As the butler left him in a large sitting room, Bennett had to acknowledge that the man’s face might well have been made of granite; the servant was the first person since he’d left the Congo who hadn’t sent even a single glance at Kero perched on his shoulder. That was impressive, considering that he’d nearly been forced to remove himself and the monkey from the mail stage traveling from Dover after Kero took a fancy to the blue-feathered hat of a fellow passenger. Everyone noticed Kero.
Left alone in the sitting room, though, he had a sudden understanding of the reason behind the butler’s lack of interest. The walls and shelves and floor were covered with items that would have looked more at home in Cairo or Nairobi or Constantinople than they did in a duke’s town house in London. Carved ivory, reed baskets, fertility statues, a Masai shield and spear—so many items from so many different countries, the effect was almost dizzying.
He approached the shield and spear. The one that had caught him during that last, mad dash to the river hadn’t been Masai, but it had been dipped in poison, something from a frog according to his guide Mbundi. The scarred-over wound still hurt like the devil some mornings. He supposed it always would. Carefully Bennett lifted the weapon from its rack and hefted it.
“I spent much of my youth traveling,” Sommerset’s low voice came from the doorway. “My father was an envoy for the king.”
“This has nice balance,” Bennett returned, facing the duke as the tall man strolled into the room. “How many goats did it cost you?”
Sommerset flashed a brief smile, the expression making him look younger than the thirty-two years of age Bennett knew him to be. “Seven. And the shield was another eight.”
“Well worth it.” Finally Bennett set the spear back in its place. “I have one from the Ngole tribe just north of Lake Mai-Ndombe that might interest you.”
“I believe it was one of those very spears that killed you,” the duke returned, steel gray eyes assessing him. “According to Captain Langley, that is.”
“He was mistaken.”
“Evidently so—though if we hadn’t met when the Africa Association agreed to sponsor your expedition, I might be more inclined to believe Langley’s book and your fate therein. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“Last night.” Bennett clenched his jaw. The tome was monstrous; even he had difficulty separating the truth from the tripe, and he’d written the majority of it. “A remarkable work of exaggeration and fancy.”
“Mm hm. Considering that the Association’s agreement was for you to lead the expedition and to share credit for any discoveries, papers, journals, and books with us, we expected you to be the one to keep journals and make maps and sketches.”
“I remember that conversation. I did so.”
“Not according to Langley. He owns all of his material, and believe you me, he’s made a pretty penny from it. The Association, on the other hand, has been left hanging, without credit, scientific information, or income. I’m assuming that as you are not dead, you have those materials you promised us?”
While a welcome back to England and the offer of a brandy might have been pleasant, Bennett understood the duke’s anger. The Association had paid a great deal of money for ship passage, supplies, porters, and whatever incidentals he and Langley expected to come across during their time in the Congo. Langley had been his second, and of his choosing, even. He supposed he was lucky to have survived making such a half-witted decision at all.
Bennett scowled. “My crates of artifacts and specimens were sent ahead to Tesling for my later sorting and cataloguing, with the items of your choice going to the British Museum, as we agreed.”
The duke sank into a chair. “And those journals and maps and sketches you’re so famous for making?”
“Langley took them from me and disappeared downriver. I arrived in London yesterday to look for the miserable rat.” Well, not look for, precisely, but saying that he intended to kill the man and take back his rightful possessions might raise some alarms.
“He’s not here. His illustrious publishers are sponsoring a tour across the country for him.”
“So I heard. I’d at least hoped that he’d decided to give my things over to the Association, but clearly he had other intentio—”
“I’m to believe that you’re the true author of Across the Continent, then?” Sommerset put a finger and thumb to his chin. “I find that difficult to believe.”
“Langley reversed our roles and did a bit of inventing.”
“That’s a great deal of invention for a miserable rat.”
Bennett drew in a hard breath. “Standing here debating you about it is a bloody waste of my time, obviously. I don’t actually give a damn whether you believe me or not. I’m merely reporting my return to you, as per our agreement. I’ll take another path where Captain Langley is concerned.” With a nod, he turned his back on the duke.
“You should worry whether I believe you or not.”
Stopping, Bennett turned around again. “And why is that?”
“Adventuring is what you do, is it not, Captain? After reading that book, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to sponsor a further expedition with you at its head.” He sat forward. “In fact, how am I to know whether the fiction is Langley’s, or whether you have been writing fictions all along? Have you actually been to East Africa?”
Bennett’s insides clenched unpleasantly. That had been nagging at the back of his mind all night as he sat reading. “Once I gut Langley, we’ll see which of us is the more capable.”
“In which case he would be dead, you would be hanged, and you would still look foolish.” The duke produced a handful of peanuts from the pocket of his immaculately tailored gray jacket and offered them to Kero. With an excited chirp she launched off Bennett’s shoulder to snatch them and then retreat to the top of the nearest bookcase to savor her new treasures. “Bloody and gossip-provoking, but not very practical.”
“He stole from me. What the devil do you expect me to do? Sit back and smile while he takes my position and my status?”
“No.” Sommerset stood again. “I expect you to keep in mind that you’re in London. Not the Congo. We don’t spill the blood of our peers without a trial—or at least a majority opinion.”
“That’s helpful. I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be following my own instincts and not your lecture on propriety and proper manners.”
“I believe you, you know.”
That stopped Bennett again. “You might have said that before I nearly gave myself an apoplexy.”
The duke flashed that brief smile again. “And you might have said, ‘Thank you’ just then, but you didn’t. Not much of one for either propriety or proper manners, are you, Captain?”
“No. In most of the places I’ve been, honesty and directness have served me better.”
“You’re not in any of those places at the moment. And if you want the opportunity to prove to whom Across the Continent truly belongs, you can’t go about threatening everyone who looks sideways at you.”
That was the rub. He hated the idea of staying about in London for no bloody good reason, but if he went home to Tesling to sort through his specimens, Langley would have free rein to destroy what little remained of his reputation. And as Sommerset had noted, at the moment no one was likely to sponsor an expedition led by him. They might never do so again.
“Any suggestions?” he finally grumbled.
“Come with me.” Without a backward glance to see whether he was followed, Sommerset left the sitting room.
With an audible curse, Bennett collected Kero and strode after the duke. If it came to the worst, he could sell Tesling and take himself off to the Americas or back to Africa on his own. It wouldn’t be exploring for the sake of the adventure, though, and he wouldn’t be able to share anything he discovered, because no one seemed to have cause any longer to believe him. It would be running away, and he couldn’t think of a way to word it that made it anything else.
The duke turned down a corridor running lengthwise across the front of the large house. Myriad servants bowed respectfully to their master, but ignored both Bennett and Kero. He wasn’t certain if that spoke well for Sommerset, or poorly for himself.
Finally, at what looked to be the far east corner of the house, Sommerset stopped. “Here we are.” He pushed open a door and stood aside, gesturing for Bennett to precede him.
Beyond the door a small alcove opened into a large sitting room with dark paneled walls and glowing lamps set upon tables alongside two dozen or so chairs. The entire back wall was lined with books, maps, and stacks of papers. A pianoforte stood in one corner, odd-looking beside a trio of Zulu drums. More foreign trinkets and animal skulls and furs lay scattered throughout the room, while the east wall featured a trio of tall windows overlooking what appeared to be the Ainsley House garden.
Three men sat at a distance from one another in the room, the oldest reading a newspaper, the second asleep in a chair facing the fireplace, while the third sat beneath the left-hand window and seemed absorbed in a book. None of them stirred at the duke’s entrance, much less Bennett’s.
“What is this?” he asked, noting a second door at the front of the room that looked as though it led directly outside. A fourth man, sitting in the shadows and so still that at first Bennett had thought him a dressmaker’s mannequin, moved from his position by the door and headed in their direction.
“This is a beginning,” the duke said. “I spent a year thinking about it, and the past four months having walls knocked down and the pieces gathered together.”
“It’s very…nice,” Bennett ventured, “but the beginning of what? And what does it have to do with my wanting Langley’s head on a platter?”
“Reading the newspaper there is Lucas Crestley, Lord Piper,” Sommerset went on, as though he hadn’t heard the questions. “Eight months ago he returned from a…secret expedition through the French-held territories of America to scout whether Britain might wish to reinstitute a presence there. Red Indians killed the rest of his party in a rather disturbing manner.”
“That’s—”
“The sleeping fellow,” the duke continued, “just arrived in London three days ago. Colonel Bartholomew James. He—”
“The India Thuggee skirmishes,” Bennett interrupted, looking again at the dark-haired man seated with a walking cane to hand. “He went missing for a time. I read something about it in this morning’s newspaper.” He knew them to be nearly the same age, but Colonel James looked older. By his gaunt face it didn’t seem as though the colonel had done much sleeping lately.
Sommerset nodded. “And by the window we have Thomas Easton, sent to Persia in an attempt to persuade the locals to expand their silk exports. He posed as a Muslim for a year.”
Easton looked up at the sound of his name, the light catching a thin scar running from his left ear down the side of his neck. “And I’m presently reading Across the Continent. You must be Captain Wolfe, the overly cautious fellow with the monkey. This says you’re dead.”
Bennett clenched his fists, stalking forward. “And I say you’re the stupid bastard who speaks when he shouldn’t.”
Sommerset moved between them, heading Bennett off. “Not in here,” he growled.
“What is ‘here,’ precisely?” Bennett demanded.
“I prefer to think of it as a gentlemen’s club for those souls who’ve been forced, for one reason or another, to cast aside civilization’s…frivolities. Souls who desperately need to find a way to exist in Society again.”
“An asylum for outcasts,” Bennett said dubiously.
“More of a sanctuary. I’ve taken to calling it the Adventurers’ Club. There are currently fourteen members, which I believe makes it the most exclusive club in London. I decide its membership. And I’m inviting you to join us.”
“Is Langley a member?”
“No.”
“What about those souls who don’t particularly want to rejoin Society?”
The duke eyed him. “You have a reputation to repair, Captain. You can’t do that in Cairo.”
Bennett took a breath, spending the moment looking about the room. The duke was correct, damn it all. He didn’t care much for the obsequiousness of Mayfair, but the peers therein were the ones who could afford to sponsor his expeditions.
“If you wish to join us,” Sommerset went on, “you’ll find the establishment open at all times, food and spirits always available, a spare bed if you require one, and companions who see the world with clearer eyes than the rest of Society. As you do.”
The man who’d been lurking in the shadows finally moved again, holding out his hand. “Hervey,” he said. A key rested in his palm. With a slight frown, Bennett took it.
“Hervey will see that you receive anything you need while you are under this roof,” the duke explained.
“And most mornings you’ll find Gibbs here if I am not, sir,” Hervey added.
“What if you decide Langley’s version is the correct one, after all?” Bennett asked, pocketing the key.
“Then you’ll be asked to leave.”
“Asked,” Bennett repeated dubiously.
“There are only two rules for membership,” Sommerset continued. “Firstly, only you are granted access. No guests of either gender. The monkey, however, is permitted. Secondly, no one else hears of the Adventurers’ Club. If Society at large begins clamoring for entry, we will cease to be a haven for those risking life and limb for the benefit of science and their country. Is that agreeable to you, Captain?”
Taking another long look around the large, comfortable-seeming room, Bennett nodded. For a day or two it would be acceptable to stay at Clancy House, but with Kero and his own current…hostility, Lord and Lady Emery wouldn’t want him about for any longer than that. And the idea of having a place he could escape to in the middle of Mayfair was both unexpected and welcome. “Yes,” he said aloud, on the chance that an audible agreement was required for membership. “It is agreeable to me.”
“Good. This way, then.” Again leading the way, the Duke of Sommerset left the club’s main room through the second door. Bennett found himself outside Ainsley House, beneath a vine-covered overhang. “Use the key here. It doesn’t open the main front door, or the one dividing the club from my home. I do require my own privacy.”
“Understood. I have to say, though, that I’m surprised at the invitation, considering Langley’s book and the Africa Association’s disappointment with the results of the expedition.”
“You were dead,” Sommerset returned. “So you’re only partly to blame. And this has nothing to do with the Association.” He grimaced. “I do have a word or two of advice if you’ll take it, having been stranded in Society for longer than you.”
Stranded. That was an odd word, coming as it did from one of the wealthiest men in the country. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve been very celebrated in the past, mostly because of your books. No one knows you. And they will judge by their most recent experience—which is the one with Langley’s book. Don’t react as they expect. And I suggest for that reason that you at least give the appearance of being friendly with the Marquis of Fennington.”
“My uncle wrote the foreword for that damned book.” Bennett clenched his jaw. That was only the beginning of the anger he felt toward Fennington, but he had no intention of delving into that quagmire in front of the Duke of Sommerset.
“Yes, he did. So if you want to discover what Lang ley has in mind, or even where the journals might be currently, you—”
“The friend of my enemy is my uncle,” Bennett grumbled.
“Precisely. Consider it. Because I recommended you for the Congo expedition, and I don’t appreciate being made to look foolish any more than you do.” With a short nod, Sommerset vanished back into the Adventurers’ Club and the house beyond.
Annoyed by and as unused to receiving advice as he was, he’d be an idiot to ignore what Sommerset had reco
mmended. And he knew what it meant. In order to be other than what Society expected of him, he would have to be charming and social. And alive, of course. That at least would gain everyone’s attention. Then he only had to turn them to his side and recover his journals from Langley. If he couldn’t do both of those, he was likely to be as “stranded” in England as Sommerset seemed to be. And liking it even less.
Chapter Four
In the Wandui tribe, extended earlobes signify beauty. They begin in youth by wearing small stones in each lobe, and by adulthood some of them can pass an ostrich egg through the opening. They offered to begin the process with me, but as I had a fortnight previously been pierced through the leg with an arrow, I informed them that I already had a plentitude of holes in my person. Ah, the price of beauty.
THE JOURNALS OF CAPTAIN BENNETT WOLFE
Phillipa Eddison waited in the breakfast room until her tea was as cold as a stone. “Barnes, would you check again with Mary to see if Olivia has risen yet?” she asked, turning in her chair to face the butler.
Despite the twitch in his jaw that reminded Phillipa she’d already made the same request three times, the butler nodded. “Right away, my lady.”
As he opened the door to leave the room, though, Olivia glided in. “Good morning, Flip,” she said with a smile, walking over to the sideboard to select her breakfast while Barnes resumed his previous position.
“Is it still morning?” Phillipa asked in return, ready to smack her head against the tabletop. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s barely ten o’clock,” her sister commented, sitting at the table opposite Phillipa. “One would almost think you’re anxious about my picnic.”
“Nonsense. I was anxious that you would sleep through your picnic, which would be rude and isn’t at all the same thing you’re implying.”
With a grin, Livi began buttering her toast. “He hasn’t replied, you know. John has, but he specifically said that he couldn’t speak for Captain Wolfe. Are you going to attend anyway?”
The Care and Taming of a Rogue Page 4