Bar Sinister (9 page)

"There is such a thing as an excess of stubborn pride. The Duke of Newsham is a great
landowner. I think the Ffouke estate could bear the charge of two small children."

"I can see," said Richard with false calm, "that I am going to have to tell you a
story."

Tom frowned. "That's not necessary. I appreciate your reluctance. God knows, I'd have
to be stricken blind, legless, and penniless before I'd apply to the Earl of Clanross. It is far better
not to be a relation at all than a poor one."

Richard went to the secretary. Paced like a cat.

"It is not a question of your comfort, however, but your children's. There's a difference.
Stop prowling, Richard."

"I think I should tell you a story. I have a knack for that, haven't I? You once called me a
blackguardly liar."

"That was some few years ago." Almost twenty in fact. They had both been twelve when
they first met.

"You were right," Richard snapped. "I am a liar, a fairly gifted one. Like panders and
whores and hangmen, I have learnt to turn a moral defect into coin of the realm."

"I hardly think--"

"Nevertheless, the story I am going to tell you now is the truth. When I've done, perhaps
you'll see why I prefer not to put my children in the power of Newsham or the dowager
duchess."

Tom stared. The man was speaking of his own mother.

"I am going to tell you how I discovered I was the Duchess of Newsham's bastard."

"Richard, for God's sake--"

"'Stop dramatising yourself,'" Richard mocked, his voice thick, "'Be sensible.' Do you see
this candle?"

"I can scarcely avoid it. You're shaking hot wax on me."

"Then mark me. What I shall say is the plain truth." He placed his left hand square in the
flame and held it there.

Tom didn't trouble with words. He swung both arms up hard against Richard's right
elbow, and the candle fell to the flags.

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."

Outside, the wind gave a melodramatic blast that rattled the windowpanes. Tom
waited.

Richard was groping. "Shipping a fifteen-year-old off to the Indian Army doesn't strike
me as a receipt for longevity."

"No, but it's done. Or was then."

"I didn't question it at the time. I was glad to go. You took up your commission
somewhat later, I think."

"I was seventeen. Better prepared."

Richard shrugged. "Two years would not have prepared me for India. The thing is, I kept
getting into scrapes."

"That, at least, is not startling."

Richard pinched the skin between his brows and drew his hand down across his face.
"They were not all of my making."

"Your scrapes? I see."

He rubbed his jaw with his right hand. The left dangled. "There were incidents. It's all
very shadowy. I stopped eating anywhere but the mess, after a time, and I was careful to avoid
being alone. When we were called out on campaign--Tipoo Sultan's war--the tricks
stopped."

"Seringapatam."

"Yes. Away from garrison I was safe enough, I think. Except for the usual inconveniences
of campaigning." His voice was wry. India had been his first taste of war. "I volunteered for the
expedition to Batavia, and you know the confusion that followed when that was cancelled. I was ill
on the troopship, but so was damned near everyone. Bad water."

"That was the army that came to Egypt, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Overland from the Red Sea."

Tom winced. He had had a very bad time in Egypt himself, but he had heard tales of the
Indian relief column that curled his hair. Scant food, bad water, scorpions, sunstroke--and an
outbreak of plague once the troops reached Cairo.

But Richard's mind was not on scorpions and sunstroke. He sat straighter, conforming to
the chair. "After that it changed."

"Their tactics?"

"I'm not sure there was a 'they,' or a he." He eased his shoulders against the chair back.
The wind gusted again, and the panes rattled on cue. He cocked his head. "Is that Sims?"

"No. He's not been gone long enough. 'Spring squall?'" Tom quoted in gentle
mockery.

Richard shrugged. "It will blow itself out by morning. Where was I?"

"Egypt."

"Cairo and Alexandria. I called on you."

"I remember. You were burnt black. I didn't recognise you."

"Then we're even." Richard's teeth gleamed in the darkness. "You had enormous
moustachios and your arm in a sling."

"And a sleepy droop in the eyes from all that opium."

"It was the devil of a thing to happen to you, Tom. I was sorry to hear of it."

"Inconvenient," Tom agreed. "Tell me about the duel."

"You knew of it?"

"Everyone did."

Richard was silent.

"I thought you'd lost your temper," Tom prompted.

"In the end, I did. We were all short-tempered by that time, and at first I just put it down
to the heat and the waiting. Then things began to change in the mess. Snickers, sidewise looks,
sotto voce
comments. My friends started to look worried, but there was nothing to pin
down. I never did know what went on, but I was slowly being sent to Coventry and damned
uncomfortable it was."

He paused, ordering his thoughts. "There was an older man, a lieutenant with a
reputation as a brawler. He kept pushing me. I said something. I don't even recall what it was, but
it was trivial. He picked up on it. There were witnesses and when he challenged me, I had to fight.
You know how it used to be."

"Yes, I see." Duelling had been epidemic in the army.

Richard had been silent, reflecting. Now he said more brusquely, as if he meant to be
done, "Hertford, that was my opponent's name, was a dead shot, which has never been the case
with me. I had the choice of weapons. I made him fight with swords."

Tom choked on a laugh. No one fought with swords anymore.

"You taught me the foils." The smile gleamed again. "Swords are different, of course. I
was rusty, but Hertford had never used a sword, and he was slow. I thought I could take
him."

"And did."

Richard's voice was uncertain. "I daresay you'll think me a fool, but that was a damned
ugly sensation. When I tried to pull my weapon out, it rasped on bone. He screamed. I dream of it
sometimes, though I've done worse things since."

Tom shuddered. After a moment, he said, "He didn't die, as I recall."