Page 17 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
The women exchanged a long look. “There was an explosion—a very small one, nothing to fuss over—but they got it into their heads that they’d be blown to bits.”
“Now, I wonder why they’d think that,” Georgie pondered. He kept his attention on Janet, figuring her as the one more likely to accidentally reveal something. “Radnor owns mines elsewhere in Cornwall, does he not? I take it the powder and fuse he developed were for use in these mines? It seems odd that the villagers, who surely must have some relations who work in the mines, wouldn’t understand that.”
Georgie, after two weeks spent elbow-deep in Radnor’s papers, knew perfectly well that the earl had invented a safety fuse that was meant to make work safer for the miners. By all rights, the local people ought to regard him as a hero.
“Well,” Janet said slowly, “the folk around here think he’s some kind of devil worshiper. Can’t imagine why.”
“Janet!” Mrs. Ferris chided.
“Well, they do. Like Mr. Turner said—”
“Call me Georgie, please,” he said, bringing out his best smile.
“Like Georgie said, Maggie Kemp has been going on about that poxy caul for years now. How old is Betsy? Three? Three years that she’s been telling everyone who darkens her doorstep that Lord Radnor is using her Betsy’s caul to summon devils or whatnot.”
Mrs. Ferris pushed some stray bits of onion around her plate. “There’s no harm in him. I always tell them so.”
Georgie wondered what else she told them. He would have bet almost anything that she was at the heart of the rumors and suspicion that surrounded Radnor, but he couldn’t see why.
“The lad in the sketch.” He gestured with his fork at the drawing that sat on the chimney piece. “Is he your son?” he asked Mrs. Ferris.
By the time the kitchen clock chimed ten, Georgie had learned that Mrs. Ferris’s son was a midshipman in the navy. He knew Janet was Mrs. Ferris’s cousin’s daughter and also a Ferris. This, Georgie noted but of course did not remark on, likely meant that Mrs. Ferris was really amiss. And yet, she had somehow managed to get her child a commission.
He could have done this routine in his sleep. Ingratiating himself was what he did best. He hadn’t done it with Radnor, though. He hadn’t needed to—he was genuinely intrigued by the earl’s device, even more so by the man who had invented it. Instead he provoked and irritated Radnor as much as he pleased. That was not how he treated marks. It was not even how he treated his friends.
No matter how hard Georgie tried to keep his mental pigeonholes sorted, he could not seem to keep Radnor where he belonged.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Lawrence needed to apologize to Turner. It was the right thing, the sane thing to do. He knew this because it was the exact opposite of what his father or brother would have done after behaving boorishly to a servant. He would do something else his father and brother had never thought to do: he would offer to let the man leave, even paying his wages through the next quarter. He would make that offer because he wanted Turner to stay, damn him, and he was operating on the vague sense that when in doubt about the correct course of action, he ought to consult his desires and behave contrary to them.
Candle in hand, he headed to the wing that housed the only inhabitable bedchambers. He didn’t know which one had been assigned to Turner—or indeed who could have done the assigning in the first place—but unless the man was bedding down in the stables he couldn’t be far from here. But the west wing was utterly silent. There was no sign of life, no smell of wood fire, no rustling of bedsheets. All he could hear was the familiar nighttime scurrying of mice and the wind whistling through a cracked window.
He opened each door along the corridor, unleashing cloud after cloud of dust. For the first time, he realized what it meant to live in a house with essentially no servants. Soon this wing would go the way of the crumbling east wing. The furniture would molder and rot. Small leaks, then larger ones, would spring in the roof. Eventually it would cave in and the walls would fall. Small weeds would grow in between the toppled stones.
He could see it with perfect clarity: Penkellis gone, eradicated from the face of the earth. The bloodline of the Earls of Radnor would end with Lawrence, and all that was left was to wait for the house itself to crumble. It brought him a small mote of joy to think that this place, with all its evil and sorrow, could be done away with. But at the same time he knew it had to be slightly mad to fantasize about one’s own ancestral home being reduced to rubble.
That was why he had to hold fast to any sane impulse that got into his head, like a ship’s captain leaning hard on the wheel during a storm. He needed to throw his weight into choosing not to be mad, while he still had a choice. He would not go the way of his father and brother, letting himself be governed only by his madness, only by his pleasure. Not yet. Not while he still had a choice.
But it was all too clear that Turner was not to be found in this part of the house. Lawrence returned upstairs, to the tower that housed his study and bedchamber.
Rounding a corner, he saw Barnabus lying outside the door to what had once been Lawrence’s own dressing room. The dog sleepily thumped his tail, but made no other move to greet his master. Lawrence bent to scratch the animal behind his ears.
“Stay,” he whispered, pushing open the dressing room door. In the darkness, he could barely make out the silhouette of a man lying on the sofa.
He ought to shut the door and tiptoe out the way he had come. Turner was sleeping. Of course he was sleeping. It was likely past midnight. This was not the time for apologies, Lawrence realized belatedly. He ought to be in bed himself.
Instead he stepped further into the room. He assumed there was some good reason for Turner to be sleeping here but didn’t bother taxing his mind with a question when the answer didn’t matter. Much more interesting was the fact that Turner slept with his hands folded under his cheek like a child, his knees tucked up close to his chest.
Even more interesting still was the fact that Turner slept without a shirt. The coat he was using as a blanket had slipped down, revealing a shoulder that was burnished to a pale glow by the faint moonlight.
Lawrence placed the candle on an empty table and took a step closer still. Turner looked very young and unsophisticated while he slept, his beauty unrelieved by the sharp edges of urbanity and archness. Dark eyelashes rested against smooth cheeks in obscene extravagance. Lawrence was disconcerted to see the man like this, all sleepy innocence.
As he watched, a spider crawled across the secretary’s face. Turner’s nose twitched in unconscious discomfort. Instinctively, Lawrence reached out and brushed the creature off Turner’s cheek.
Instantly, Turner’s eyes sprang open, and Lawrence found himself being shoved to the ground.
“Who sent you?” Turner asked, his voice raspy with sleep.
