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Amanda’s fever raged on. Guy sat by her bedside talking endlessly in the hope that she’d hear. He helped tend to her bodily needs and slept fitfully during the daytime, and obediently went for rides because Martelo and Rookwood insisted on fresh air and sunshine. He went home for clean clothes on the fourth day and discovered that a box had arrived for Amanda. It was The Secret of Darkdown, her book. He took a copy with him, praying she’d one day see it, even hoping that authorial pride might call her back.
He was sitting with her the next morning, exhausted. He hadn’t woken Martelo to ask for help; he’d become reasonably expert at giving her the decoction by now and he no longer panicked as her fever worsened in the night. Or, rather, he had become so used to living in constant panic that it felt almost like calm. Martelo was looking fairly grey himself, after the days and nights wrestling with Amanda’s illness, and Guy needed him to be well because he’d pinned his fading hope on the dark, intense man, and he didn’t know what he’d do otherwise. He didn’t want to think about speaking to Dr. Bewdley again after offending him so deeply, and was thinking of exactly that in a distant, exhausted way when he heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Guy?”
He looked down. Amanda looked up. Not the blank creature of pain and fever, but Amanda, with recognition in her eyes.
“Manda?”
“I feel...” She swallowed. “Awful.”
“Oh God. Oh, Manda. Just—just stay there.” He rang the bell frantically, and turned back to take her hand. It felt noticeably cooler, and so did her head. “Manda.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Nothing. I was just fretting a little, you know how I do. No, don’t try to move. You broke your leg, do you remember?”
“It hurts.”
“I bet it does.” A servant poked his head in. Guy rapped, “Dr. Martelo, quick!” for all the world as though it were his house. “You had a bad break and a very nasty fever and, uh...we’re in Rookwood Hall.”
Amanda blinked at that, her mouth moving slightly. It ought to have been a delighted shriek. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as you feel more the thing,” Guy assured her. “You need to rest now, and have some of your medicine.”
He got her to sip the drink. She made protesting noises at its bitterness, for which Guy couldn’t blame her, and at which he was unspeakably relieved. He’d tasted the vile stuff and the fact that she’d swallowed without noisy complaint had been one of the more unsettling features of her illness.
Rapid steps rattled down the hall, and Martelo burst into the room like an unkempt hurricane. “Frisby? What is it?”
Guy swallowed. “The fever. I think it might have broken.”
The doctor brushed past him without ceremony, but he took Amanda’s wrist with all the delicacy of a gentleman handling a duchess. “Well, now. Well. Good morning, Miss Frisby. My name is David Martelo, your physician. You’ve given us all a fine scare.”
Jane arrived a little later, slipping into the room with an alarmed look, and giving a great sob when she saw Amanda’s improved state. By then Dr. Martelo had satisfied himself and Guy that the fever had passed, the swelling in her leg was markedly reduced, and Amanda, though weak and in need of sustenance, was unquestionably on the mend. Guy hovered, smiling through tears of happiness and exhaustion, until Martelo turned and clapped him on the arm. “Go to bed, man. She’s going to recover, I’ll stake my life on it, and you’re burned to the socket. I don’t want to see you again until the afternoon. Out.”
Guy emerged into the corridor. He ought to have breakfast, he supposed, but he was drained beyond speech with relief and the backwash of days of pent-up fear, and all he wanted was sleep. He made his way into the hall and came up against the entirety of the Murder, the whole gaggle of them standing in the hall, talking in hushed voices.
Guy stopped, abruptly aware of his bedraggled state and tear-stained cheeks. Rookwood met his eyes and strode forward, face tense. “Frisby. What’s happened? Is it—? Is there anything at all I can do?”
Guy blinked, and then realised what he meant. “No! I mean, no, it’s not, she’s not— The fever broke. She’s looking better. I think she’s going to recover.”
Rookwood took that in, and then he smiled. It was extraordinary. Guy hadn’t really paid much attention to his appearance, beyond fair hair and an expression that suggested supercilious boredom or mockery most of the time. Now a huge, broad, entirely real smile took over and transformed his face, and suddenly he looked wonderful.
Rookwood grabbed his shoulders. Guy thought for a second he would be pulled into a hug, and wouldn’t even have cared. “Excellent. Excellent. Oh, well done, the Frisbys.”
And then there were men all round him, the short round-faced one yelping with glee, Mr. Raven shaking his hand, Lord Corvin enthusiastically proclaiming Dr. Martelo’s virtues—in fact the lot of them rejoicing at Amanda’s deliverance with as much honest pleasure as though they weren’t a notorious hellfire club at all.
***
THAT AFTERNOON, GUY emerged from a sleep so deep it was more like unconsciousness. He lay in bed blinking his way back to full awareness, and remembered. Amanda’s fever had broken. It was—surely, maybe?—going to be all right. Though there was still her leg to mend, and the chance of her walking with a limp all her life, probably an ugly scar. And Dr. Bewdley would have to be propitiated since Guy had sorely wounded his vanity, and they had now to think about their sojourn at Rookwood Hall among a group of men who might not be quite as bad as everyone said, but that wouldn’t count for anything if everyone went on saying so, and then there was Aunt Beatrice. If she heard that Guy and Amanda were here, the consequences would be unspeakable. Guy could perhaps write to her and explain, but she was not very easy to explain things to, especially where Amanda was concerned. Guy could very easily imagine her descending on them to insist Amanda was moved right away; he found it less easy to imagine himself standing his ground to resist her. It was quite hard to stand up to someone who held your existence in the palm of her hand.
It might be better not to write at all, and hope she never found out. Rookwood clearly understood Amanda’s invidious position, and there was no reason the news should spread. But if she did find out and he hadn’t told her...
He was fretting. Stop it, he told himself. Amanda is going to get better. Enjoy not worrying for five minutes, can’t you?
Someone had left a jug outside his room, the water still warm enough for him to wash and shave in reasonable comfort. Guy dressed with care, for the first time in several days. He assessed himself in the mirror, ruefully aware that his complexion was rather ashy and the dark smears of exhaustion under his eyes all too visible. Still, he was presentable.
He gave his cravat a last tweak, headed out of the bedroom with a confident stride, and promptly got lost.
It wasn’t entirely his fault. The old Jacobean house was a maze; getting from his remote bedroom to the main stair involved four turnings; and he had no recollection of the last few days beyond the constant blurring hum of panic. Nevertheless he’d been up and down to and from this room multiple times. He ought to have known the way, but he hadn’t actually paid attention to his feet in the glow of relief. He’d somehow taken the wrong dark, narrow corridor, and now he had no idea where he was.
Well, the house couldn’t be that big. Surely walking would bring him to a stair of some kind. He went on past a row of mediocre oil paintings of stocky men with large chins and found himself faced with a narrow spiral stair going up and down, or a corridor off to the left. One room had an open door, and he heard a voice coming from behind it.
He decided he’d poke his head round the door and ask for guidance. It made more sense than wandering, and in any case he was starving hungry and disinclined to waste more time. He went up to the door, hand poised to knock politely, and his intended Excuse me stuck in his throat.
Rookwood and Corvin were there. Corvin was leaning back, one knee on a couch, and Rookwood was standing over him, very close, far too close. He had one hand cupping the back of Corvin’s head. The other, Guy saw numbly, was unfastening his own breeches.
Corvin was looking up at Rookwood with a truly Satanic grin—the Devil’s Lord, they called him, and that grin was all the reason anyone needed—and as Guy stared, unnoticed, he said, “I’ve missed your cock, my lovely.”
“That must make a change,” Rookwood said. “After all, you haven’t missed many.”
Corvin laughed, open and unashamed. “I adore you.”
Rookwood leaned down and kissed him. It was a deep kiss, open-mouthed but very tender, and then he straightened, gave Corvin a gentle but authoritative shove to the shoulder, and pulled the front flap of his breeches open and down. “Right. Let’s have you.”
Guy stepped back, away, managing somehow to remember not to make a noise, not to run, not to panic. If they thought he was spying, that he’d seen—seen—
What had he seen?
He wasn’t entirely ignorant. He read the newspapers with their breathless denunciations of abominable offences and he read Greek and Latin literature, a lot of it, in his unexpurgated editions, carefully obtained without thinking too much about why it was important they should be unexpurgated. He knew his Petronius and Suetonius, his Catullus and Lucretius and Martial, very well indeed. But that was printed words, the pictures only in one’s head. It wasn’t two flesh and blood men smiling into one another’s eyes, kissing, planning to do heaven knew what in the filthiest language.
He’d thought the hellfire club’s reputation was a nonsense. How wrong had he been? How could he not have even noticed that he found himself amid such... Depravity, his mind supplied, and that must be the word, except for that kiss.
My lovely. I adore you.
Guy wanted to leave the house. He wanted to wipe it all from his mind. He wanted not to be aware of the uncomfortable, squirmy feeling in his gut and the heat in his face and the fact that he hadn’t walked away at once, or raised the roof in moral outrage. The fact that he’d been momentarily transfixed.
Startled, he told himself. He’d been startled. Of course he had. Anyone would be.
He hadn’t even noticed where he was going as he hurried away, cursing Corvin and Rookwood and their outrageous, immoral, unforgivable leaving-open of doors, and it seemed a cruel irony that he found himself at the main stair without even trying.
He wanted to go back to his room and hide, but there was Amanda. He came downstairs in a rush and went straight to the sickroom. She was awake, with Jane in the corner, sewing, and the short one of the Murder sitting by the bedside, reading aloud from a book.
“‘The cold of the flagstones seeped through her thin shoes, but it was nothing to the chill at her heart. For that night, Araminta had seen evil.’ Hello, Mr. Frisby.” The man put a paper in the book to mark the place, as Guy gaped in horror. “I was just reading to your sister. I’m not sure we’ve been introduced? Sheridan Street.”
“Guy Frisby,” Guy said numbly. “Uh, that book...”
“It’s awfully good.” Street was a few inches below Guy’s height, with very boyish looks and a beardless chin. “I’m dying to know What Araminta Saw.” He emphasised the capitals dramatically.
“You can borrow it,” Amanda whispered. “If you like. I’ve read it.”
Guy turned to her, pleasure at hearing her voice warring with a desire to scream. “I’m really not sure—”
“He brought you something you’d read before? Brothers,” Street said with contempt. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the new Mrs. Swann with me. I’ll leave you to it,” he added to Guy. “I just popped in to say good afternoon.”
Guy looked after him as he left, then turned to Amanda. She gave him a weak smile. “Hello, you.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Awful. My leg hurts and my head hurts and the medicine is vile.” Amanda sounded petulant; it reminded Guy of his father, once the drink had weakened his constitution past repair. He’d spent months dying at home, in such a querulous, fretful way that the house had felt like a conspiracy after his death in the shared guilt of relief.
He shook off the thought. At least the self-absorption of the invalid meant Amanda hadn’t read any distress on his face. She was cursedly acute in good health.
Guy rang for something to eat and drink, and settled down to sit with her, chatting lightly until she slept again. She was still incurious as to their company. He doubted that would last.
It was past four once he’d had tea, bread and butter, and cake. He went out, intending to take the fresh air and exercise on which Dr. Martelo insisted, and bumped into Sir Philip Rookwood.
“Ah, Frisby. Congratulations again on your sister’s improvement.” Rookwood looked more relaxed than usual: satisfied, even, and Guy was not going to think of what sort of satisfaction he’d found at Corvin’s hands. “I trust her health continues to improve?”
“Uh,” Guy managed. He couldn’t look Rookwood in the face; he didn’t want to look any lower. He fixed his eyes on the man’s neck instead. He was casually dressed, his cravat in a loose knot—or, perhaps, pulled loose from its original arrangement, revealing a bit more of his throat than usual. He was well shaved, not as smoothly as Street, but without a hint of stubble. His lips were curved. He was smiling. He was smiling at Guy, with a slightly puzzled air.
“Frisby?”
“Yes. Thank you. Sorry, sorry, I mean—”
“Good Lord, stop. I only asked how she was.”
“Yes. I mean, well. I was just going for a walk.”
“Right,” Rookwood said. “I’ll just come with you, shall I? Wouldn’t want you to get lost in the grounds. Still less to step in a rabbit hole and break your leg; we’ve had enough of that.”
Guy should have refused. He should probably have turned from Rookwood with disdain, except he’d been accepting the man’s hospitality for days, and also that casual reference to getting lost sent him into a flurry of panic over whether Rookwood knew he’d been lost in the house. By the time he’d realised that didn’t make sense, he was walking down the drive with his host, who’d been kissing Viscount Corvin and doubtless worse not an hour earlier.
“Are you interested in the history of the Hall?” Rookwood asked. “I ask with the reservation that it has none of note, and no architectural merit either. And also that I know nothing about it. Other than that I’m sure I could speak fascinatingly on the topic.”
“You must know about your own house,” Guy protested, without thinking.
“It wasn’t meant to be mine,” Rookwood said. “As you probably remember.”
That was a startling thing to hear. Guy opened his mouth and found himself unsure what to say.
“It has occurred to me that I ought to apologise,” Rookwood went on. “Not that I had any part in James’s actions, but I can’t help feeling his responsibility has descended upon me along with his house. For what little it’s worth, I regret the wrong done by one whose name I bear to your family. I imagine the consequences were unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant. Yes, it was rather unpleasant,” Guy said. “He ruined my father. He tainted our name beyond repair and made us all the objects of contempt and mockery. He took my mother away.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight. Amanda was five. We never saw her again.”
“No,” Rookwood said. “Again, I am sorry. There’s not much more to be said than that, but if my regret for the part James played in this is of any use to you, you have it.”
They were walking as they spoke, around the maligned house. Rookwood Hall didn’t have much in the way of gardens, no tended flowerbeds. All the cultivation Guy could see was fruit trees and what looked to be a kitchen garden.
“The part he played,” he said. “What does that mean?”
Rookwood shrugged. “He didn’t abduct Mrs. Frisby. She made a choice.”
“What do you mean by that?” Guy demanded furiously.
“Exactly what I say; it wasn’t an insult. I hold that women ought to have the same right and duty to self-governance as men, for good or ill. They don’t, legally, but that doesn’t make them any the less moral beings.”
Talk of moral beings and self-governance from a pleasure-seeking rake was so ludicrously unexpected and hypocritical that Guy lost his breath. Rookwood went on unawares. “I can’t apologise for your mother’s decisions because they aren’t mine to account for, even by proxy. I should prefer to put the bad blood between the Frisbys and the Rookwoods to rest if I can. That’s all.”
As if he’d intended anything of the kind; as if any olive branch could stretch over the abyss between them. “I see. Is that why you offered us your hospitality when you very clearly didn’t want to?”
“Oh, dear. I had hoped it wasn’t too obvious.”
Guy swung round to face him and was stopped in his tracks by Rookwood’s smile. It was real, and amused, and relaxed. He looked— Guy crushed back the memory of the smile when he’d bent to kiss Corvin. He couldn’t find anything to say.
“Quite seriously, anyone in such a plight would have had a claim on my hospitality,” Rookwood said. “I’m not a monster. And David Martelo wouldn’t have permitted any other course of action.”
“I must ask,” Guy said stiffly, one of the ongoing worries he hadn’t considered rising up like bubbles in a stew. “The doctor, and the woman you hired. Their fees—”
“I should take it as a personal favour if you would allow me to account for that.”
“Certainly not.” Guy fervently wished he could accept. Heaven knew what extortionate prices a London doctor like Martelo could demand. He and Amanda lived within their allowance, but not so far within that they had guineas to spare. He prayed Amanda’s ten pounds from the publisher would cover it.
“My house, my responsibility,” Rookwood said. “And if you want David paid at all you’ll let me do it. He’s far too involved now; he won’t take a penny from you.”
“But he will from you?”
“I can manage David Martelo.”
Manage. Guy shoved down thoughts of that, and the commanding Let’s have you. Oblivious, Rookwood went on, “And you wouldn’t even have needed the woman were it not for the need to safeguard your sister’s reputation in my house. An attendant’s fee is cheap at the price if the alternative is offering my hand in marriage.”
Guy’s mouth worked for a moment while the outrage rose up inside him like a pot boiling over, and then it erupted. “Of course you would rather anything but that! I suppose you think my sister is beneath you because of—of what happened? Well, she isn’t, and if she was it would be your damned brother’s fault, but she’s not and let me assure you,” he said furiously, ignoring Rookwood’s efforts to get a word in, “she wouldn’t dream of stooping so low as to a man of your reputation and—and vile habits. And you may keep your bribes. I don’t want to owe you anything!”
“Hoi!” Rookwood almost shouted. “Will you please calm down?”
“No! Your family is an affront to decency and your coven here is even worse with your murders and disgraceful goings-on, and— Just stay away from my sister!” Guy turned on his heel and stormed off, ignoring Rookwood’s, “Frisby...” because he could hear the amusement in it. The damned swine was laughing. Laughing! How dare he laugh? What made him think he could ridicule Guy?
It took him about five minutes’ walk off the grounds and down a country lane to conclude the answer was: because he was ridiculous. Coven? Murders? He’d read Amanda’s book again the previous night in the intervals while she’d slept, and the spirit of the damned thing had apparently seeped into his brain.
He attempted to tell himself that he’d been justified in his fury, if not his words, and walked on fuming, but a mile or so in the afternoon sun sucked all the anger out of him and left him feeling nothing but foolish. Rookwood’s remark had been extraordinary, yes, not the kind of thing anyone would say, but he seemed to make a habit of shockingly blunt remarks. Guy had taken it as a caustic dismissal of Amanda’s suitability as a bride, because he’d heard that too often, and between the days and nights of terror and that quivering sensation in his belly at what he’d seen, it had all become too much to be borne.
It wasn’t remotely unreasonable, if one was fair about it, that a man would prefer not to marry an inconvenient invalid with whom he’d never exchanged a word. And that went double when he had Lord Corvin murmuring his adoration. Lord Corvin was a very attractive man, or at least Guy supposed he must be, with a smile that would doubtless be devastating if that was the sort of thing one wanted. It was quite clearly the sort of thing that Rookwood wanted, law or no.
And Rookwood had let Guy and Amanda ruin his party, and he’d apologised for his brother and even offered to pay the bills that had been nibbling at the edges of Guy’s tenuous calm. And in return Guy had taken the first opportunity to shout at him for no reason except that his nerves were red raw and he couldn’t stop picturing Corvin on the couch, and Rookwood smiling down at him.
“Oh Lord,” he said aloud. What could he do now? What if Rookwood’s mood went from amusement to offence? What if he demanded Amanda should be removed and her leg was injured, or he turned Martelo against them, or he forbade Guy the house and left him unable to care for his sister?
“Stop it!” he said aloud to the teeming thoughts in his brain, and walked faster, as though he could outrun his own stupidity.
He’d been walking for an hour or so, and was on his way back, when he heard hoofbeats. A rider was approaching at a quick trot, and Guy recognised the lean build with a dull sense of inevitability.
Rookwood reined in his horse, approaching at a walk, and looked down from his superior vantage.
“Mr. Frisby. Could we, perhaps, speak? I seem to owe you another apology.”
Guy blinked up at him. “What?”
Rookwood swung down off his horse, a graceful movement. His riding breeches were evidently of excellent manufacture, and stretched well over his long, muscular legs. “An apology. I am prone to flippancy, and I feel you detected disrespect to Miss Frisby where none was intended. Nevertheless, the misunderstanding arose from my misplaced sense of humour, and for that I apologise.”
Guy gaped like a fish. “But— I was awfully rude to you.”
“You were,” Rookwood agreed. “But you have a duty to Miss Frisby’s name, so it was quite correct to take up arms, whereas I have John Raven and Lord Corvin as bosom friends, and thus barely notice insult, much as a beekeeper no longer feels the stings. And you have also had a rather trying few days, so perhaps we might simply agree to put that exchange behind us.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Guy muttered, face burning.
“Think no more of it. Now, I spoke to David. He assures me that Miss Frisby’s progress is excellent and, even better, we have finally secured a capable nurse who will take the night watch, assuming that meets with your approval. If you would like a second truckle bed made up downstairs, say the word, but David does not think it necessary, and begs that you will have a proper night’s sleep. Before that, I hope you will join the rest of us for dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“The evening meal,” Rookwood explained with great gravity. “We really are quite civilised, and not as bad a set as popular opinion holds. Except Corvin, but one can’t help that. Don’t dress.” He lifted his hat, mounted with effortless elegance, wheeled his horse, and set off back down the path, leaving Guy gaping.
***
HE TRUDGED BACK TO the house and sat with Amanda for an hour. She mostly dozed, and Guy watched her, the natural sleep, the better colour in her face. If everything else was a calamity, he could still not regret that she had come to this house and Dr. Martelo’s care.
The prospect of dinner loomed over him like shades of the prison house. He was not looking forward to this and felt a dreadful certainty that it was some joke at his expense, some opportunity for mockery, as when the bigger boys invited one to play and then it turned out one was to be the ball.
Surely not. Rookwood apologised, he told himself, and They were pleased for Amanda, truly. It did no good, because he couldn’t stop thinking, What if Rookwood knows I saw him?
Guy was well aware that he could march to the local magistrate and lay charges. Possibly some people in his position might feel that made them powerful. He didn’t. For one thing, the idea of bringing charges against one’s host was repugnant. For another, he was well aware that if Rookwood felt threatened, he could all too easily retaliate. Guy’s mind was as fertile as Amanda’s in its own perverse way: he could come up with infinite paths leading to disaster. The things the Murder could say, destroying Amanda’s reputation all over again, making Guy look a weakling or a pander, making them talked about. Guy loathed being talked about; it made him nauseous even to imagine people gossiping and whispering and sneering.
Well, if Rookwood had offered this olive branch because he was aware Guy knew his secret—or because he feared it after the stupid accusations Guy had flung—Guy would take it. He would give Rookwood no reason to consider him a threat. He would do his best to be polite and go unnoticed, and Rookwood’s companions would doubtless forget about him quickly because Guy was eminently forgettable.
He just prayed he wasn’t seated next to Lord Corvin.
He came down to dinner at the gong, wondering if everyone else would appear in the correct black garb despite Rookwood’s assurances, and was relieved to see they did not. The very opposite, in fact. The stocky man with a Northern accent was frankly rather shabby and Mr. Raven’s cuffs and wrists bore smears: not dirt, but bright colours. Rookwood and Corvin both looked admirable, but the balance of the gathering was entirely normal.
Rookwood made the introductions, for those whose names Guy hadn’t previously grasped. George Penn, a composer, was the other black man in the group, slightly older than the rest of them, with skin of a markedly lighter shade than Raven’s. The quiet fellow with prematurely greying hair was Ned Caulfield, another musician. Guy had heard the piano and violin distantly over the last few days and was glad to express his admiration.
The Northerner, introduced as Harry Salcombe, said he worked with Mr. Street. “I’m a geologist,” he explained.
“You study the Earth?” Guy hazarded.
“And its formation, yes.”
“Oh.” It sounded rather dull, but Guy knew what was required. “That’s fascinating. Could you tell me more?”
“Oh dear,” Corvin said, from the top of the table. “On your own head be it.”
“Well, Mr. Frisby,” Mr. Salcombe said, visibly settling in. “How do you imagine the Earth came to be?”
Guy blinked. “Well, Creation. The Bible tells us—”
There was a chorus of hisses, as though everyone present had inhaled sharply, and Mr. Street said, “Be gentle with him, Harry.” Mr. Salcombe flashed him a grin, turned back to Guy, and began to explain the beginnings of the world.
The next hour was a blur. Guy had no interest in modern science whatsoever, still less in rocks, and preferred the classics to the Age of Reason in which they supposedly lived and of which he saw little evidence. But Mr. Salcombe’s enthusiasm was matched only by his imagination. He started by dismissing the Book of Genesis as a goatherders’ fairy tale and, while Guy was still reeling at the blasphemy, went on to assert that the earth had been created not six thousand years ago, as proved by Bible genealogy, but millions, and not by a benevolent God but in lava and flood and fire. He spoke of creation and a painful birth, of land emerging from chaos and destruction, until Guy could take no more.
“All this is just wild speculation. We’ve thousands of years of scholarship, and Biblical research, which tells us the age of the world.”
“Aye, six thousand years old if you add up the generations in the Book of Genesis.” Mr. Salcombe rolled his eyes. “On the one hand, one old book, translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. On the other, the evidence of stone and earth and our own eyes. What do you think your God gave us eyes for, and minds too, if not to look at things and think about what we see?”
“But you don’t see it,” Guy protested. He wasn’t generally argumentative, and certainly not with strangers, but this was too disturbing to be borne. “You may draw certain conclusions from looking at rocks, perhaps, but how does that constitute more than a theory? How does that allow you to dismiss thousands of years of scholarly thought? What proof have you?”
“Hold on,” Street said, leaping up, and almost ran from the room.
“There’s plenty of scholarly thought behind geology,” Salcombe said, entirely unruffled by Guy’s challenge. “Avicenna, who was a Persian scholar of eight centuries ago—”
“I know who Avicenna is,” Guy said, somewhat nettled.
“You should read him on the formation of mountains, then. And James Hutton, too, Theory of the Earth, same thing. Six thousand years, indeed.”
Street hurried back into the room, something in his hand. “You wanted to see something? Try this.”
“For God’s sake,” Rookwood said. “You bring those things around the country with you?”
“I found that one.” Salcombe spoke with a note in his voice Guy couldn’t interpret.
He wasn’t really paying attention anyway, because Street had handed him, of all things, an oval stone split along its length. Guy cautiously took the two halves apart and saw a thing.
It might have been a carving, except that the other half of the stone fitted it too perfectly, and the thing seemed to be in a different sort of orange rock which was nevertheless of a single piece with the grey stone. It was some sort of insect, over three inches long, with a great helmeted head and antenna and far too many legs, depicted in startlingly clear detail, and Guy had never seen anything that resembled it in his life.
“What is it?”
“Pediculus marinus major trilobos. Lyttleton found a great number in the limestone pits at Dudley.”
“But what is it?”
“That’s what it is,” Street said. “It’s a kind of sea louse, what we call fossilised, preserved in stone. They’ve been gone from the earth for thousands and thousands of years. Specimens have been found all over the world, and they can reach a foot in length.”
“A foot?” Guy tried to imagine what this flattened, leggy thing might have looked like in life and at the length of his forearm. He failed. “How is it so big, when lice are so tiny?”
“Many creatures were huge then. We’ve found thigh-bones of creatures larger than elephants, the teeth of unimaginable predators. The remnants of a world before ours.” Street’s eyes were distant, seeing a vista Guy couldn’t imagine. “A world of life gone to dust, or to stone, before humans were thought of. And there are so many more creatures like this, so many different species. Plants, animals, insects. A whole dead kingdom under our feet.”
“Cheery, isn’t he?” Corvin said.
Rookwood sighed theatrically. “Knowledge is the highest pursuit of man and the spur to all progress, and you treat it as drawing-room entertainment.”
“But,” Guy said. The stone louse sat cold in his palm, an alien, terrifying thing. How could it be this old? He had a book in his possession that was a hundred and fifty years old, and barely touched it because of the crumbling edges of the paper. Human achievement gone to powder, while this mindless thing of stone lasted millennia. He felt peculiar just thinking about it. “Entire species?”
“Animals the like of which you’ve never seen. Far, far more than this.” Street held out his small, callused hand for the stone.
Guy gave it back reluctantly. “It’s an extraordinary thing, I grant you. But—but really, how does this square with the teachings of the Church?”
“Well, it doesn’t,” Salcombe said. “That’s all.”
“Or you could suggest that the book of Genesis might be read as an extended metaphor, or perhaps that our translations from the original Hebrew lack nuance,” Rookwood said. “There are many great minds attempting to reconcile the new learning with, ah, revealed truth. But I’m afraid you won’t find any of them here. This is for the most part an irreligious gathering. Atheistical, even.”
Guy’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t quite sure if atheism was legal; it certainly wasn’t acceptable in decent company. He’d never met a self-confessed atheist in his life until this bizarre sojourn. He’d also never met a black man, a Jew, or a geologist. Or a viscount, come to that. He wasn’t sure exactly how his quiet rural existence had brought him to this point, but Amanda would be wringing every detail out of him for months.
He cleared his throat. “As a Christian, I cannot approve.”
Corvin rolled his eyes; Rookwood sighed audibly. Guy flushed. He’d sounded intolerably prissy even in his own ears, and worse, he was being cowardly. He ought to do more than disapprove: he should defend his faith in the strongest terms against these atheists with their wild theories that cut at the heart of everything he’d ever been taught. But he’d held a dead stone monster in his hand and he couldn’t find anything to say.
Raven opened his mouth. Penn said, mildly, “Every man is entitled to his beliefs.”
“Yes, any man has a right to his beliefs, and a duty to question them too,” Raven retorted. “If you don’t take out your beliefs for washing now and again, they’re just bad habits.”
That started a discussion among the company in general, greatly to Guy’s relief. He ate and drank and watched his tablemates as the conversation swerved like a drunkard in the road. They went from the need to abolish the offence of blasphemous libel and separate church from State into a discussion on the system of elections. Martelo and Salcombe argued that every man over the age of twenty-one should be entitled to a vote and representation in the House; Raven and Street suggested women’s opinions should be canvassed equally; and Corvin spoke, with languid wit that might even have been seriously meant, about the desirability of abolishing the House of Lords. “After all,” he said, “I have a seat and a voice there, and you wouldn’t put me in charge of the country, would you?”
It was beyond argument, for Guy: he couldn’t begin to formulate answers to questions he’d never even considered asking. He just listened, in a slightly wine-flown haze, to a debate that felt like some sort of lengthy hallucination, each proposition more destructive and extreme and simply not done than the last.
This, then, was a hellfire club: a debating society for alarming ideas. Guy could well understand why one would need a private room; a zealous magistrate could prosecute some of these opinions if aired at a public meeting. But this was Rookwood’s home and thus, since he was an Englishman, his castle. The Murder could say what they wanted in their own company, and Guy, who hardly ever said what he wanted, had nothing at all to offer this meeting of lively, informed, well-travelled people saying unimaginably bizarre things. He simply watched and listened, with the sense of being caught in one of those fiery upheavals that Salcombe said had made the world.
He was so absorbed that he didn’t notice the food he consumed, or the wine from his ever-filled glass. He just listened, baffled, disturbed, and oddly exhilarated by a conversation the like of which he’d probably never hear again. He looked between the speakers, from one to another, and his gaze came to a stop at Rookwood.
Sir Philip was listening to Caulfield, who was making a point about the American constitution in a quiet, hesitant voice. Caulfield had barely spoken, and it was noticeable that the voluble gathering, most of whom habitually talked over one another, all paused to listen to his few contributions. Guy didn’t know if that was because he was more worth listening to than the rest or because they were simply being kind to a shy man, and he didn’t find out because he didn’t hear a word. He was entirely caught by Philip Rookwood in the candlelight.
Rookwood’s hair, a mix of brown and blond strands, was shot with gold as it caught the reflection of the many flames; his blue-grey eyes, the colour of a summer squall from a clear sky, were intent on Caulfield with a look of deep absorption that brought his encounter with Corvin to Guy’s mind and shortened his breath. The baronet was toying absently with a biscuit, elbows on the table, cheekbones shadowed by the dancing light, lips just slightly curved, not in amusement, but, Guy thought, in unconscious happiness. Sir Philip Rookwood was where he wanted to be in this atheistical, democratic gathering, among his friends, and those who were more than that, and there was no trace of the habitual mocking smile or the lifted brow.
He looked painfully handsome when he was happy. He looked like someone Guy would have dreamed of calling friend and never dared ask. Like someone who kissed a man, pushed him back with confident certainty, and smiled into his eyes.
Guy didn’t realise he’d been staring at that half-smiling mouth until it curved—a slow, sure movement—and he looked up and met Rookwood’s gaze.
He couldn’t breathe. He had no idea how long he’d been staring like an ill-mannered gapeseed. He shouldn’t have been staring at all, at anyone but particularly not at Rookwood, and he had to stop now but he couldn’t look away from those eyes. He was sure Rookwood’s smile was all mockery, but he was pinned by that grey-blue gaze that refused to drop, and Guy had never felt so nakedly seen in his life.
“If everyone’s finished,” Raven said, “are we going to listen to George’s new piece?”
“Of course,” Rookwood said. He kept Guy’s helpless gaze an endless second longer, then leaned back with a slow blink. “George’s composition, Frisby, and Ned will grace us with his playing. We can wait if you and David wish to visit the fair invalid first.” He smiled. Guy shivered. “Don’t be long.”