Page 4 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
He’d feared as much. “Where did you bury him?”
“We buried him beside your mother in the country.”
Kit closed his eyes and let out a shallow breath as he fought off a wave of grief. His future held a so many uncertainties, but this was one he had never considered. When he had last seen his father, the old lion had been roaring against the injustice of the legal system that had allowed Kit to be falsely convicted. He had been neither ill nor frail then.
“How did it happen?” Kit asked.
“He was never the same after you were transported. He stopped taking care of himself. Mrs. Swanson drove herself mad trying to cook anything that would tempt him to eat. The young lads of the square did their best to watch over him. But a broken heart is a broken heart, and he feared you might never come home. He fought tirelessly to appeal your case, but he failed every time, and with each failure, he lost more and more hope.”
Palmer clasped Kit’s hands in his own, and his ancient eyes peered down at Kit’s large, calloused hands as if he didn’t recognize them.
Strangely ashamed, Kit nearly pulled away. He’d grown wary of anyone touching him. A touch usually came with pain. He’d had to fight more than one prisoner for food, water, or simply to defend his own life. He hadn’t had a touch of comfort from anyone since he’d left London.
“My friends? They looked after him?”
“As best they could,” Palmer said with quiet pride. “The lads never stopped waiting for you to come home or to hear news of you from the colonies.”
Kit would have smiled, but he had no joy left within him.
“I wish I’d been able to write. I couldn’t afford to, not until I was free to come home.” He didn’t dare tell the old man that he’d been too busy the first few years trying not to die from the elements, the other convicts, and the men in charge of his labor assignments.
“Help me up, Master Kit.” Palmer paused, frowning. “I’m sorry, you’re...his lordshipnow... I must remember.”
“Master Kitwill do for now, Palmer.” He lifted the old man up to his feet and guided him to the drawing room, where Kit lit a lamp. He glanced around, noting that the house was clean, but much of the furniture was faded and the carpets were threadbare.
“How bad are things, Palmer?” he asked after a minute. “Did Father lose everything trying to buy my freedom?” When he’d been charged and convicted, his father had spent so much of his wealth trying to save him that Kit had feared his father wouldn’t recover financially.
“No, he had plenty of money left at the end. His investments were managed well by his friends while you were away. They stepped in after your transportation and helped him recover much of what he lost.”
“Then why the devil is the place in shambles?” Kit’s tone was a little harsher than he intended it to be.
“’Twas your father’s decision. He simply didn’t want us to touch anything other than to clean it. I think he feared that if we changed anything in the house, it would mean you might never come home.”
Kit dragged his palm over his beard, and this time the sigh he let out was long and left a hollow feeling in his chest.
“Who handled the house and the staff after he died?”
“Lord Tiverton, of course,” Palmer said with pride.
“Ah,” Kit sighed. Lord Tiverton was the Duke of Tiverton, Darius St. John’s father. They’d lived across the street as families for more than thirty years, long before Kit or Darius had been born. Of course Tiverton would have watched over the house, hoping Kit would return to take over. If he hadn’t, Kit may have been declared dead by a scheming distant relative, and then the estate would have passed to that relative before Kit returned from Australia. He owed Lord Tiverton a great debt.
“Why don’t you go on back to bed, Palmer? I’ll find my old room and settle in.” His focus drifted to his canvas bag that sat in the corridor outside.
“Are you hungry, Master Kit? Mrs. Swanson still remembers all of your favorite dishes, and I’m sure she could cobble together a nice little meal for you before you retire for the night,” the butler suggested.
“Hungry? No.” He would find some food in the kitchens after Palmer was in bed. He didn’t wish to trouble the old man any further tonight. “Go on to bed,” Kit urged as he escorted the elderly man to the servants’ stairs. “We’ll sort out everything in the morning.”
“Very well, my lord.” Palmer entered the stairway, and Kit closed the door behind him.
Kit retrieved his bag and carried it to his room on the first floor. The bed, the red coverlet, the writing desk, along with the dresser hadn’t been touched in seven years. Two tall bookshelves were still filled with tomes adorned with gleaming gilt letters on their spines.
His fingers itched to touch them. He’d had no chance to read and no money to buy books until the last two years he’d been working in the colonies. Even then, he’d been saving every bit of coin to buy his passage back home. The only time he’d read books was when he had borrowed books from his employer to read after his work was done for the day, but usually by then he was exhausted and fell straight into sleep. When he woke, the nightmare of his life would start all over again.
He set the canvas bag down on his bed, knowing that he would have trouble sleeping on the feather tick mattress tonight. His last bedding had been only a few inches thick, and over the last seven years his body had grown accustomed to sleeping on hard surfaces.
Kit lit a lamp and set it on a side table near his window before he unpacked his belongings. His bag contained a spare shirt, a pair of sailor’s trousers, one small broken-toothed comb, a pair of scissors, and a dull shaving razor. There was also another pair of boots and a tiny piece of carved ivory in the shape of an elephant. He held up the elephant, the cool ivory warming his palm.
His last master, a man named Anthony Lockwood, had given it to him one night after Kit had shared his story of how he’d ended up working in Sullivans Cove. Lockwood had actuallybelievedhe was innocent. He had passed the elephant to Kit as a gift and said,“Elephants never forget. Neither should you.”He referred to the three men who had sent Kit to prison. Thomas Balfour, justice of the peace; Jackson Townsend, the shipping company clerk; and Maynard Walsh, Kit’s business partner in the shipping company Kit had purchased half ownership in.
