Page 42 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
No, Georgie was reading too much into the boy’s statement. Simon liked snow because he was a child and children liked snow. “It’s pretty, I suppose,” he said, watching fat snowflakes settle on the fir branch he carried. “Picturesque.” And so it was, in an aggressively charming way.
If a gently born young lady were to sketch the scene, she would entitle it “Christmas in the Country” or something equally pleasant. The drawing would show a man and a boy making merry, and nobody who saw it would guess that Georgie was a crook, or Simon the misbegotten child of a countess and God knew who. Nobody would know that the child’s putative father refused to leave his tower, that the house was a rotten shambles, and that the child was sad and unwell.
Georgie decided that he didn’t need to think of those unsavory elements either. “It’s beautiful,” he said, tugging Simon’s wool cap down low over his ears. “I’ll race you back to the house.”
As a rule, Lawrence didn’t drink. He didn’t like the taste of anything stronger than cider, and he had all too clear a recollection of his father’s drunken rages to feel that intoxication was ever a good idea. But he had a notion that there was a bottle of brandy somewhere in this tower, and he meant to find it. This was a day that called for strictly medicinal doses of whatever spirits he could lay his hands on. He was either going to go downstairs and meet Simon, or he would stay here and incur Georgie’s wrath. And he didn’t think he was equal to meeting either of those fates entirely sober.
The brandy couldn’t be in the study. Georgie had turned that room inside out, and if he had found a bottle of brandy he would have placed it on a shelf that bore a neatly lettered label reading “brandy,” right in between the borax and the charcoal. In his bedchamber, he flung open the doors to his clothes press, but instead of brandy, he found neatly folded linens and unfamiliar clothing. He nearly took a startled step backwards.
This must be the clothing Georgie had purchased in Falmouth. Lawrence had worried that Georgie might have let his imagination run wild at the tailor, and that he would expect Lawrence to wear brightly colored waistcoats and fancifully arranged cravats. But what Lawrence saw before him was nothing if not sedate: a pair of coats in bottle green and brown, a few pairs of buff-colored breeches, two waistcoats, and an array of snowy white shirts and cravats.
It was all entirely unobjectionable. Lawrence couldn’t help but smile when he imagined how bored Georgie must have found the task, choosing such drab attire among a haberdashery’s worth of brighter and richer fabrics. He must have rejected bolt after bolt of silk and wool before settling on the least interesting of the lot.
But no. That’s not what he had done. Lawrence looked more carefully at the contents of his clothes press. These waistcoats were similar in cut and color to the ones he already had. Georgie had tried to pick clothes that would feel familiar to Lawrence. That was just the sort of thing that he would think of, just as he had lined the walls of the study with that felt. He seemed to understand what Lawrence needed to get through each day, without Lawrence needing to specifically ask for it.
At some point, Georgie had become indispensable, not only to Lawrence’s work but to his life—his heart, damn it. It wasn’t only that Lawrence liked the way he looked and smelled and sounded. It wasn’t only that he made Lawrence smile and want and feel in ways he hadn’t ever thought possible. Those qualities were all well enough, but what stole Lawrence’s heart was that Georgie grasped how his mind worked, when sometimes Lawrence didn’t even know it himself.
He spread one of the waistcoats out on the bed, as if by studying it he might understand his attachment to the person who had chosen it. Frowning, he ran his finger along the line of ivory buttons. At some point, Lawrence had become used to loose strings, missing buttons, stains and holes and other signs of wear. This garment, fresh and unspoiled, seemed like it ought to belong to somebody else. Somebody who appreciated nice things. Somebody who cared about presenting a decent appearance to the world.
That was the point, after all. Today that somebody had to be Lawrence. He needed to care how he looked. Georgie had insisted that Simon would be troubled by seeing his father poorly attired. Lawrence had always thought it fitting that his outward dishevelment matched his inner disquietude. But today he needed the opposite to be true. He needed the outward appearance of neatness to create the illusion of inner stability.
He pulled out the green coat. Pinned to the lining was a note written in Georgie’s perfectly slanted hand.
While not strictly correct, this attire will do for the country. As I don’t foresee a trip to Almack’s or a presentation at court in the near future, we can content ourselves thusly. In the bottom drawers you’ll find boots, braces, and so forth. I placed a razor and a cake of shaving soap on the washstand. If you find yourself in need of a sustaining draught, I put a bottle of brandy in the top drawer of your writing table.
There was no signature. There was no affectionate closing. And there never would be—Georgie was too careful to risk his neck or Lawrence’s in such a way. But the paper carried a trace of Georgie’s absurd London perfume, and that was as good as any written declaration. Lawrence held the paper up to his nose and breathed in the scent.
Georgie and Simon arrived in the kitchens cold and disheveled and out of breath. Mrs. Ferris clucked and tsked as she carried over ginger biscuits and buttered muffins, which they ate at the long kitchen table. Janet sat down with them, nicking bits of muffin from Georgie’s plate. This was likely grossly improper, for the heir to be eating in the kitchens with a pair of servants, but Georgie figured that if Lawrence couldn’t be bothered to trouble himself with proprieties, then neither could Georgie. Besides, Simon seemed content by the wide kitchen hearth, amidst the clatter of pots and chatter of kitchen maids.
They drank their tea and slowly warmed up, listening to Janet tell Mrs. Ferris about shadowy goings-on at a cousin’s house. From the bits of conversation that Georgie picked up, this cousin was decidedly up to no good.
“My mum says Davy had to spend half the night under a hawthorn bush,” Janet said with a gurgle of laughter. “He came home half-blue.”
Mrs. Ferris turned from the pot she was stirring, spoon still in hand. “Serves him right, capering about under a full moon.” Then the two women glanced at Georgie and Simon before falling silent.
Smuggling, most likely. Before coming to Penkellis, Georgie’s only knowledge of Cornwall had been that it was packed with smugglers. But he hadn’t seen or heard anything, so he hadn’t thought overmuch about it. As far as he knew, every new moon brought crates of tea and a fortune’s worth of French brandy, but if it didn’t affect Lawrence then it didn’t matter to Georgie. Far be it from Georgie to begrudge a man his living.
Georgie supposed that if he had been born here, he might have been a smuggler too. Would he have been one of the men out in the fishing boats, bringing cargo ashore on moonless nights? Or would he have been one of those who ran the smuggled goods inland, from cove to barn to—
“Mrs. Ferris,” he said suddenly, “is this Cousin Davy in fact David Prouse?” Oh, what a fool he had been. He had been so busy thinking of these people as superstitious peasants that he hadn’t given them any credit for proper criminality.
“Yes,” she said carefully. “Davy Prouse is my cousin, and Janet’s too.”
“He’s the man the vicar overheard saying that Lord Radnor stole one of his sheep. Really, I must have maggots in my brain not to have put this together weeks ago. The cart driver I saw you arguing with—was that your cousin Davy as well?” Of course there hadn’t been any stolen sheep. The vicar had only overheard bits of conversation that weren’t meant for his ears. Coded conversation, if Georgie had guessed right. Prouse was a smuggler, and he had lied about seeing Lawrence steal a sheep, and Georgie was inclined to think those facts were somehow connected.
“Simon,” Georgie said, turning to the child, “John is warming his feet by the fire. Why don’t you ask him to help you decorate the parlor with greenery? You can tell him I said he’ll have the rest of the afternoon to himself afterwards. I’ll be there in half an hour, and you can surprise me with how festive the room is.” Simon pocketed some biscuits and a lump of sugar, then went on his way, Barnabus following along.
“Ladies.” Georgie pitched his voice low enough that it wouldn’t be overheard by any of the other servants. “If I were, right this minute, to pay a visit to the old stables, would I find anything of interest?”
Mrs. Ferris didn’t turn around, but Georgie noticed that she stopped stirring the pot for an instant. Janet was the one who spoke. “ ’Course not. Only rats.”
“I see,” Georgie mused, “you would have taken care to have everything moved once you knew I was going to bring in servants from Falmouth.” He remembered Lawrence’s complaints about midnight noises coming from outside. Georgie hadn’t taken him seriously, thinking the man just needed to grouse. But Georgie himself had heard horses and carts a few times; he hadn’t thought much about it because Penkellis was such an eerie house that no strange noise or occurrence ever seemed out of place.
“Don’t know what you’re going on about,” Mrs. Ferris said, her back still turned to Georgie.
Georgie pushed his chair away from the table and got to his feet. “I’ll take myself off then. Fine day for a walk, all this lovely snow. Maybe I’ll run into an excise officer and have a chat about why your cousin never pressed charges about his missing sheep.” He made as if to reach for his coat.
“No, wait!” It was Janet, of course. Mrs. Ferris would have called his bluff, and rightly so. The last thing on earth that Georgie wanted was for Lawrence to come under scrutiny.
