“There will be those who find strange my obedience to logic, my refuge in the moral certainties. Still more the profundity of my interest in the human condition … and, most of all, my contentment upon the bosom of the deep and wheresoever it takes me.”
Her hand found his and he squeezed it. “Please be prepared for a … strange and wistful tale.”
He began with his self-imposed exile for a compelling moral reason as a common seaman into the gun-deck of a man-of-war, there to meet a young press-gang victim called Tom Kydd. How they had formed a friendship so deep it had sustained them over the years to follow until they had both won through to the quarterdeck.
He spared her nothing, in a flood of release telling of the dangers and exhilarations of the war at sea, breath-stopping adventures across the South Seas, fighting against Napoleon Bonaparte himself at the gates of Acre, battles of conquest and betrayal, feats of heroism and defeat.
And he told her, too, of his being swept into the maelstrom of deceit and treachery that was the failed uprising and assassination attempt against Bonaparte, how later he had travelled into the very heart of Paris to woo the American inventor Fulton, with his crazy plans for a submarine boat.
Then finally, only that very year in the Caribbean, his near-disastrous but ultimately successful penetration of a plot to bring Britain to its knees with a privateer fleet, which had nearly cost him his life.
She clung to him, held him, loved him: what she had heard was thrilling, marvellous and, ultimately … heartbreaking.
This was the death-knell of his life of danger and excitement, of companionship and fulfilment. Whatever he had been before he could be no longer. He was now to know life arrayed only in velvet and silk, cosseted and fawned upon.
What, in the name of their love for each other, could she find for him that could even begin to match the thrill and drama of what had gone before?
“I’m surprised his lordship has not yet advised you, Mr Bardoe,” she said, to the hovering bursar. “He insists always that books of account should be rendered in proper form, double entry and traceable to the day-books. I see here that it’s frankly impossible to determine how your figure is arrived at without it is correctly entered.”
“Yes, my lady. I’ll see to the bookkeepers today.”
There were going to be changes at Eskdale.
“Do ask Mrs Grant to attend me, if you please.”
Cecilia now had her private sitting room, equipped with a desk and bookshelves, serving both for entertaining ladies to tea and as an interview room for the staff.
“Good morning, Mrs Grant. Do sit down. I wanted to speak to you about the condition of the public rooms in the east wing for which you have the charge. Do you not feel …”
The day wore on. At eleven she tiptoed to the door of the earl’s study and listened.
He was dutifully attending to the tenant roll on this the first Monday of the month.
Inside, a grizzled farmer was telling a tale of woe about the season and the crops in a practised moan, and her husband was hearing him out politely, the estate steward standing by with an ill-tempered scowl.
She slipped back to her sitting room. This afternoon, she vowed, they would ride together over the winter-hard slopes to the woods, the wind in their hair, hearts beating fast. And then return happily to their home.
A tug on the tasselled bell-rope brought an awe-struck maidservant with a tray.
As she sipped her tea, she realised she was so happy with Nicholas that she had not noticed how alone she was. As if she was in a foreign country. No doubt she would make friends later but there was something she could do about it right now.
She reached for a pen and paper.
Dear Hetty,
I do hope you have got over your shock about the wedding, my dear, for here is another one.
I was just wondering if you can bear to leave your odious brood to take a position here as my companion. We shall have fun together and …
Renzi finished his breakfast. “My dear, I feel I should show my face in London. I’ve a suspicion Father may not have left affairs in as regular a fashion as I’d like.”
He knew of his father’s political cronies, the fast set at the races, the disgrace at Almack’s and, no doubt, there would be other distasteful matters to deal with.
“Do we have a town house, Nicholas? I would so like to entertain!”
“We do, dearest, but I fancy now is not the time for you to be seen in Town. Let them get over their rude curiosities first, I beg.”
He would do all in his power to protect her from the tittering behind fans and ogling from the ill-bred that would be her lot if she went with him.
“I won’t be offended, Nicholas dear-don’t concern yourself on my account, please.”
“Sweetheart, I won’t hear of it. I’ll be gone only a short while to see how things are and I shall return at the gallop, I swear!”
There would be no shifting him so she took charge of the packing and saw him off in the carriage, waving forlornly as it ground away down the long drive.
Renzi shifted into the agreeable comfort of the padded seat and let his mind wander.
What would he find in Curzon Street? He had been there only once, long ago, when his mother had sent him to implore the earl to return to his neglected estate. He had found him in raucous squalor with his sycophants, deaf to pleading, sarcastic and threatening. Renzi felt a twist of sadness that his mother, in her arranged marriage, had never known the deep happiness that was now his.
Dear Cecilia-his heart went out to her. As long as he drew breath he would shield her and safeguard her from the savagery and hypocrisy he knew lay behind much of the facade of gentility and politeness at the pinnacle of society.
The town house was much as he remembered, a little shabbier, a little sadder. The butler was surprised to see him, and somewhat surly, and the rooms smelt stuffy and uncared-for although he could see they had been used recently.
Renzi went to the drawing room and hesitated for a moment before sitting in the grand high-backed leather chair his father had used. It felt stilted, awkward, and he found another. Damn, but there were ghosts here he couldn’t shake off.
The front-door bell sounded and the butler came bearing a card on a tray.
Charles Grosvenor. The thin-faced wretch who’d been his father’s electoral agent. He’d lost no time in making his number, but as he lived opposite he would have seen his arrival.
He strode in, dressed in the fashionable tight pantaloons and ridiculous high collar, then bowed, with a wide smile and a click of heels. “Hail to you, sir, the new lord of Eskdale and the parliamentary seat of Noakes Minor!”
“Yes?” Renzi said flatly. He did not get up, or offer a chair.
The smile slipped a little. “Why, my good lord, I came to enquire as to your plans for your installation in the House.”
“I haven’t made any.”
“Sir, it is the season, Parliament does sit and there are those in the Party who are anxious concerning the fate of the upcoming Rents and Imposts Bill. The Tory Party that is-whose cause you will, of course, be warm to.”
Lord Farndon could take his seat in the House of Lords but also had the right of patronage of a local rotten borough. Votes in the upper and lower house both.
“Mr Grosvenor. Let me be clear: the entire practice of politics is distasteful to me. It is founded on the odd notion that all of nature and man, in all its diversity and wonder, might be compressed and then divided in twain-one or the other, none else. How then is it possible to reach an understanding of a matter touching on the behaviour of all men, when one is obliged to regard it through the lens of one artificial polity?”
There was now no smile at all.
“Thank you for calling. I shall doubtless inform you should I feel a sudden urge to politick. Good day to you, sir.”
There would be other pressures. For a certainty he was now labelled awkward, and bigger guns would be brought up. He sighed and closed his eyes.