“Well?” Cosgrove said, as they went down the steps to the street. “What did you think of Brashdon?”
“He hates you, sir.”
“They all do. They’re afraid of what will happen to their fortunes once the slave trade’s abolished.” The earl began to stride along St. James’s Street. “What else did you notice? Hyde rather captured my attention.”
Charlotte hurried to catch up. “Brashdon was amused by your question, sir.”
“Amused?” Cosgrove halted and swung round to face her.
“Yes, sir.”
Cosgrove’s jaw tightened, as if he gritted his teeth. He exhaled a sharp breath through his nose. “Do you think he had anything to do with the attack?”
“I don’t know, sir. He seemed surprised, and amused, and then he caught me looking at him and . . . I looked away. I’m sorry, sir.”
She braced herself for Cosgrove’s anger, but the earl merely grunted and started walking again. At the corner, while a ragged youth swept the roadway clear of horse droppings, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was still frowning, but he seemed thoughtful, not angry. “Sir . . . were you trying to make Hyde call you out?”
Cosgrove glanced at her. “Yes.”
“He was afraid of you.”
“He was.” The earl stepped onto the street and tossed the street sweeper a coin.
Charlotte wrestled with her curiosity as they retraced their route, crossing Piccadilly, walking the length of Berkeley Street, cutting across Berkeley Square. When they turned into Mount Street, she asked: “Sir . . . have you fought duels before?”
“No.”
“Then why was Hyde afraid of you?”
“Because I’m good with a sword, and even better with a pistol.” It wasn’t a boast, just a matter-of-fact statement.
“Better than Hyde?”
“Yes.” They strode down Charles Street. Grosvenor Square opened out in front of them.
The earl halted.
Charlotte halted, too. She followed the direction of his gaze. Cosgrove’s townhouse was one of the larger edifices, its chimney stacks towering above the square. She couldn’t see anything to warrant the frown on his face. The steps were clean of refuse. The rows of elegant sash windows were unbroken. “Sir?”
“I have no wish to be penniless, Albin. I like my house, and my estates.”
She glanced at him, surprised by the harsh note in his voice.
“But I would give it all away and live in a peasant’s hovel before I’d have slaves.”
It was an extravagant statement, but the flatness of Cosgrove’s voice, the matching grimness of his face, made it believable.
Charlotte nodded, unsure what to say.
Cosgrove seemed to shake off his dark mood. He crossed the square briskly and climbed the steps two at a time. “Forget the accounts,” he said, as they entered, their footsteps ringing on the polished marble floor. “We’ll pay Barnaby a visit. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes. You may wait for me in the library.”
The butler, Fellowes, showed Charlotte where the library was. Unlike Monkwood’s butler, he smiled as he opened the door for her, an affable expression.
“Thank you.”
Monkwood’s library had been showy; Cosgrove’s was comfortable, with leather armchairs and scattered Turkish rugs. A large globe stood on one of the tables. Charlotte touched it with a finger, making it spin slowly, watching the continents come into view and then vanish. As the earl’s secretary, would she travel with him? Perhaps to the West Indies?
Do I really want to see slaves being flogged?
Charlotte grimaced, and turned away from the globe. An open door caught her eye. She crossed to it, her boots sinking silently in the thick rugs, and peered inside.
Marcus strode into the library. “Albin—” The sound issuing from the music room froze his words on his tongue.
The world seemed to lurch sideways.
Lavinia was alive. She was in the music room. She was playing the pianoforte.
Marcus shook his head sharply, breaking the spell. He crossed the library, halted in the doorway to the music room, and stared.
I’ll be damned.
Albin sat at the pianoforte. His hands moved over the keys, fluent, assured, effortless. He didn’t notice that he had an audience; he was focused utterly on the sheets of music in front of him.
Marcus leaned against the doorframe and listened. The piece was one he’d heard before; Lavinia had practiced it from time to time. Under her hands it had been pretty enough. It wasn’t pretty now. It filled the room, vibrating with life, with passion, with joy.
The music halted abruptly.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Albin scrambled up from the piano stool, a blush blooming on his face. “I should have asked your permission—”
“Nonsense. Play as often as you like.”
“Sir?” A footman entered the library. “The carriage is here.”
“Excellent. Come along, lad. Let’s be off.”
Albin obediently followed him. “Where does Sir Barnaby live?”
“Surrey.”
“Surrey? But—”
“We’ll stop at your lodgings on the way. Ah, Fellowes.” Marcus accepted his hat and gloves from the butler. “I expect to be gone no more than two days.”
“Very good, sir.”
Marcus stepped outside. His traveling chaise was drawn up at the foot of the steps, the Cosgrove crest gleaming on the door panels. He took a deep breath. Surrey.
He hated Surrey. Hated the memories.
Marcus forced himself to stride down the steps. “Where do you live?” he asked Albin.
“Uh . . . Montock Street, sir.”
“Montock Street,” Marcus told the coachman.
He climbed into the carriage. Albin scrambled in after him. The door swung shut.
The traveling chaise swayed gently as the footmen clambered into the rumble seat, then lurched forward. Towards Surrey. Where Barnaby had cuckolded him. Where Lavinia had killed herself—
“Is your valet not coming, sir?”
Marcus wrenched his attention back to Albin. “We’ll only be gone a night or two.” He settled back in his seat, stretching his legs out, crossing them at the ankle. “Leggatt likes to believe that I can’t function without him, but I am perfectly capable of dressing myself.” His gaze fell on Albin’s neckcloth, lopsided and somewhat wrinkled. “Unlike some of us.”
Albin raised a hand and fumbled with his neckcloth.
“Don’t. You’re making it worse.”
Albin flushed. He folded his hands on his lap. “I beg your pardon, sir.”
He looked so abashed that Marcus laughed. “Lad, what am I going to do with you?”
“You don’t have to do anything, sir,” Albin said earnestly.
No. He didn’t. And yet he felt a sense of responsibility towards the lad, an odd protectiveness.
Marcus pondered this as the carriage traversed Mayfair and entered the narrow warren of streets near the Thames. For all his twenty-five years, Albin was as green as an unbreeched babe. He needed someone to look out for him until he acquired some town bronze. A friend. Someone his own age. Did the lad know anyone in London? Am I his sole acquaintance?
The carriage halted. A moment later, the door opened. “Montock Street, sir,” one of his liveried footman said.
Albin scrambled down from the carriage. “I shan’t be more than five minutes, sir.”
Marcus climbed leisurely down and looked around. Montock Street was as shabby as a man down on his luck. The buildings were tattered and patched. Shutters hung askew and rubbish overflowed in the gutters.
Marcus frowned. Why on earth was Albin lodging in such a ramshackle neighborhood?
He crossed the street, avoiding the worst of the puddles, and followed Albin into his lodgings. The building reeked of onions and tallow and urine.
Albin’s room was halfway down the corridor. Marcus surveyed it from the doorway. The room was scarcely larger than a closet, with a bare wooden floor and a broken-paned window. Water stains and mold decorated the ceiling and walls. Albin knelt beside the narrow bed, stuffing a shirt into a valise.
Albin’s head jerked around. “Sir!” He stood hurriedly, his face reddening. “I didn’t expect— Uh . . . wouldn’t you prefer to wait in the carriage, sir?”
Marcus examined the room again, noting the flaking gray whitewash on the walls, the broken floorboard in the corner, the threadbare blankets and sagging mattress. A three-legged stool was crammed into the narrow space between the bed and the wall. On it were a pair of spectacles and the stub of a tallow candle. The only other furniture was a lopsided wooden chair on which Albin’s clothes were stacked. Several hooks had been hammered into the walls. From these a shirt, a wrinkled neckcloth, and a pair of stockings hung drying.
There was no fireplace. How did the lad keep warm?
I told him I’d rather live in a hovel than own slaves—and he’s actually living in one. “Why the devil are you lodging here?” Marcus demanded.
“It’s all I can afford, sir.”
“That’s easily remedied.” Marcus dug in his pocket and pulled out several folded banknotes. He peeled off two notes and held them out. “Here.”
Albin put his hands behind his back. “I haven’t earned—”
“Consider this an advance on your wages. You may update the ledger when we get back.”
Albin hesitated, and then took the banknotes. “Thank you, sir.”
“Bring everything with you.” The thought of Albin returning to this cramped, dismal little room was abhorrent. “You may stay at Grosvenor Square until you find better lodgings.”
“With you, sir?” Albin looked taken aback. “I couldn’t possibly—”
“Nonsense. You can’t wish to remain here.”
Albin opened his mouth as if to disagree, and then shut it.
Stop mollycoddling him, Marcus told himself. “Lionel had good rooms in Chandlers Street,” he said briskly. “They may still be available.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Hurry up, lad. I’d like to reach Hazelbrook by nightfall.”
“Yes, sir.” Albin hauled a portmanteau from under the sagging bed. He grabbed the pile of clothes on the chair and crammed them into the portmanteau.
A piece of paper pinned to the wall caught Marcus’s attention. He stepped into the room for a closer look. It was a page ripped from a book, a drawing of a young man wearing a toga and holding a lyre. Beneath it was written: Orpheus.
“Good Lord.” He bent to examine it more closely. “What an extraordinary resemblance.”
“What? Oh!” Albin snatched the paper from the wall and crumpled it in his hands. “It’s nothing, sir.”
“May I see it?” Marcus held out his hand.
Albin hesitated, and then gave him the drawing.
Marcus smoothed the creases and studied it. Orpheus didn’t just resemble Albin, he looked exactly like Albin—the shape of his face, the arrangement of jaw and cheekbones and nose, the wide-set eyes. “Extraordinary. Where’s it from?”
“Swiffen’s Cyclopaedia.” Albin’s fingers made tiny plucking movements, as if he wanted to snatch the page from Marcus’s grip, but didn’t quite dare.
Marcus ignored his secretary and examined the drawing. The likeness was uncanny. Even the way Orpheus’s hair curled back from his brow was the same as Albin’s. He’d swear the lad had been the model for the drawing—but Swiffen’s Cyclopaedia had been published a good fifty years ago. “Extraordinary,” he said again, and relinquished the drawing to Albin.
Albin shoved the page into the portmanteau. He stripped the drying clothes from the hooks and thrust them in on top, closed it, and fastened the buckles.
“Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus picked up the valise.
Albin’s expression became horrified. “You can’t carry that, sir! You’re an earl!”
“My earldom does not make me incapable of carrying luggage.”
“But, sir—”
Marcus turned on his heel. He strode back down the malodorous corridor. Behind him, he heard Albin hurrying to catch up, puffing as he lugged the heavy portmanteau.