Chapter Twenty-Two

Henry nearly climbed into the Fairfax carriage to go home, remembering only at the last minute and veering aside.

Of course, Charles would probably not object to Henry using the carriage, but that really wasn’t the point.

He felt sick. Eleanor’s words echoed in his head.

I don’t care what you meant. You don’t know what’s good for me. How could you? How dare you say that you know what’s best for me? You don’t understand and you never will.

He racked his brain, going through what he’d said and what she’d said to try and discover an error. What had he done? Had he been overbearing? Did she blame him, somehow, for Charles’ illness?

That was a new twinge of worry. Henry didn’t know Charles very well, but already he was starting to mourn the man. It wasn’t fair, to be cut down so suddenly. And what about Eleanor? What would happen to her once her father was dead?

He gave his head a little shake, reminding himself that it was none of his business anymore. He found himself in the marketplace square outside the Fairfax offices, not entirely sure why his feet had taken him there.

Glancing around, half-bewildered, Henry took in familiar sights – the flower-sellers again, pie sellers with their wares half-stale by this time of the day.

Again, he felt that itchy feeling of being watched. No matter how fast he turned, though, he couldn’t see the man with the patched coattails anywhere.

You’re going mad, you fool, he scolded himself angrily.

Putting his head down, Henry strode out of the marketplace, refusing to allow himself to meet anyone’s eye or look at anyone at all. Once he was out of the busy square, he concentrated on flagging down a hackney cab.

I want to go home, Henry thought, miserable as a child. Not back to my wretched apartment. Home. I want my family. I want to go home .

** *

When the hired cab deposited Henry outside the Willenshire family home, Henry felt so unreasonably tired that he almost collapsed right there on the gravel.

He forced himself to pay the cab driver and keep his back straight as he headed towards the house, holding it together until he passed through the door and could finally sit down with a thump on one of the hallway chairs.

“May I take your coat and hat, your lordship?” a footman asked delicately.

Henry waved a nerveless hand. “Not right now, thanks. Just… just give me a minute.”

“Who’s that?” William’s voice echoed from the depths of the house. “Is that Henry? Excellent.”

The man himself came striding down the hallway, a crumpled, dog-eared note clenched in his hand. William looked grim and focused. The sort of look he generally wore before giving one of his siblings a tedious task.

“I’m tired, William. The day I’ve had…” Henry began, but his older brother neatly cut him off.

“It’s Alex. Of course it’s Alex.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“Read this.”

William thrust the crumpled note at Henry and gestured for him to smooth it out and read. Henry did so, trying not to touch the grubby notepaper more than he had to.

Your brother is here at the inn. He’s dead drunk. Come get him, or else we’ll put him out in the gutter. Settle his tab while you’re at it, won’t you? We’d hate to have to put him in the Debtors’. Soon as you like. We should have closed for the day hours ago.

“That came from The Sunward Side, ” William explained grimly. “I haven’t seen Alex for heaven only knows how long. They know who he is, at least, so they had the sense to apply to me instead of throwing him out into the gutter. Or worse, into the debtors’ prison. You must go and collect him.”

Henry flinched. “Why me? ”

“Because he needs a good talking-to, and he’s always listened to you. I’m busy, and I’m not sure I want to see him in the state he’s in. Here, take this. This should be enough for whatever bill he’s racked up, at least to satisfy them.”

He shoved a fistful of pound-notes at Henry and gestured for him to get a move on.

Henry sat where he was for a minute, staring down at the money and the note. The Sunward Side was a particularly seedy sort of pub, but Henry was uncomfortably aware that Alex was a regular there.

It was the sort of place where rich, drunk young fools got robbed and knifed.

“Fine,” Henry sighed. “I’ll go. But something must be done about Alex.”

“I couldn’t agree more. If you can think of what that something should be, tell me. I’m at a loss. Take the carriage, it’s already coming round.”

With that, William turned on his heel and strode away down the hallway, leaving Henry alone and disgruntled.

***

The streets got progressively narrower and filthier, the deeper they went into the nastier part of the city. At this hour of the morning, many of the houses were shut up. People were either working, or sleeping off the excesses of the previous night.

A few unsavory-looking characters lounged in doorways and alleyways, watching the carriage with unconcealed interest as it crawled by.

“Is it much further, your lordship?” the driver asked uneasily. “This isn’t a good part of London.”

“I agree,” Henry responded shortly. “But my brother is here, so onwards we must go. We’re nearly there, I think.”

He was right. Another few minutes of rutted, filthy streets and impolite stares, and the carriage rolled to a halt in front of a lopsided, narrow building with The Sunward Side painted on it with crude strokes.

Steeling himself, Henry slid out of the carriage.

He landed directly in a pile of filth, right up to his ankles .

Oh, just wonderful. It’s barely midday, and already I’ve been the unluckiest man in the world.

There was no time to mope now, of course, so Henry scraped off his dirty boots as best he could and pressed on inside the inn.

It was no better inside, but he’d expected that. The place was filthy and smelt foul, the ceiling low and the walls crooked. A handful of unspeakable chairs and tables clustered together. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but he was soon able to make out a woman, standing at the other end of the room, a once-white apron strapped around her wide waist.

“About time you got here,” she snapped. “He’s run up quite a tab here. I wrote it all down, take a look.”

Henry reluctantly glanced at the list and sighed.

“Did he share all of this purchased alcohol with companions, or…?”

“Nope. Drank it all himself, then collapsed. Threw up twice and looks like he’s heading towards a third time.”

Henry sighed. He withdrew a few pound-notes and laid them on the table.

“Keep the remainder,” he said shortly. “Consider it a payment for your discretion.”

The woman brightened visibly, snatching up the money. “He’s over there,”

She gestured with her head towards a particularly dark corner.

Henry turned and squinted into the darkness.

Sure enough, there was Alexander. He was slumped over a table, cheek stuck to the filthy wood, mouth open. He was snoring, ever so slightly.

A collection of empty tankards sat in front of him, and what looked to have been a whiskey bottle, before it rolled off the table and smashed around Alexander’s feet.

Picking his way through the broken glass shards and puddles of mystery liquid, Henry reached his brother.

“Alex? Alex, wake up, it’s me.”

He tapped Alex’s shoulder, but only received a muffled groan in response.

“Come on. Time to go. Up you get. ”

Henry was not in a mood to cajole his stupid little brother. Winding an arm under his shoulder, he hauled Alex into a sitting position, and then up onto his feet.

“Don’t bring him back!” the landlady called, leafing through the pound notes.

Henry half-turned, weighed down by Alex’s weight.

“I’d rather die than bring him back here for a single second, my good woman,” he announced grandly, and made his exit before the woman could figure out that she’d been insulted.

Henry stepped in another, different pile of filth when they staggered out of the inn. He cursed, hopping on one foot, and managed to shove Alex unceremoniously into the back of the carriage. The inside would need a good clean when they got back, but it would be worth it if they could escape this place in one piece.

A bucket of something awful was emptied out of the window, narrowly missing Henry. A cackle followed this gift from above, indicating that the landlady had finally worked out that she was being insulted.

He was still cursing and hopping when a little voice came from the gutter near the door to the inn.

“She does that all the time, mister. It’s a game to her.”

He blinked, squinting into the gloom. Two spindly children of indeterminate age and gender appeared, both wearing greyish frocks that were more rag than fabric, both filthy, both no older than ten or eleven.

“You live here,” Henry said, the reality finally sinking in. All the filth and rubbish, the dark, narrow alleyways, the danger … people lived here, didn’t they? Real people, not just the ones who made the place dangerous.

People lived here.

“Do you have somewhere to sleep?” he found himself asking.

The larger of the two urchins drew itself up warily. “Who’s asking?”

“This isn’t a safe place.”

“We can manage. We have a sister, a big sister. She sells flowers. But the landlady makes us get out of the house during the day. But ‘s alright, we can get a bit sitting here. Folks give us pennies every now and then. There are a few folks we have to avoid – a nasty gentleman with coattails, although they’re all patched up, he does things for hire, he does. Doesn’t like us around, listening in. That’s what he said. The drunks drop things,” the urchin nodded at Alex, hanging halfway out of the carriage. “We got a few shillings off him.”

Henry sighed. He dug in his pockets for the last of the pound-notes William had given him. The urchin’s eyes bulged when he handed them over.

“My name is Lord Henry Willenshire,” he said firmly. “What’s yours?”

“Bella, and this is Edward.”

“Fine names. If your landlady keeps turning you out-of-doors, tell her that I will come to speak with her. You can find me at the Fairfax offices to see me again. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes, mister.”

“Go on, now. Get yourselves somewhere safe, do you hear?”

The children nodded obediently and scurried away into the darkness. Sighing, Henry climbed into the carriage and banged on the roof.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said brusquely, and the carriage lurched forward.

They’d been travelling for a few moments when Alexander finally spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, voice low and hoarse.

Henry sighed. The anger he’d felt earlier had drained away.

“You can’t keep scaring us like this, Alex. This has to stop.”

“I know, I know. I just… I just can’t work out how to make it stop.”

Henry reached for his brother’s hand, squeezing gently. “We’ll work it out.”

They travelled on in silence for a few more minutes.

“Did you see your lovely Miss Fairfax today?”

Henry stiffened. “Don’t, Alex.”

Alexander, who had previously been lying across the opposite carriage seat on his back, maneuvered himself up into a sitting position.

“Henry? What’s wrong? ”

Henry squeezed his eyes closed. “She told me to go away. Told me I couldn’t possibly understand what was good for her, and…”

“Why were you telling her what was good for her?”

“I wasn’t , it was just… I can’t explain. I daresay I made a mistake. I have no idea how to tell her that I care for her. I don’t think she’d like to hear it now. The truth is – and you mustn’t repeat it, Alex – her father is dangerously ill. Worse, even. She’d just found out.”

There were a few minutes of silence.

“So, she lashed out at you after discovering that her father was seriously ill?” Alexander repeated slowly. “And you didn’t consider that perhaps she was speaking thoughtlessly? Saying things she didn’t mean? At the very least, you ought to find out. That was hardly the time for a confession.”

“I know that , you fool. I just… the truth is, I am in love with her. I thought that falling in love would be easy, that all the problems would smooth themselves out. I’m good at solving problems, you see. It’s what I do. I like it. I’m – not to sound vain – I’m clever , Alex. But I feel entirely out of my depth here.”

Bit by bit, the whole story came out. All of it, including Charles’ illness and Jonathan and Louisa’s involvement. He knew that telling Alexander was probably a bad idea, but somebody had to hear it. The words spilled out like an overflowing cup, and much as he hated to admit it, Henry felt better once the tale was done.

“Dear me,” Alexander said at long last. “That’s a rather difficult situation. Not as difficult as you think though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that perhaps Miss Fairfax has feelings for you. I’ve thought it myself, more than once.”

“She feels as though I’m taking her position.”

“Well, and you’ve proved to her that you aren’t, haven’t you? You’ve spent too long pushing down your emotions, Henry. You aren’t used to facing them head on.”

Henry considered this. “What should I do, then?”

“Speak to her again. Be frank. Offer your support for her father. Put your feelings on the table, and make it clear that you’ll accept any answer, at any time. Don’t rush her, don’t push her. Be honest and be patient. Think about what you’re going to say, and be ready for a disappointing answer, if it comes. Be a gentleman.”

There was a little silence.

“That’s excellent advice, Alex.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Are you sure you’re drunk?”

“Quite sure. On that note, would you mind stopping the carriage? I think I’m going to be sick.”