I recognized him now-Terrance Quinn, nephew of the old vicar at Parson's Point. Terrance had been my friend, eighteen to my twenty when I'd left for the army. He'd followed a few years after that, from what I had heard, an infantryman all the way to Waterloo.
I chose my words carefully. 'Those two happened to be at the house today, and I took advantage of them. Certainly, put out the word-anyone wishing to help tear apart the Lacey manor and put it back together should apply to me in the morning. Not too early,' I finished, holding up my tankard. Those around me chuckled.
'You've come into money, have you, Lacey?' Terrance asked, his eyes glittering with dislike. Everyone knew the Laceys had pockets to let.
'He's come into a lady,' Buckley said. 'Our felicitations to you, Master Lacey.'
The room laughed and drank to me. I was not at all surprised they knew. Someone would have heard through the gossip network common to all villages that I was staying at Lady Southwick's, that I was betrothed to Lady Breckenridge, and how high a standing Lady Breckenridge had.
'Saw the fine carriages on the road,' Buckley went on. 'Soon you'll have the house opened up and be hosting posh do's.'
I gave him a good-natured smile. 'If my lady has her way, yes. In that case, I imagine I'll be right here most nights.'
That brought a collective laugh, hands thumping on tables.
'Surprised you deign to come here at all, Lacey,' Terrance broke in. 'Don't want your London friends despising you, do you? I hear tell you are great friends with the man who turned the brigadier out of his house.'
Faces turned to me again. Some men looked as belligerent as Terrance, others threw me glances of apology for Terrance's hostility.
'I would not say he is a great friend,' I said, keeping my voice steady. 'But yes, I know Mr. Denis. Apparently, he purchased the house from Brigadier Easton some years back.'
'First I've heard of it,' Terrance said.
'That he did,' Buckley broke in. 'The brigadier's boot boy is the wife's sister's son. This Mr. Denis used to come and shut himself up with Mr. Easton for days. Butler there said to the staff one day that Easton no longer owned the house but would live there same as always. Up 'til yesterday anyway.'
More eyes on me, some curious, some accusing. 'The brigadier went to the Continent,' I said.
'Why'd he want to do that, then?' Terrance asked.
I shrugged. 'Business, I suppose.'
Another man spoke up. 'Men crawling all over his house now, staff gone. Big, muscular gents. Maybe he's turning it into a brothel for unnaturals.'
This brought a laugh, one that held an edge of relief. Better to laugh at the ridiculous than stir tempers, as Terrance was determined to.
Before the laughter died away, someone told the listening fiddler to play. He started a lively tune, and men began to sing. I joined in, an old song, and I again felt the strange sense of going backward in time. I'd spent many an evening in this public house in the summers before I'd gone, using it as my sanctuary from the stifling anger of my father.
I stayed much longer than I meant to, singing and drinking with men I'd known long ago. When the publican finally turned us out, I paid him a few shillings for the use of his horse to get me back to Southwick Hall.
Terrance Quinn materialized from the shadows in the yard after Buckley had boosted me onto the horse and handed me my walking stick. Terrance caught the bridle with his good hand as I started to turn the horse away.
'You have a lot of cheek coming here, Lacey,' he said.
Terrance spoke in a tone I'd heard many times in soldiers-frustration with something in their lives led to fistfights about anything and everything.
'I live here.' My words slurred with too much ale. 'The cheek was in staying away too long.'
'You know what I mean. Rubbing our faces in your lofty friends and your lady viscountess, while the rest of us came back to nothing. Nothing. '
'If you think I've not suffered loss, you are wrong,' I said. 'Very wrong.' I could have begun a litany of the tragedy I'd been through but decided against it. Terrance and I trading a catalog of sorrows would border on the absurd.
'You don't know the meaning of suffering, Captain,' Terrance said, then he strode away into darkness.
Buckley had remained in the shadows during this exchange, and he came back to me once Terrance had gone. 'Never mind him, young master. He's a changed man. Can't blame him, you know, leaving an arm behind in Belgium, and then returning to find his cousin what he was betrothed to gone. No one knows where.'
Chapter Seven
Something stirred the fog beneath the large quantities of ale I'd consumed. A dress of virginal white, Lady Breckenridge touching it and frowning. 'His cousin? You mean Miss Helena Quinn?'
'Aye. She eloped with a man, so they say. None have heard of her since. Young Mr. Quinn has taken it hard.'
Well he might. The revelation sobered me a bit, and I rode out of the yard into the wind.
I was far gone in my cups, and how I reached Southwick Hall without sliding off that big horse, I never knew. Fortunately, he was a patient beast, a farm horse, and he knew the roads better than I did.
One of Lady Southwick's grooms got me dismounted. Bartholomew, anxiously waiting in the stable yard, took me upstairs to my chamber, but he left me there without helping me undress. I found out why when I let myself fall across the bed, still in my coat and boots.
I landed on something very soft and fine-smelling. She woke, and began to scold me.
In my exhaustion and inebriation, and to erase the picture of Ferguson with black blood clotted on what was left of his face, I gathered Donata to me and held her until I could breathe again.
I slept much later than I meant to, and when I awoke, Donata had gone. She'd left an indentation in mattress and pillows, but those had already grown cool with her absence. I snuggled into the nest she'd left, still half asleep.
I was pulled out of this pleasurable state by Bartholomew breezing into the room. 'Awake then, are you, Captain? Lady Southwick's compliments, and she wishes to see you.'
Not what I wanted to hear this early after a night of drinking. 'Why?' I mumbled.
'Couldn't say, sir. Message was conveyed to me by the butler who said it was not my place to ask. I'll have you fixed in a trice, sir.'
As he spoke, he banged about at the washstand. The scent of water steaming with mint came to me, along with the sound of Bartholomew stropping a razor against a long piece of leather.
I'd learned to succumb to his ministrations. First, because it saved argument; second, because Bartholomew was skilled. He'd learned how to take care of a gentleman from Gautier, Grenville's able manservant. Bartholomew could shave me without cutting me, would wrap a warm towel around my face to ease the razor's sting, and assist in my toilette without being too intrusive.
He had me shaved, bathed, and the ends trimmed from my unruly hair without taking too long and without rushing. Someday, a gentleman of means would catch on to how good a valet he was and snatch him away.
Bartholomew had even brought me a private repast, which I could barely touch, and mixed me the pick-me- up he'd learned from my landlady. My ability to think had returned by the time I reached the sitting room downstairs, and found that Lady Southwick had arranged a tete-a-tete.
She waited for me on a divan near the wide windows that looked out to her garden. The wind had blown away the clouds for now, and the wide Norfolk sky soared blue above the riotous flowers of the late summer garden.
I bowed to her. 'My lady, I apologize. I have been a most cavalier guest. I faced several unexpected turns of
