Page 49 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
Lawrence tucked the quilts more firmly around Georgie, who was still fast asleep, burrowed beneath layers of quilts and Lawrence’s own body. He eased out of bed and crossed into the study to shut the window. That would take care of the cold, but left the problem of the carriage wheels. Peering out the window, he saw a chaise and four swiftly approaching. He could discern the outline of a coat of arms on the carriage door.
He couldn’t think of a single good reason why anyone, let alone a peer, would be arriving at Penkellis the day after Christmas with a winter storm brewing over the sea. Hell, he couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would come to Penkellis on any day. His heart started to pound with anxiety over the unexpected arrival.
“Georgie,” he said, nudging the man awake. “There’s a visitor. A carriage is outside.”
“Eh?” Georgie opened one sleepy eye. His hair, normally so tidy, was ruffled into wavy dishevelment. “Delivery?” he mumbled, his words swallowed by the pillow.
“There’s a coat of arms on the carriage door.”
Georgie sprang out of bed, flung open the clothes press, and threw a few garments onto the bed. “You. Dress.” He retrieved his own clothes from the floor and readied himself; a few economical movements later he looked much the same as he always did—tidy clothes, smooth hair, an air of implacable coolness. If it weren’t for the flicker of green on Georgie’s finger, Lawrence might have imagined last night.
Lawrence’s heart gave a thud that was equal parts satisfaction and disorientation. Last night, sated and happy, Georgie curled next to him, Lawrence had dumped the contents of the soap tin onto the mattress. He had found his father’s ring and slid it onto Georgie’s thumb, where it almost fit. Heavy, old-fashioned gold surrounding a large, strangely dull emerald, Lawrence’s father had worn that ring every day.
Seeing that clunky emerald on Georgie’s hand filled Lawrence with a dozen different kinds of pleasure, ranging from the basic joy of adorning his lover, to the dark thrill of doing something that would have enraged his unlamented father. Giving his father’s ring to Georgie might have been the first time Lawrence truly felt like the Earl of Radnor. If he wanted to give his father’s precious emerald to the man he loved, he could and would do precisely that.
Georgie caught the direction of his gaze and flashed a smile ten times brighter than the stone. Pointedly, he turned the ring so the jewel faced his palm. This was their secret.
He hadn’t taken the ring off. He was going to keep it.
For a fleeting moment, Lawrence felt capable of anything. Strange carriages, housefuls of servants, none of it mattered.
Georgie looked away, breaking the spell. “You’d better get dressed.”
“I . . . ” Lawrence hesitated. The walls were closing in and the blood rushed in his ears, the sound of oceans and broken floodgates and raw, elemental panic. “I’m not sure I feel equal to . . . ” To leaving his tower. To meeting new people. To dealing with anything unexpected.
To living a life.
Ashamed and angry with himself, he let out a long, miserable breath.
But then Georgie’s hand was on Lawrence’s arm. “Of course,” he said gently. “I’ll run downstairs and do what needs to be done. But get dressed just in case.” They stood like that, Lawrence’s hand wrapped around Georgie’s smaller one, Georgie looking up at Lawrence with an unreadable, nearly bashful expression. Then Georgie skimmed a kiss along Lawrence’s now-stubbly jaw and slipped out of the room.
For a moment, Lawrence had seen how things might have been if he had been a normal man, if his mind worked in the ordinary fashion. He could fall in love with his secretary, he could dare to hope that they might fashion some sort of life together. He could be a father to his neglected child. He could have a house that wasn’t a crumbling ruin.
But he could not even go downstairs. No, he could not eventhinkabout going downstairs without the paralyzing certainty that his heart would pound through his ribcage and his mind devolve into primal chaos.
What Lawrence really wanted to do was bar the door, tinker with his battery, and pretend there was no carriage, no visitor, no world beyond to interfere with his peace. Every nerve in his body told him to hide. There was no way, despite Georgie’s faith in him, that this could be anything other than madness, for what better word was there to describe a man who could not hear carriage wheels without panicking, who could not conceive of leaving his study without the sense of imminent doom?
Still, blood rushing in his ears, Lawrence set about the foreign rituals of shaving his face, tying his cravat, and putting on his ring. These felt like the rites of a strange religion, superstitions as laughable as the villagers sprinkling salt on their windowsills.
“I’m not certain I understand precisely who you put in the parlor,” Georgie repeated to the flustered footman he had met in the hall. He had rushed downstairs, convinced that he was about to meet whichever of Lawrence’s relations had threatened to dispute the earl’s competence—one of Simon’s uncles, presumably. But instead, the footman was saying something about the Standish carriage. “If Sir Edward Standish is not present, as you say, who arrived in his carriage?”
“Lady Standish, sir, and her brother.”
In itself, that might not be remarkable—it wouldn’t be so very odd for a man to pay a visit on his correspondent, even one living in such an out-of-the-way place as Penkellis—except that Georgie was convinced that Sir Edward Standish did not exist, and therefore his wife could not be in Lawrence’s parlor. He entered the room fully expecting to be met with a fellow confidence artist, or an assassin, or possibly armed robbers.
Really, anybody except a prim-looking woman in a high-necked traveling costume, sitting rigidly on the settee beside a man Georgie recognized immediately as Julian Medlock. Georgie schooled his expression to bland neutrality. The last time he had seen Mr. Medlock, Georgie had been helping to persuade one of Medlock’s friends to invest in a thoroughly imaginary canal company. Georgie had been grave and clerkly with his sober attire and deferential manners, and of course he had used a different name. With any luck, Medlock wouldn’t recognize him.
But just to be safe he stayed clear of the light that streamed through the newly cleaned windows.
“I’m George Turner, Lord Radnor’s secretary. I’m afraid we weren’t expecting the pleasure of your company, but—”
“I told you it was devilish badton, Eleanor,” Medlock interrupted. “Can’t you tell the place is at sixes and sevens?” Medlock’s gaze landed on the wainscoting, where a hasty coat of paint barely concealed rot. These details had been obscured in last night’s candlelight but now seemed painfully obvious. “The poor chap is likely still in his bed.”
“Mercy, Julian. Radnor and I have exchanged letters by nearly every post for the better part of two years. A fine friend I’d be not to check on—I mean to saycallon him when I’m in the neighborhood.”
“Which would have been all well and good if youhadbeen in the neighborhood, but you were not.” He turned to Georgie. “We were visiting a relation in Barnstaple, which has to be a hundred miles away, although I’ll be dashed if it didn’t feel like five hundred. Two days on the road, and very muddy roads they were. Speaking of which, Mr. Turner,” Medlock said, his voice now weary and beleaguered, “I trust that someone will tend to the horses. My sister did not lead me to expect any of the niceties.” His gaze alit on a length of curtain that the maids hadn’t had time to hem properly.
“His lordship keeps no horses, but the stables are clean and well-provisioned. One of the gardeners used to be an ostler, so your horses will be well cared for.” Yesterday, Georgie had inspected the stables and other outbuildings himself, to make sure there were no casks of brandy or other smuggled goods.
