you’d be hard up for cash,” said Caversham, giving Lucius a friendly elbow. “So I took the liberty of purchasing one for you.”
“And we are going to come with you,” added Selina. “To make sure that you do things right this time. Not that I imagine it will really require all of us, but I’m afraid nobody could bear to miss out on the opportunity of making you suffer. Just a little. We had to be sure that you were really worth it.”
Lucius stared down at the poster. A concert to be given by the esteemed Mr Babbage . That very evening.
“No,” he said. “No. She can’t. I’m not worth this. I’m not worth all this at all.”
“Isobel will never lack for people who love her,” said Caversham. “This is the path she has chosen. And she has our blessing. As do you.”
“Though my blessing is, in fact, the relevant one,” said Loxwell tersely. Malcolm grinned and made a graceful bow of acknowledgement.
“But this isn’t what she wants,” said Lucius.
Streatham rolled his eyes. “Come now, Whitby, there’s no need to keep up with all this miserable woe-is-me nonsense. Isobel has chosen you, and it’s nobody’s place to disagree with her. Yours least of all.”
“I’m not speaking of myself!” Lucius brandished the poster in the air. “It’s this . Do any of you really believe that Isobel wants this? A public concert – a public scandal – a thousand eyes all fixed on her? People tittering behind their hands? Whispers about her wherever she goes? Ceaseless, relentless attention?”
Loxwell folded his arms. “There! I’m glad someone else has said it. No. No, Isobel does not want this at all.”
“Alex!” snapped Selina.
“Oh, I know I can’t stop her. You’ve all made that perfectly clear. But Whitby knows it as well as I do – in fact, if he didn’t know it, I’d feel much less easy about giving this ludicrous business my blessing. The last thing Isobel has ever wanted is to become an object of public interest.”
“But, dearest, she has decided to do it of her own accord,” said Daisy patiently. “I am sure she would do it a thousand times over if it meant she could marry the man she loved.”
Lucius crumpled the poster in his fist. “I’ll be damned if I let her do it.”
Loxwell was triumphant. The rest of his family was dismayed.
“Not so fast, Whitby,” said Caversham, his voice a dangerous low growl. “We have come here with the express purpose of making sure you give our girl the proposal she deserves. Loxwell here is a noble fellow, and the ladies, of course, would not resort to violence. But I assure you, if you’re not down on one knee by the end of the night I will personally make sure that it is because you no longer possess kneecaps. And Streatham here will hold you down while I remove them.”
“Yes, yes, Caversham, we all know that you are exceptionally ruthless and menacing.” To his own amazement, Lucius managed the shadow of a grin. “And nobody would put any money on a mere gardener when faced with the mighty Duke of Caversham. If you could all take a moment’s break from threatening me and insulting my character, I will explain to you exactly what I have in mind. But first – drat!” The clock on the wall had not been wound in days. He took up his frock coat from the chair and fumbled through the pockets for his watch. “What time is the concert?”
“It begins at half past eight,” said Anthea. “And she will go through with it, Mr Whitby. It may not be what she wanted, but believe me, she is happy with her choice.”
“Argue with me later,” said Lucius. “I don’t have time for it now. Delay the concert by any means necessary. If I hurry through my appointment at the Horticultural Society, I should reach her before nine.” He shrugged the topcoat over his shoulders.
“Mr Whitby!” Clarkson rushed forward, looking even more alarmed than he had by the prospect of Lucius becoming a gardener. “I cannot possibly allow you to attend such a critical event dressed like that.”
Lucius groaned. “Clarkson, have you heard nothing of what I said? You are no longer my valet. I don’t have the money to pay you.”
“Very well,” said Loxwell. “Clarkson, I’ve heard you’re a decent hand with a needle and thread. I happen to be in need of a new valet. I’ll pay you twice what Whitby did. We can hammer out the details later. For the moment, I must ask you to attend upon my friend here.” He gave Lucius a rare genuine smile. “He has an important engagement this evening.”