Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (25 page)

 
          
 
It was a library they entered. A library where
rows of leather-bound volumes were relieved here and there with the blind-eyed
marble busts of full-chinned Romans and sulky Greeks. If one of these books had
ever been taken down, Fitz thought, save for the purpose of dusting, it would
be a marvel of scholarship in such a house.

 
          
 
There was a fire in the hearth, and before it,
with a swathed foot resting on a stool to receive the warmth of the flames, sat
the master of the house, all his vast and quivering bulk enveloped in the wings
of a mammoth chair.

 
          
 
His wig was a work of curling-tong art, his
lace finer than cobweb, and though his peach satin coat was cut with the
stiffly boned skirts of an earlier fashion, it was new and patterned in silver
lace, as rich as the steel-bead embroidery of the waistcoat, which could not
restrain the bulges of a truly Homeric paunch.

 
          
 
Above all of this splendor of raiment hung a
red face, patterned on cheeks and nose with broken purple veins, the vast jowls
of which overhung his stock and flapped as he spoke.

 
          
 
"So this is the rogue, eh? Come forward,
come forward,
you "

 
          
 
With the point of his cane he jabbed the air
in Fitz's direction. In the pouches of flesh his vigilant eyes blinked, and he
puffed out his thick lips as he raised a quizzing glass and inspected Fitz from
dusty shoes to uncovered head—much as if he were viewing a new-caught slave
lately brought from the Gold Coast. But Fitz stood his ground and gave him back
stare for insolent stare.

 
          
 
"You're no
Lyon
!" The Earl burst out, and Burnette
came forward ready to answer. Starr stopped him with a half-snarl:

 
          
 
"I don't doubt that this young whelp is
of Hugh's begetting, fair enough
. '
Tis just the kind
of wrong-faced creature that blank fool would sire. But he's no proper
Lyon
. Look about you and prove it for yourself,
man!"

 
          
 
He motioned toward the walls where a series of
family portraits hung. In none did Fitz see his lean face or rangy body
duplicated. The
Lyons
were
fair and mostly fat at the age when their
faces had been put on canvas for the sake of posterity. Fitz sighed in honest
relief and found his voice.

 
          
 
"I never pretended to be a Lyon of Starr,
sir," he said mildly.

 
          
 
"Well, you're Hugh's brat and we'll have
to make the best of it," was his grandfather's gracious reply. "And a
peck of trouble you bring with you, you rogue.
Escaped
prisoner—bah!"
The Earl spat, none too accurately, into the
fireplace. "I needs must get Farstarr out of a sponging house and you out
of Mill Prison-all in a week!"

 
          
 
"I am out of Mill, sir, or I wouldn't be
standing here. And there is no need for you to trouble yourself with my
affairs "

 
          
 
"Your affairs?
Your affairs, you insolent young puppy! You have no affairs—d'you
understand
? No affairs except those I think right and proper
for you! Hold your tongue!"

 
          
 
Scarlet flamed up Fitz's
throat into his cheeks.
He took two steps forward until he was within
arms' distance of the man in the wing chair.

 
          
 
"You have no right to speak to me in that
fashion, sir." He ground out the words, determined to hold his temper.
"Rather than listen to more of this I shall walk out of this house and
give myself up to the first magistrate.”

 
          
 
"Will you now?" The fat jowls
creased, and Fitz guessed that Starr was registering amusement. "Lud, the
puppy shows his milk teeth, does he? You'll do just as I say, Fitzhugh Lyon.
This is not your savage-infested
wilderness,
this is a
civilized country with the proper respect for rank and authority. And the Earl
of Starr is not without power hereabouts. You are going down to
Starr Court
, where you shall remain until we have
settled this ridiculous nonsense about your being a rebel in arms."

 
          
 
Fitz laughed. He could not help it. The
arrogance of the old earl was so far beyond anything he had ever known that he
could not take it seriously. But Burnette was sober enough, and Fitz remembered
those ranks of footmen in the hall. By force Starr might be able to accomplish
his will. At least he might attempt to transport his new found grandson to his
country seat. But keeping that grandson there was another matter.

 
          
 
However, his grandfather seemed to be sane enough,
and Fitz felt a faint uneasiness as he watched them. He had heard about
England
and the power of a great
landowner—especially a Tory lord such as Starr had been earlier, when politics
still amused him, and how that power was unlimited in some ways. This situation
might be more dangerous than he had first deemed it.

 
          
 
"Beginning to use your wits, aren't
you?" asked the old man. "You'd better make the best of it. If I were
to say that you are a raving lunatic, mind you—I'd be believed. And a madhouse
would accommodate you quickly enough on my word alone. Come, you're no
thick-headed clod. Farstarr is drinking himself into the tomb.
A viscount with an unlimited purse—that's not a bad thing to be.
,,

 
          
 
Fitz bowed.
"Perhaps.
But I'm an American, sir, and wish to remain one.”

 
          
 
The Earl hitched himself forward in his chair
and the crease of his smile was now an open-jawed grin. "War is it, eh?
War, grandson?
Damme, you've made a new man of me this hour!
I thought I was too old for battle, but you've set the sap to flowing
again—with that impudent cock of the head. So be it then!"

 
          
 
Fitz dodged, but not quickly enough to wholly
escape that stinging blow from the cane which fell across his shoulder. The
Earl shook with roaring laughter which echoed almost madly about the room.

 
          
 
"This is the best day's work you have
done for me, Burnette," he managed to say between roars. "You've
added a good ten years or so to the life of this old carcass. It's worth twice
the thousand I promised you for the business. Get this devil's brat down to
Starr Court
and it's all yours, all
yours
"

 
          
 
He gasped and pawed at the fine lace at his
throat, his eyes rolling. But Burnette was ready with a glass. Starr gulped the
draft, sputtered and spit, and then sank back in his pillows.

 
          
 
"I'm an old man," he said. But Fitz
judged that quaver in the hoarse voice a very excellent bit of acting.
"I'm an old man and to all pleasures there must be an end. But not to
me—no, not to me for a long time yet. Farstarr wants to step into my slippers
while they are yet warm, does he? I'll live to see the mourning rings given out
at his
funeral, that
I shall. And don't forget that,
either of you!" He grinned. "I'm still Starr and I shall continue to
be—as long as I wish to. Now get out, get out, both of you! I'm tired of the
play. Let me have good reports from
Starr Court
or it'll be the worse for you!"

 
          
 
Outside the library door Fitz faced Burnette
squarely. 'I've had enough of this fantastic scheme," he snapped.
"Let's put an end to it here and now. Or do you want my thanks for the
entertainment, too?"

 
          
 
Burnette laughed. "You are not as clever,
Mr. Lyon, as I deemed you. My lord was speaking honestly when he said that his
orders are obeyed in this house—and in a goodly section of
England
, too. If he wants you at
Starr Court
, to
Starr Court
you shall go, with all possible
dispatch!"

 
          
 
Fitz glanced over his shoulder. Two of the
monumental footmen were closing in on him, cutting off his retreat.

 
          
 
"Come, come, sir," Burnette was
obviously well satisfied with his own arrangements, "do not reduce this to
an open brawl. I have my orders and, as you see, the means at hand to carry
them out. I do not think that at your age you will desire to be carried to the
coach by force."

 
          
 
Fitz showed his teeth briefly in a gesture
which bore little resemblance to a smile. "How well you read me, Burnette.
Starr
Court
"

 
          
 
"You think that
Starr Court
may not be as much a prison as Mill?"

 
          
 
Fitz's eyebrows went up. "Do you leave me
a modicum of hope, sir? That is passing kind of you. But somehow I mistrust
such a friendly move—I can't conceive why. And now, I take it, we depart
straightaway."

 
          
 
As the coach swung along the crowded road out
of London Fitz asked another question:

 
          
 
"What is your reward for body
snatching?"

 
          
 
"You heard his
lordship
"

 
          
 
"Yes. But I am inclined, somehow, to
believe that it was more than a thousand pounds which set you questing after
me."

 
          
 
Burnette lost a shade of his urbanity.
"It was!" The force of his words stripped some of the gentility from
his voice. "I've served the house of
Lyon
since I was out of school, and my father
did before me, and his father before him. The Lyons of Starr
are
erratic, but there have been brilliant men among them, and shrewd men, and to
most the family was their creed, the core of their life. His lordship is a
ruin, but he still holds the reins and his mind is as keen as ever. I have no
liking to think of that pinch of stink standing in his shoes."

 
          
 
"My so dear cousin, the Viscount, seems
to arouse ill feeling in all quarters," Fitz remarked. "I have heard
nothing good of him since his name was first mentioned to me."

 
          
 
"You never will. If he
were
not Farstarr, or if he dared to do openly what he now occupies himself with in
private, he would be clapped into a madhouse."

 
          
 
"As the Earl threatened
me?"

 
          
 
"And do not believe that his lordship did
not mean that!" warned Burnette. "Starr has the power to do as he
wishes and you are unknown here. One word from him and you could disappear—like
this!" He flicked a bit of lint from the sleeve of his coat.

 
          
 
"If he is so powerful why does he not
snap the Viscount into proper behavior?"

 
          
 
"Farstarr has friends, and one or two in
very high places.
Most of the time he is able to hide behind
a mask which is no more vicious than that of any fashionable rakehell.
But his lordship has no desire to see him
lording
it
at
Starr
Court
or wearing the coronet after him. That is why, when I received a hint
of your existence from Sir Hew, I went straight to Starr House with the story.
We traced you all over
Devon
."