Chapter Five

T he Countess’ carriage did not arrive until the early hours of the morning. The journey, in the depths of the night over treacherous roads, had been grueling. Reginald’s mother napped, but only fitfully. By the time they reached Chaumbers, he was as worried about her as he was his father. He suggested she go to her chamber and sleep first, but she gave him a shriveling look and went straight to the Earl, with Reginald following.

Olivia was seated at the bedside, pale, drawn, dressed in something wrinkled that she must have been wearing for two days at least. She stood and came to them, finger on her lips, though it was obvious Father was asleep and they’d hardly approach him yelling.

They drew off to the side of the chamber. Lamps were lit all around them and they cast an assortment of distorted shadows. Thankfully, before pointing out the superfluity of lamps, Reginald remembered that Olivia suffered from fear of the dark.

“He just collapsed,” she said in a whisper. “One minute he was talking to Peters, the next he simply fell. I sent for the doctor. Peters helped me get him into bed.”

“Was he conscious?” Mother asked.

“Not at first. But he was by the time the doctor arrived. He could talk but I could barely understand. You see his eye patch. That whole side of his face just droops. The eye won’t close completely, so Dr. Haraldsen patched it. He can’t move that side of his body at all. He told me not to send for you.” She frowned at Reginald. “Only Mama. He said you boys had more important things to do.” Her voice broke. “He said I should go to London. That I shouldn’t miss my Season. Mama, how can he think I care about that?”

Olivia fell sobbing against their mother, who wrapped her arms around her and let her cry. It irked him that she would burden Mother, who had just ridden through the night and looked ready to topple. Then it irked him more that he hadn’t appropriate sympathy for Olivia. She’d been here in Iversley for the duration, while he and his brothers had popped in and out. And she was scarcely more than a child. So he put his arms around them both. Then he wondered if he was cold and unfeeling because he wasn’t crying as well.

Olivia sniffed and drew back. He handed her his handkerchief. “What did the doctor say?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He cannot say anything. We just have to see. But this is worse than last time, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps not.” God. He wished Jasper had come. “Olivia, Mother, go get some sleep. Both of you. I’ll sit with him awhile. I’ll send for you if he wakes, but you both must rest.”

Mother nodded. “Come along, darling. Your brother is right.” There was more color in her face. She must have feared finding they’d come too late. Then she added, “An hour or two. Then I’ll come back. You haven’t slept either.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He was relieved that they left. For a minute or two, he sat holding his father’s hand, but it was so cold and lifeless it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Besides, it seemed false comfort for him and none at all for his father, who looked so old. His blond hair had never really grayed but thinned to wisps. There was a coarse gray stubble on his chin, his mouth was twisted grotesquely, and that damn patch covered his eye. Reginald’s own eyes ached but remained dry.

He hadn’t intended to sleep, but he woke when dawn’s pale light slanted through the window. He was slumped in the chair and had a painful crick in his neck. He stood and put a finger beneath his father’s nose, praying he would still be breathing. He was. Reginald stretched, then went to the door of the chamber and cracked it open to spy the waiting footman.

“Will you have coffee sent up? And a few rolls.”

The footman nodded and set off. He should have asked him also to send for Barclay, his valet. If Father woke and saw this black beard he’d sprouted, he’d have another apoplectic fit.

And that was not at all amusing. What was wrong with him?

He paced about the room, then thought to look at the clock. Seven in the morning. He’d drink a pot of coffee, then send for his mother, then go bathe and have himself made more presentable.

Olivia said Father could still talk.

He went to the window and pushed it open a sliver. It was to be a wet autumn, by all indications. The trees were dripping audibly, and the browning grass glistened. It was quiet enough to hear birds beginning to sing. They sounded tentative now, but in the springtime, they would be raucous at dawn. Chaumbers was not the most beautiful country house he’d ever been in, but there was something soothing about being home. Except that it would not be home, really, when he was an earl’s younger brother rather than a son. He took in one more deep breath, then pulled the window shut. Some doctors insisted upon fresh air, others warned of chills. Reginald suspected it would not matter, but he would leave the window as he’d found it.

Reginald had had four months to talk with the Earl, alone without his brothers stepping on his toes, yet had managed to avoid the topic of his future. They hadn’t alluded to it since Reginald had announced, at the age of seventeen, that he wished to go to Cambridge. The Taverstons, generations of them, were Oxford men. He’d been ready to put his foot down. He wanted to read with Frederick Bastion, a renowned classicist, whom neither Father nor his brothers had ever heard of. He hadn’t expected to be disowned, of course, but he had anticipated an argument. Instead, Father sighed heavily and said: Fine, then. Cambridge will do for you fine, I think. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Reginald, the third son, the “clever one,” was thought to be destined for the church. Because what else was he to do? From the time he was ten, Mother said, his character was evident. He was not soldier material. He would make a terrible idle man-about-town. He hated to think his ten-year-old self put people in mind of a clergyman, but there it was.

Fortunately, Father had four livings to dispose of and Reginald could expect to be given one or all of them eventually. Unless he wished to aim for a bishopric. He possessed no spiritual calling, only the right temporal connections, and, as young as he’d been, that seemed enough.

He had been at Cambridge no more than two months when he realized he could not enter the Church. He believed in God in his own way but had no desire to share his rather odd pantheistic beliefs, or force them upon people, or preach a conventional theology in which he did not believe. And he lacked the…whatever one wished to call it: the compassion for others that a minister should possess.

Unfortunately, he had neglected to tell his father any of this. He had neglected to tell anyone he had been offered a Fellowship at the University, translating from the Greek a newly discovered manuscript, one of a cache Bastion had uncovered in a monastery’s crumbling library but had little time to examine. Reginald could make an entire career from studying that cache if he were to impress his mentor enough to convince him to entrust the task to him.

But a career in the murky, cold backwaters of Academia? For an earl’s son? Why not a coal miner or shipwright, if he was determined to be an embarrassment to the family? Gentlemen were to be educated but not educators. That lot fell to the cleverer of their social inferiors, to those accustomed to grubbing for their guineas.

He had “put off” his ordination examination. There had been no great rush. He was young. Father was ill. That was what his parents believed, though he had not told them this with actual words.

It seemed to him the height of cowardice to hide his intentions from his father. Yet it seemed the pinnacle of selfishness to confess what would surely be seen as an absurd folly while the Earl lay there, shrunken and sallow, one half of his body already essentially dead.

The door shook, then opened. His mother entered, carrying a tray on which were coffee and cakes. She did not look rested, but she was dressed and coiffed and especially, she was poised.

“Peters brought this. I intercepted. You were supposed to call me.”

“It’s only seven o’clock.”

“Coffee is no substitute for sleep.” Nevertheless, she set down the tray and poured him a cup.

He took it and confessed. “I slept.”

She snorted a laugh. It was good to hear.

“Your father did not wake at all?”

“If he did, he didn’t see fit to wake me.” Then he amended, “No. He’s been the same.” Then he lied. “I think his color is better this morning.”

She poured herself coffee. She handed him a cake but did not take one herself. He was ravenous. And Cook’s cakes were excellent, though he preferred her rolls. It was the fresh country butter, she’d told him once, pink with pleasure at his compliment. He devoured the cake—and found it disappointingly stale.

“Peters wishes to speak with you,” Mother said.

“With me?”

She nodded. “Go see what he wants. Then take care of yourself. I’m fine here.”

“All right.” He drank the dregs from his cup and went out to send for Peters, but found the man waiting just beyond the door. Peters was head butler at Chaumbers and had been for a decade. Reginald thought he was a few years younger than the Earl but as he had not changed in appearance in ten years, one could not be sure. He was competent. Haughty as the devil. Jasper liked him and would not be replacing him. Jasper liked everyone. Reginald found him stiff and self-important, but that was probably true of all competent butlers.

“What is it?” he asked.

“My lord, I regret to inform you that Mr. Bradwell has passed.”

Father’s steward. “Passed?” That was a gut punch. “When?”

“Three days ago.”

“Has Lord Taverston been notified?”

“I just received word last night. I thought to inform him in person.”

“I expect he’ll be here today.” Knowing Jasper, he was halfway to Chaumbers already. He would not wait to be summoned.

“Very good, sir.”

“Is there anything that needs immediate attention?”

“Not that I am aware of, my lord.”

“All right then. Thank you for informing me. I’ll discuss this with Lord Taverston when he arrives. I’m going to my chamber now. Do you know if Barclay is there or downstairs?”

“Downstairs, I believe.”

“Please let him know I require his assistance.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Reginald’s feet felt heavy as he trudged to his chamber. Bradwell’s passing was not so much a surprise as it was unwelcome news. The man had been in his eighties, practically an immortal. He’d retired six months ago when a lingering chest cold debilitated him. Truth was, he should have been pensioned off sooner, but with Father’s illness, nothing had been done. As they were not to alarm Father, no one told him of Bradwell’s decline. Jasper said he’d take care of hiring a new steward. Of course, it would be Jasper’s responsibility soon enough. And the man he wanted, Benjamin Carroll, was the perfect choice. An Oxford mate of Jasper’s. Not a gentleman by birth, but well-mannered and bright. The only problem was he had emigrated to Canada. Jasper said he would return. Reginald was not so sure. They needed him six months ago, and he had not returned yet.

He entered the bedchamber he’d left two months ago, no two and a half. Nothing had changed. Nothing but him. He felt he’d aged years. Was it only a week ago? Less? That he’d been dropped by the woman he paid to sleep with him? Ha! He sat on the bed and yanked off his shoes. Then unbuttoned his cuffs. His shirt stank and he was covered in the dust of the road.

Barclay knocked and entered. “I’ve ordered hot water brought up.”

“Enough to bathe?”

He nodded. “It’ll be easier to shave you after.”

“Easier on me or on you?”

The man grinned. “Both, I suspect.”

In private, he didn’t stand on much ceremony with Barclay. It was too much effort. He was pleased to see that his bags had all been unpacked and his things placed where he liked to keep them. He stripped to his britches, slipped on his ratty banyan, then asked: “Did you get any sleep?”

“Enough.”

“Enough to hold a razor to my throat?”

Barclay laughed. “We’ll see.”

That sounded too like the doctor’s prognostication.

Reginald went and sat at his desk. He wrote two quick letters, one to Jasper, one to Crispin. Both said much the same thing, although Crispin’s had an extra sentence or two of explanation. Essentially he said it did not look good for Father. They had best come home quickly. To Crispin, he added: if you can . General Wellesley might not grant him leave again so soon.

He folded the letters, sealed them, and handed them to Barclay.

“If Lord Taverston is not here by noon, post this. And send this one off to Lieutenant Taverston at once.”