Page 14 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
Not that he had ever given up his search. But that had been eight years ago, and at this point, finding his little brother would take nothing short of a miracle.
This was why she and Samuel were such kindred spirits. Samuel would never stop fighting against dangerous working conditions for children. Never. He had taken his sorrow at being unable to rescue his brother and channeled it into saving other children from lives of exploitation and misery. To Samuel, it wasn’t just a cause. It was personal.
Just as Anne’s cause was personal to her. She swallowed, thinking of her childhood nursemaid, Bridget, and the incident in which Anne had learned just how fragile a woman’s place in the world truly was…
“Has there been any news?” Anne asked. “Did anything come of that possible lead in Manchester?”
“It wasn’t him,” Samuel said. “Believe me, you’ll be the first to know when I find him.”
“I’m sorry,” Anne said quietly.
“As am I.” Samuel cleared his throat. “Well, I’m going to head over to Bow Street. I’ll tell all of this to my contact, Mr. Charles Hoskins. He’s one of the good ones.”
Anne knew precisely what Samuel meant by that. Unfortunately, it was all too common for constables and even magistrates to be in the pocket of the criminals they were charged with policing, and even the Bow Street Runners were not entirely immune. You had to be careful to whom you reported a crime. “And I will speak to Nick and Johnny.”
“Perfect.” Samuel stood, and Anne rose to accompany him to the door.
They encountered her brothers in the foyer. “Mr. Branton,” Edward said, offering Samuel his hand. “Will you be joining us this morning?”
“I wish I could, but I’m due at court.”
“Another time, I hope.” Edward glanced around. “Where’s Morsley? I thought he’d be here first thing.”
“Alas,” Anne said, “Michael had to send his regrets. He’s been summoned to Horse Guards to give an update on the situation in Canada.”
“Wait—Morsley?” Samuel said. He turned to Edward and Harrington. “As in, the Lord Morsley?”
Harrington wagged his eyebrows. “The very one.”
Anne cocked her head. “I didn’t realize you knew Michael.”
“Oh, er…” Samuel tugged a glove on. “Only through what you’ve told me. He’s your childhood friend, correct?”
Anne smiled. “What a memory you have—I know it’s been years since I mentioned him to you.”
“Yes, I, uh—” Samuel nodded as he accepted his hat from Hugh. “Well, I must be going. The Admiralty Court waits for no man.”
“Of course. I’ll let you know what I learn from Nick and Johnny.”
Samuel bowed over her hand. “Thank you, my lady.”
Chapter 4
Across town, Michael exited Horse Guards and was immediately enveloped in the stench of the Thames. His visit with Lord Hobart had taken only a quarter of an hour. Given how fraught the situation with France remained, Michael understood that the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies had more pressing concerns than the Canadian frontier. Still, it was hard not to feel annoyed, given that his morning with Anne had been dashed for something so brief.
At least he’d received one piece of good news, something he’d been hoping might come to pass: Lord Hobart had confirmed that Michael was to begin training to one day assume the post of Governor General of Canada.
Michael set off for home on foot, glad for the chance to stretch his legs after weeks cooped up on a ship. Those weeks in a cramped cabin had been particularly torturous because Michael had never been any good at sitting still. This had made his school years a challenge at best. Michael was a dutiful son, and he’d tried to acquit himself well in the classroom, but although he knew he wasn’t stupid, he just wasn’t bookish. To make matters worse, he had little facility for languages, making Eton’s curriculum of unrelenting Latin and Greek a daily misery. Michael thought best when he was moving around, preferably out of doors.
The army would have been a tempting path, had his father not absolutely forbidden it. When Michael was nine, his mother had died in childbirth, along with the little girl she’d been struggling to bring into the world. Losing his wife had been a crushing blow for the marquess, and Michael could understand why his father was loathe to let his only remaining family member take such a risk. But his father’s edict had left Michael floundering, dreading the future looming before him of being stuck inside the library all day, poring over endless ledgers.
But then he’d been sent to Canada, and it had been a breath of fresh air (literally, Michael thought, shooing a fly as he stepped around a pile of rotting garbage). In Upper Canada every day was an adventure, and the things he was required to do happened to be precisely the things he enjoyed: riding, shooting, and building. The fact that he was heir to a marquessate was actually a strike against him, as his neighbors had assumed he would be soft. But he was able to win their respect the same way every man won respect out on the frontier—by the sweat of his brow. In Canada, no one cared that he hadn’t memorized the complete works of Aristophanes. A man was judged by how hard he worked and how well he cleared the land, and Michael thrived on that physical labor.
What was more, out on the frontier, Michael’s three terms at Oxford had been sufficient to make him a man of letters. He’d been asked to join the Legislative Council of Upper Canada at the age of nineteen. Then the army had written asking for his help—could he find them a supply of walnut wood, which was desperately needed to make stocks for guns? Michael could, and he did. A request followed from the Royal Navy, Upper Canada being the ideal location from which to secure the hundred-foot poles they needed for ships’ masts.
Michael might not be bookish, but here was a task suited to his qualities. Whereas ninety-nine men out of a hundred would’ve pulled out their pen to explain to the Royal Navy that getting mast poles out of the Upper Canadian wilderness was impossible because you would have to recut the entire road to move something that long, Michael had pulled out his axe. He’d hired a crew of ten men and had joined them in the grueling work of straightening the road. It had taken the better part of spring and summer to get those poles out of the woods and to wrestle them downriver, but it had been worth it. The boy who’d once been dismissed by his teachers as a bit slow was suddenly regarded as a man of ability, the one who got things done. Michael found he liked that quite a lot.
Then had come the commission from the Crown itself.
