The room plunged into darkness, and Tom plunged into a black pit of pain. It was beyond his power to keep from crying out, but he did not faint, which was rather surprising. He stuffed his right sleeve in his mouth and waited. After a nauseating time he opened his eyes on a room lit only by the dying fire.
"What other tricks do you intend to divert me with?" he said with all the sarcasm he could muster. He was exceedingly angry. Bastard, indeed. Charlatan. "Snake charming? Sword swallowing?" Except for the rain, there was absolute silence. The smell of burnt flesh offended the air. "Richard!"
"What?"
Tom turned his head. Richard was backed against the dark bulk of the table, halfway across the room. He was motionless, head bent, cradling his left hand. How had he got there? Leapt sidewise like a cat, Tom thought sourly. "Of all the fool tricks. That was not necessary."
"Perhaps not."
"Perhaps!" Tom's wrath broke through.
Richard said dully, "I am quite stupid from want of sleep. You caught me off guard. I thought..."
"What did you think? Well?"
"I thought you were the last man to make such a suggestion. I thought I could trust you."
The silence extended. Tom chose his words. He was still angry, but confusion began to edge out his wrath. "I made my suggestion reluctantly." His voice grew sharp again. "You will allow the circumstances are awkward, the choices limited."
"Yes."
Another thought struck him. "When did you finish the book?"
"What?"
"The latest episode in the riotous career of Don Alfonso."
"A quarter past ten."
"This morning. I see." He did. Want of sleep did explain a great deal. "And spent half the night wrestling me, and how many nights before that? I rather think you should go to bed."
"I am now wide awake." Richard raised his head. His face was a white blur, white as his shirt. "Unfortunately."
"Oh, go mend your hand. It stinks."
That took some time. The wind, with a wonderful sense of melodrama, had decided to howl, and rain battered the windows. Richard had not lit the candle. Groping about in a dark scullery, Tom thought, exasperated.
"Sit down," he snapped, when his lunatic friend returned. "I refuse to crane at you."
The chair scraped.
"Light the candle."
"I don't know where it's rolled to."
"Never mind. Does the roof of this little chateau leak? I can't say I approve your taste in architecture."
Richard did not play. His voice was listless with exhaustion and defeat. "Bevis's agent said it was sound. It's private. The rent is fair. You should be in the town, however."
"So that my opportunities will be greater for, what was it, Greek and bookkeeping?" Richard said nothing. In friendlier tones Tom went on, "It's a reasonable idea. I just wasn't ready to be making plans."
"I know."
"I think you should tell me your story."
Richard moved across the dark room to the window. His voice, when it came, was composed, lifeless. "I was raised with the duke's children in the Abbeymont nursery. I don't know why. Perhaps some bargain the duchess struck when she consented to return to her connubial vows. I learnt I was baseborn fairly young. It was not...a devastating realisation. The duke had bastards. I thought I was one of them. Very young children accept things as they are."
"I daresay you're right," Tom murmured, recalling several fairly bizarre features of his own childhood which had not seemed strange to him at the time. "Go on."
"It was not until I was eight or nine that I began to wonder. Do you know how such establishments are conducted? There are wet nurses, nursemaids, tutors, a presiding governess for the girls--that sort of thing. Rather formal. Lady This and Lord That. At first I thought my name was Lordrichard. One word."
"But..."
"I still don't understand it. From time to time the duchess would make visitations and we would be paraded for her inspection. She powdered her hair. I don't know what its true colour was." He drew a breath. "The duke's visits were rarer and more abrupt. I was invariably hustled out of sight. I began to wonder why."
"Didn't you ask?"
"Oh, yes. And got no answer. 'Now, Lord Richard, you know you must not speak of such things. And mind your tongue.' As a rule I did. When I turned twelve I thought I should put it to the test. Sarah goaded me, rather. Lady Sarah. My half sister. She was two years older."
Tom waited.
Richard paced restlessly, stumbling a little on the uneven flags. "We decided I should confront the duke."
"My God."
"It was a dare. Like walking the ridgepole or jumping a three-barred gate, no hands. I thought I'd try it."
"What happened?"
"The next time the duke descended on us and I was sent off, I sneaked back into the Presence. He saw me at once, of course, and asked who I was."
"And you found out your origins?"
"Yes. He beat me to a bloody pulp."
"What!"
"There were preliminaries, I daresay." Richard had returned to his post by the dark window. "I don't recall. He--the duke--had a loud voice, and he made the situation quite clear to everyone, but I chiefly recall being thrown against a large mahogany table."
Tom held his breath.
"He cracked my head and several ribs and bust my left arm," Richard said dispassionately. "By the time he'd finished there was quite a commotion. I dimly recall Sarah screeching."
"Didn't your mother intervene?" Tom burst out.
"The duchess wasn't there. I came to my senses in Parson Freeman's rectory some weeks later."
Tom frowned. "But what...why were you taken to the rectory?"
"I don't know," Richard snapped. "I wasn't given an explanation and I'm no longer curious. They got rid of me."
"Christ, Richard. Freeman wasn't there."
"Lord Clanross had already sent him off across the Atlantic to rescue you from your imaginary pirates. His wife nursed me and told me how dreadful you were. I conceived an extravagant admiration for you, Tom."
Tom shut his eyes. He had contrived by luck and a glib tongue to run off to Nova Scotia after his mother's death. He still looked upon the feat as something of a triumph. The Earl of Clanross had sent Parson Freeman to fetch him back.
"I imitated you four times, with no success at all. I didn't even reach the next market town. No ingenuity." Richard laughed. It was not a very jolly sound, but there was honest amusement in it. "However, I put your exploits in my first book, so there was some profit in the example."
Tom felt his cheeks flush. "Cawker."
"You spun some fairly tall tales yourself. I collect you fetched up in Boston blacking boots."
"In Halifax," Tom muttered. "Mucking out stables."
"No pirates?"
Tom shook his head. "Did you hear from them afterwards?" By 'them' he meant the duchess, but Richard took him literally.
"Lady Sarah writ me after Vimeiro that the duke had died."
Tom digested that. "After fifteen years' silence you must have been startled to see her hand."
"I was appalled," Richard said wearily. "I thought I'd put them off the scent."
"What do you mean?"
Richard walked back to the chair and sat, head down like a spent runner. "I think I must have been jumping at shadows those first few years, but I'd had a fright, you know." He lifted his head. "Have I been chasing phantoms, Tom? The duke was a vindictive man. I think he made other attempts on my life."
"Tell me."