Absolute Honour (16 page)

‘Good day,’ he said brightly.

‘Shh!’ came the harsh reply from a mottled, puffy face opposite him of a woman some way beyond sixty.

‘So sorry.’ Jack glanced left, as Letty rose from inspecting a lower shelf. Her eyes widened when she saw him. He smiled at
the fury in front of him, turned and gestured with his head to the right, then sank down again to disappear behind the bookcase.
He heard her follow, her heels loud upon the wooden floor. He went the opposite way to the one he’d indicated and, when he
sensed she was about to turn the corner, he turned his. He was now in the central passage; the she-dragon glared at him. He
moved on to the opposite wall, listening for those footsteps again. When they stopped near him, he rose.

She was a foot away, facing him across the stack. She had covered the last few feet silently. And he was meant to be the forest
stalker!

‘Ahem!’ he said.

‘Shh!’ came the admonition again, this time from two mouths. Letty put a finger to her lips then used it to point out a sign
hung on the wall: ‘Silence amidst the stacks.’ Then she mouthed a word at him, indicating with her head the end of the room
and her clearly visible guardian. He shrugged in incomprehension.

She took her lower lip between her teeth, looked down to the shelves before her. Her eyes suddenly narrowed and she bent,
snatched up a book. She fiddled for a moment, then raised its spine to him. Her fingers obscured two parts of the title, highlighting
a single word.

Fool,
he read.

He shook his head, feigning hurt, and reached for the volume. She withdrew it, replaced it, crossed her arms, raised one exquisite
eyebrow.

A-ha, a challenge! He looked down, at the spines and their gold writing. He appeared to be before some works of fact and he
did not think
Horse-hoeing
would serve his purpose. Then he glanced left, saw it and snatched it out, needing to block out no words. He tried to look
abashed as he raised it but could not help the grin.

The Mistakes of the Heart.

She crossed her eyes at him, then lifted
Journal of a Bedlamite.
She indicated, with a look of pity, that he was certainly the author.

Mad, was he? He took up another volume, placed his fingers, leaving only
Cruel
exposed.

Truth
was ventured.

Chains of love,
he gave her as an excuse.

She sought a little longer, then offered him
Desire,
the question in the tilt of her head. Then she shifted fingers, revealing a second word, another question.

Freedom
?

By now, silent though they were among the stacks, their suppressed giggles were attracting attention. The older lady had turned
a more dangerous red, trying to figure out what they were doing and how to object to it; while a swift glance right showed
him that Mrs O’Farrell, drawn by noise or some sense of danger, had risen from her table and was coming to look for her ward.

Letty noted the approach, too, looked back. For a moment their eyes met, then both looked down, racing the other for the deciding
volume. Bollocks, he thought, why the hell do they mix up manuals and novels? In desperation he reached, grabbed.

‘Laetitia?’ came the call.

‘Shh!’ went the she-dragon.

He placed his fingers, lifted. She read and looked puzzled. He turned the book and saw what he had done. In his haste he had
obscured the name of the author, not the words in the
title. She had read
Observations in Husbandry
instead of what he had meant to say:
Husband.

She waited till he was looking into her eyes before she slowly lifted the volume she held. She didn’t need any fingers. The
title was plain.

‘The Triumph of Woman?’
he bellowed, aloud. ‘That was in your pocket!’

Her eyes widened again. Innocent as the dawn. Guilty as hell.

‘Laetitia!’

He crouched, turned, scuttled along the stack. He may have lost the fight, but at least he knew how to flee a battlefield
undetected.

In excellent spirits, he went to a coffee-house to breakfast. He had taken a subscription of a crown and quarter under yet
another false name. He needed somewhere to rest while he waited for Letty’s next event – the Abbey at noon. He’d follow her
there, let her see him, but he would not enter. He had managed to excuse himself the service, telling her that he could not
afford the plate. In reality, he’d detested church from school. And this Abbey was worse than most, for in addition to the
turgid sermons, it was noisesome – too many bodies buried too shallow within the walls and under flagstones, giving off a
decided whiff of putrefaction.

With a bowl of coffee and a fresh Bath bun, he settled down for the wait. The latest
Public Advertiser
told of the resignation of Pitt, the King’s First Minister. Apparently he was the one man in the country who thought the
war would continue because the Spanish would ally with the French and prolong it. Jack thought it unlikely as well as undesirable.
However, it reminded him of the summons from his regiment, of time marching to its own steady drum. The thought took away
his appetite.

‘I must bring this matter to a crisis,’ he muttered,
throwing the half-eaten bun down. A servant thought he was asking for more coffee and topped up his bowl.

He must talk with her tonight, when the she-dragon slept. He’d kneel on that damn hoggin in her garden, plead for her to make
him the happiest fellow in the realm by fleeing with him to Scotland where English law did not run and an obliging Presbyterian
could be found to marry them forthwith. Elopement would serve them both – her sense of adventure and his of honour for, with
a marriage at the end of it, her reputation would not suffer while his would be enhanced!

Excited now, Jack could no longer read. He left, waited opposite Frederick’s. He saw her see him as he dogged their steps
to the Abbey. But he couldn’t wait for the service to end; she could take a chair back to her house without his vigilance
for once. He needed to think, to plan the fine details of elopement as well as how best to delay his return to the Army. And
the best way to do that was to use a pint of beer and a game of billiards to free his mind.

The Three Tuns in Stall Street had been recommended to him by his fellow Cornishman, Trewennan. It was Jack’s favourite kind
of inn – strong ale, fresh turtle soup and one of the few public billiard tables in the back. This room was deserted – it
was still a little early for the gentlemen of the baize to be abroad, which suited Jack’s purpose. He could practise a trick
shot he’d seen one of the fellows execute the day before – taking Jack’s wagered crown with a double baulked cannon – and
use the activity to clear his mind and plot his future.

He’d planned some of the elopement, but the shot still eluded him more than twice in five attempts. Certain that both matters
could be settled by a second mug of ale, he had duly ordered it. Crouching, his cue tip high on the ball to give it the requisite
spin, he heard the door open. ‘Just set it down on the table,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the
target. It wasn’t just the spin but the angle the spinning ball made, plus the force of the shot. It needed a short, punchy
motion. He drew back the cue …

‘Is this what you call military service, sirrah?’

The words came on a roar that could have drowned out the bells of the Abbey. Shocked, Jack’s hand shot the cue forward and
hit, not the top of the target but its bottom, the force lifting the ball from the baize and launching it off the table –
where it was caught.

Jack stepped swiftly back, cue raised before him, pointing like a sword at the man now tossing the ivory sphere into the air,
catching it, tossing it again.

His father.

Jack was so shocked he couldn’t even stutter, just stood there hissing like a snake, stuck on the first sound of ‘sir’.

‘Well, boy?’ Sir James Absolute leaned forward and rolled the ball down the table. It sank into a pocket. ‘Nothing to say?
Lost your capacity for speech?’

‘Uh …’ offered Jack. He could not have been more surprised. Having only that morning consigned his father to the safety of
a war a thousand miles away, it was almost impossible to accept his appearance before him now.

‘No doubt you were going to offer me this beer,’ said Sir James, pointing to the one the tavern servant was just carrying
in. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

The short time it took for his father to drain the pot restored Jack’s speech. At least to the servant. ‘T-two more of those,
if you please.’

‘Ah,’ said his father with a smack of lips. ‘Thirsty work on the roads. And good English ale will wash away the dust swifter
than any of those Hanoverian laagers I’ve been drinking of late.’ He tilted the mug, searching for a last drop.

‘When … how …’

‘How did I find you?’ Sir James grunted. ‘Your letter to Absolute House gave your address in Bath. I went there and a
countryman of ours who was working next door said that in the afternoon you always could be found here.’ He glared.
‘Always
was the word used, ye dog. I spent all that money on a Westminster education and bought you a commission in one of the fanciest
of regiments for you to become a frequenter of
billiard halls.’

This last was said with such a distasteful glance around the room that Jack could only smile. He hadn’t seen his father for
nearly two years. In that time he had fought battles – two by land and one by sea – spent a winter in a cave eating bear meat,
endured slavery, killed men, loved women … and here he was being chastized for a schoolboy’s profligacy!

‘If you would rather go somewhere else, sir?’

‘No. Ordered the ale now. Might as well drink it.’

His father sat – heavily, Jack noticed. Now that he studied him he was surprised to note his apparel. Sir James loved clothes
even more than his son, and had a purse to indulge his appetite. Yet here he was dressed in a leather frock coat such as a
coachman might wear, patched shirt poking up from beneath a threadbare vest. Grey flannel breeches were tucked into riding
boots that yawned between upper and sole. The whole was covered in the mud and dust that the indifferent roadways of England
always conjured. It lay like lady’s powder on his father’s face, dulling the bushy black eyebrows, lining the large Absolute
nose, but not obscuring the purplish bags under his eyes.

He is tired, Jack thought, more tired than I’ve ever seen him.

The ales came and his father drank full half of the pint. Jack sipped and waited. His father had not come all this way – and
at some speed – to drink beer or chastize his son. A sudden fear came. ‘My mother? She is—’

‘Well, boy. Waiting for me in Hanover. I have a letter, somewhere,’ he patted his coat, raising a cloud, ‘though we did not
know for certain you had crossed back over the
ocean. She would not stay in London alone, once you and I were both gone. She never was one to obey orders.’ He smiled faintly.
‘But even she accepted that I could travel faster on my own.’

‘You go back to the war? Is it not soon over?’

‘Tell that to the Frogs. Seem unwilling to acknowledge that they are beat.’ The smile vanished. ‘Meantime, I had to take some
measures, see some people at court and in the government in secret. My enemies are determined, it seems, to proceed with their
act of attainder against our family. I have forestalled them, but only for a while, perhaps.’

‘This secrecy accounts for your clothes. I suppose?’

‘My clothes?’ His father looked down, then slapped at his coat in disgust, raising more dust. ‘Indeed. I am still, technically,
a criminal and liable for the taking. So these rags are a concealment.’ He looked his son up and down. ‘What’s your excuse?’

‘These?’ Jack said, pulling at the soiled serge of his short coat. ‘These are also in the nature of a disguise.’

For a moment, both Absolutes looked at each other, a slight smile in their eyes. Then Sir James shook his head and continued.
‘In the wars, I am, once more, building up a reputation as a cavalry commander that might wipe away the memory of my killing
of Lord Melbury.’ He nodded at Jack. ‘A killing undertaken on your behalf, I will have you remember.’

‘I remember it well, sir. And I have been doing my best to add honour to the name of Absolute. I have … done some things,
by way of atonement.’

‘I am sure you have, boy. Sure of it. And will continue to do so, I know. Absolute blood, eh?’ He raised his mug, as did Jack,
and they both drank long till his father belched. ‘Which is why, when Nancy informed me that you had indeed made landfall
and where you were, I came straight here rather than returning to Germany. Your timely return means you can make further atonement
immediately.’

‘Immediately, sir?’ His voice could not conceal his concern. Sir James would have him back to the Dragoons or transferred
to a regiment under his own command – in either case off to war again – in a trice. He was far keener on his son’s military
career than Jack had ever been.

‘More or less.’ Sir James set his mug down. ‘These things take a little organizing, of course.’

‘What things?’ said Jack nervously.

Sir James leaned forward. ‘I have told you that friends of mine – of ours – are engaged in a campaign to protect us against
the repercussions caused by the death of Melbury. They may not be able to do so for long. Especially since certain individuals
require suborning with gold which our friends cannot spare and I would find hard to raise from my exile.’

Jack coughed. ‘I am expecting near two hundred pounds, sir, and would of course make it available—’

His father snorted. ‘A piss drop in a chamber pot! Melbury had many allies while I have always made enemies. If they are not
bought off, if they make common cause, well, their squadrons may overwhelm us. We need reinforcements. We need an alliance
of both wealth and power.’ He raised a hand triumphantly. ‘What we need, sir, is a wife!’