A Seditious Affair

by K. J. Charles

  He strode forward, glaring up into Lord Richard’s face. “I said, you won’t. You’ve hagridden Dom for fifteen fucking years, and I won’t have you giving him another dose of what’s wrong with him. It’s not his doing I’m mixed up in this, and you, friend, you aren’t making me into a stick to beat him with because you don’t like his ways. I’ll do whatever’s needed, I’ll let you ship me out the country if that’s best for him and Harry, but I won’t stand here and listen to you talk like that about a better man than any of you. I’ll not take a fucking thing from you, if it comes with that attached. So you”—he jabbed an aggressive finger—“you keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll go back to Bow Street right now and stand my trial. You needn’t fear for your lordship’s secrets,” he added unpleasantly. “I don’t inform.”

  Lord Richard stared at him, face unreadable. Silas glared back. In the corners of his vision, Norreys and Cyprian were both very still.

  Lord Richard’s gaze flicked over to his valet, back to Silas. “Cyprian.”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Deal with this for me. Whatever seems necessary.” Lord Richard turned on his heel and left the room.

  Silas looked at the closed door, at Norreys, at the valet. Norreys’s mouth was slightly open. He appeared bereft of speech.

  “Excuse me,” murmured Cyprian. He stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  “What the devil?” Norreys said. “What the devil? He’s as mad as Dominic. It must be contagious.”

  “What did he tell him to do?” Silas demanded. It came to something when he was looking at Harry’s fop like the man was an ally. “What did that mean?”

  Cyprian reentered on silent feet, closing the door without a sound. “Very well.”

  “Very well what?” demanded Silas and Norreys, in chorus. Norreys shot him a glare and went on, “Perhaps you could disclose your intentions? Mason and I are a little confused.”

  “I don’t know what I intend yet, Mr. Norreys,” Cyprian said calmly. “But Lord Richard gave me free rein, so I dare say I’ll use it. If you could both follow me?”

  —

  Half an hour later, Silas was washed, brushed, and wearing his best new clothes, which had been retrieved from Quex’s. While that had been seen to, he’d repeated the full story twice. Cyprian had listened in unreadable silence, brown eyes abstracted, fingers steepled. He’d thought for a moment, sat forward, reeled off a lengthy list of instructions, and packed the highborn, exquisite Mr. Julius Norreys off to do his errands. The peculiar thing was, Norreys had seemed entirely unsurprised.

  And now here Silas was, clean and smart and being shaved by the best valet in London, because apparently he wasn’t fit to shave himself.

  “You have no idea of the privilege this is,” Cyprian remarked to their reflections in the mirror. “I haven’t shaved anyone but my lord, and myself of course, in, let me see, four years, five months, and sixteen days.” He angled Silas’s jaw, scraping the bristle away. “While we’re on the subject, don’t ever speak to my lord like that again. He’ll tolerate a great deal for Mr. Frey, but I won’t. Mind your tongue or I’ll make you wish you had.”

  The cutthroat blade whipping over Silas’s skin didn’t allow for response. Cyprian went on. “Now let’s recap; I want you clear on your role. You accepted the place as Lord Richard’s bookman some days ago. You were engaged to put all the various Vane libraries and collections in order.” He jerked the razor away at a movement from Silas. “Don’t do that when I’m shaving you.”

  “I never asked you to,” Silas growled. “And I want to know what you’re doing.”

  “Saving your neck,” Cyprian said. “Could you let me get on with it?”

  “Bollocks. That’s not what your master asked, and you know it. He wanted me out of the country, wants nothing to do with me, and I can’t blame him, yet here you are spinning a story to say I work for him. What are you up to?”

  Cyprian put a hand on Silas’s shoulder and leaned in toward the mirror, his reflected brown eyes holding Silas’s gaze. “Do you know what I do, Mr. Mason?”

  “Polish gentlemen’s boots and fold their smalls?” Silas suggested, and saw just a little flicker in the imperturbable expression.

  “I serve Lord Richard,” Cyprian said. “That’s what I’m for. I make sure that everything is arranged in a way that will best suit him.”

  Silas considered. “Is that the same thing as following orders?”

  Cyprian had a triangular sort of smile, his top lip pulling up to reveal sharp canine teeth. There was no other word but foxy. “Lord Richard is the master here. Let us say, I carry out my lord’s expressed instructions and anticipate the ones that, in time, I think he would wish to have given.”

  Silas puzzled that out. “And you think he’s going to want me working for him? You think I want to?”

  “Think ahead, Mr. Mason. Several steps ahead.” Cyprian reapplied the razor to the last patches of bristle. “Hurrying you onto a boat for France would solve nothing except your immediate problem. Mr. Harry would be tainted by association with your obvious guilt, while Mr. Frey would still have to explain why you were wearing his coat to a conspiracy. No, my lord will prefer to have this matter of treason scotched altogether. To do that, you must go along with this story.”

  “And so must his lordship,” Silas pointed out. “You think he’ll like that?”

  “I think my lord will do whatever is necessary for Mr. Harry and Mr. Frey,” Cyprian said. “Will you?”

  Silas couldn’t argue. Cyprian was right, even if he was shamelessly pulling the strings that would make Silas dance to his tune. Still, the idea of Lord Richard’s protection stuck in Silas’s craw, and he couldn’t imagine the big nobleman would be any happier about it. Would he truly tolerate that for Dominic’s sake?

  Perhaps he would. Silas had seen the expression in Lord Richard’s eyes when he’d hurled those home truths at the man. He couldn’t doubt that Lord Richard cared for Dominic.

  And yet the servant who arranged his lordship’s life for his comfort was doing his best to keep Silas safe in England, which might even keep him in Dominic’s life, assuming they had anything left between them after this. Cyprian wanted Silas here; he’d given Zoë the order to find Dominic a lover in the first place…

  “You want Dominic out of Lord Richard’s way,” Silas said. “That’s your several steps ahead, isn’t it? You want me around to keep Dominic busy.”

  The valet’s eyes met his in the mirror for one long, silent moment. Then Cyprian whisked the white cloth from Silas’s shoulders, leaving him startlingly well-shaved and respectable. “We have interests in common, Mr. Mason, and the first is preserving your neck. Now pay attention because there’s very little time—” A bell rang twice. “Or none at all. It sounds as if they’re here.” His lips tightened. “That was earlier than I’d hoped.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The Home Office, I fear. Let’s get on, Mr. Mason. We have a job of work to do.”

  Chapter 15

  Cyprian left him in the book room. Silas ranged around, fingers automatically reaching for a volume here or there, but he pulled them back. No time for that.

  It felt like a year had passed since the morning, though the mantel clock said it was not yet six. He was exhausted, in the full sense of the word. Nothing left, worn out.

  Think, Mason.

  He didn’t want to die, to be tried and sentenced and hanged for five minutes’ presence on a street. He didn’t want to accept Lord Richard’s patronage, with a bone-deep reluctance that made him feel nauseated at the thought. And most of all, he didn’t want to face the fact that, if it came to the choice, he might rather hide behind Lord Richard’s coattails than swing. That when it was a matter of dying on your feet or living on your knees, the answer wasn’t as clear as you might have hoped.

  He’d never taken the coward’s route. If he’d had the choice, he might have turned his back on this devil’s barg
ain now, just to punish himself for wanting to accept it.

  But he didn’t have the choice, because of Harry and Dominic. It didn’t matter if Lord Richard’s sodding charity and his own cowardice stuck in his throat like broken oyster shells. The fact was, if Silas was found guilty, the consequences to Harry and Dominic would be appalling. So Silas would take Lord Richard’s help and play his valet’s game, even if it meant he could never look himself in the face again.

  Dominic wasn’t involved in Cyprian’s hastily spun web of lies, which was a good thing. They hadn’t been able to get hold of him since noon, when he’d sent an urgent message advising Lord Richard about Silas’s arrest and that accursed coat. Cyprian had sent a couple of notes back to him at the Home Office, but no response had been forthcoming.

  Doubtless he was busy. Or perhaps he and Silas had found the point where they were so far apart there could be no coming back together.

  If Dominic wanted nothing to do with him ever again, and he found himself living at the mercy of the Tory’s bloody Richard…Silas laughed aloud, an ugly sound in the empty room, and had to stop himself because it felt like something inside him was stretching or fraying.

  He cast around for distraction. There was an octavo volume on a desk, newly bound in a style he knew well: Dominic’s bookbinder. He picked it up and saw it was Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

  Dominic had asked him to procure a second copy of the illuminated book and hadn’t said why. It had been for Lord Richard.

  It was only a book. Anyone could read it, and more people should. It was stupid to feel as though Blake was, had been, just for them.

  Silas was reading the poem “London”—In every voice; in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear—when a footman opened the door. “Your presence in the drawing room, Mr. Mason.”

  “Right,” he grunted, and then, because he’d wanted to from the first moment and couldn’t restrain the desire any longer, he turned to the flyleaf. There was no reason he shouldn’t anyway. Book inscriptions weren’t private letters, and if Dom had been fool enough to write words of love in a book anyone could pick up…

  My dear Richard,

  “I was angry with my friend;

  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”

  Always your friend,

  Dominic

  The footman coughed meaningfully. Silas put the book down, with care, and followed him through to the drawing room.

  Skelton, the man from the Home Office, was there, along with the constable George Ruthven. Ruthven glanced at Silas, and his eyes widened with a touch of uncertainty. Fine clothes making the man again.

  Lord Richard stood by the fire, arms folded.

  “Mason,” he said. Nothing in his voice but aristocracy. “I believe these gentlemen are here on this matter of your arrest. Carry on, Mr. Skelton.”

  “Bail should not have been permitted, my lord,” Skelton said. “It seems that Mr. Norreys was somewhat overbearing. The custody officer will be disciplined. I want Mason back in the cells. This is a charge of high treason and conspiracy to murder.”

  “So I understand,” Lord Richard said. “On what grounds?”

  “May I ask your interest, my lord?” Skelton said. “Beyond his association with your cousin, Mr. Harry Vane. Because it seems odd to me that your lordship is sheltering a felon—”

  “I don’t think I’m doing that.” Lord Richard’s tone was a gentle warning. “Mason is…” He waved a hand at Silas in invitation to speak.

  “Taken a post as his lordship’s bookman,” Silas said. A barefaced, open lie, and he couldn’t quite believe Lord Richard wouldn’t simply deny it. “Getting the book holdings in order.”

  “My late cousin Paul was a bibliomaniac,” Lord Richard added. “There is a great deal to be done.”

  Skelton was gaping. “My lord, do you know who this man is? Do you know his record?”

  “He is the man who kept my cousin Harry alive when our family did not,” Lord Richard said. “Harry informed me that Mason also wished to make a clean break with his past. As he is a bookseller of some expertise, and I needed my library dealt with, the solution seemed obvious.”

  “Very philanthropic of you, my lord.”

  “I don’t believe I require your approval,” Lord Richard said softly. “And I ask you again, Mr. Skelton, on what grounds do you accuse Mason of involvement in yesterday’s events?”

  “I have a witness,” Skelton said. He was very careful to keep his voice neutral, but there was a gleam of satisfaction in his eye. “Mason was seen in Cato Street last night along with the rest of them.”

  “What does that mean?” Lord Richard asked. Skelton looked blank. “Along with the rest of them. I understand from the newspapers that there was some arsenal kept in a hayloft and the conspirators were caught red-handed there. Are you saying that Mason was in there with them?”

  “We have a witness, my lord.”

  “So you said. Where, precisely, on Cato Street did he see Mason? In the hayloft, or not?” Skelton’s eyelids flickered. Lord Richard’s lips thinned a little. “You appear to be thinking about this, Mr. Skelton, and I am not sure why, since I have only asked you to repeat the testimony of your witness.”

  “In the stable,” Constable Ruthven said. “Not a hayloft, begging your lordship’s pardon. Edwards said he saw Mason in the stable, with the rest of them. And, very sorry to say, your lordship, but I saw him running off myself.”

  “At what time?” Lord Richard asked, unmoved.

  “It was on the half hour, your lordship. The clock had just struck. Half past eight.”

  “Good,” Lord Richard said. “Mason?”

  “Your witness is a liar,” Silas said. “I was on Cato Street, but I wasn’t near the stable, or hayloft, or whatever it was. Never set foot in such a place in my life. I saw you down the street, George Ruthven, and I saw George Edwards stood by you, and if he’s your witness—”

  “Thank you,” Lord Richard said. “There you are, Mr. Skelton.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but I can’t just accept that,” Skelton said with a little incredulity. “The man is a known seditionist.”

  “And your witness is a damned liar,” Silas said.

  “Tell me this.” Skelton swung to Silas. “Why were you on Cato Street at all? Why else but to play a part in a conspiracy to high treason and murder?”

  “He was there on my orders,” Lord Richard said, calm as if he’d spent his life lying to the law, and Skelton’s mouth dropped open.

  “You—your orders?”

  “Not to go to Cato Street,” Lord Richard said. “I sent him to my cousin, Mrs. Rawling, of Montague Place. Her father was the great book collector I mentioned. Mason informs me he took a detour to Cato Street to investigate the commotion going on there. A piece of idle curiosity, which has been ill rewarded,” he added severely.

  “But…” Skelton was still gaping. Outside, in the hall, a couple of gentlemen’s voices were sounding, one cool and familiar, one loud and cheerful. “He said nothing of this.” He turned on Silas. “If you were there on Lord Richard’s orders, why didn’t you say so?”

  “The first rule of my house is that my servants do not chatter about my business, under any circumstances,” Lord Richard said. “Nor do they place their comfort above my orders. You have your answer, Mr. Skelton. Mason was in the area on my command, and your witness who places him in this stable is mistaken.”

  “Now, my lord, let’s just piece this out. Mason was at a meeting of the Spenceans on Tuesday—”

  “Told them I wasn’t coming back,” Silas put in.

  “And as to last night, he could easy have gone to Cato Street on purpose. Deceived your lordship as to his intentions. Gone there to help—”

  “Excuse me.” Lord Richard strode to the door. “Ash, Julius, is that you? Will you come in a moment?”

  Mr. Norreys entered on command, along with a good-looking fellow in his twenties with bright gold hair and a cheerful l
ook. They were both in black silk knee breeches and black coats.

  “Good heavens, Richard, you’re not dressed.” The handsome young man glanced around the room. “Oh God, your bookman. You’re not going to make me look at more books, are you?”

  “Mr. Skelton, you may have seen Lord Gabriel Ashleigh, who is of course Lord Maltravers’s younger brother. Ash, dear fellow, this man is of the Home Office. Perhaps you could tell him about your distressing experience with literature last night.”

  “What about it? Your chap here showed us that…” Ash made vague opening and shutting motions with his hands.

  “Book?” suggested Norreys.

  “Book. It had wonderful pictures, I’ll grant you. There was a tiger, and a lot of tumpty-tum poems. The great thing was, they were short. I can’t bear all that business with The Corsair and the Inferno and sitting around looking intelligent while some fellow drones away till one’s legs drop off.”

  “How you suffer,” Norreys said. “We did indeed inspect a volume by a poet whose name I forget…?”

  “William Blake,” Silas said. “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.”

  “And then?” Lord Richard asked Ash.

  “Well, we had dinner.”

  “Mr. Skelton is interested in Mason’s movements,” Lord Richard said with patience. “Not yours.”

  “Oh! Well, you sent him off to see Verona, Mrs. Rawling, didn’t you?”

  And the aristocracy dared to claim superiority to his sort. Silas had never met such a pack of barefaced liars in his life. He wondered if the handsome Ash made a habit of seeming more stupid than he was and how often Lord Richard’s valet gave them their script.

  “That was, should it be relevant, some little while after eight o’clock, following which we had an excellent dinner here, including a turbot that I cannot praise sufficiently,” Norreys said. “Is that all, dear boy? We do have an engagement.”

  “I think so,” Lord Richard said. “Mr. Skelton, you have heard that Mason left here rather after eight. I fail to see how he can have smuggled himself into a stable on Cato Street, in order to commit treason or anything else, before half past the hour. Especially since the newspapers suggest the street was occupied by a body of officers bent on doing their duty.” He gave Ruthven a nod. “Your witness is mistaken. Isn’t he?”