“Go away.” This directive was muttered from the middle of the pile of hay, and never had two words given Rye greater relief.
“I’d like to,” he replied. “I’d like to get back to tallying up my revenues and expenses, like to create my income projections for the next quarter—a cheerful, hopeful exercise—but no. I am instead required to nanny a wayward lad who has probably fallen in love with a goose girl who rejects his tender sentiments. This happens, my boy. We all get our hearts broken, and it’s the stuff of some of John’s best melodies.” Also the stuff of a commanding officer’s worst nightmares.
“Go away.” For Benny, that tone of voice qualified as a snarl. “I ain’t talking to you.”
“Did Otter threaten to make you take a bath?” Benny didn’t stink, but neither did he regularly wash his face.
“Fetch the lady wot cooks at the Coventry. I’ll talk to ’er.”
Rye planted his arse on an overturned half barrel and considered the puzzle before him. Benny was not by nature a difficult or complicated fellow, but now he was talking in riddles.
“What lady who cooks for the Coventry?” The Coventry Club was a gaming hell doing business as a fancy supper club. Rye’s sister Jeanette had, for reasons known only to her, married one of the club’s co-owners several months ago. Multiple reconnaissance missions suggested the union was happy and the club thriving, which was ever so fortunate for the groom’s continued welfare.
And no, Rye was not in the least jealous. Jeanette deserved every joy life had to offer, and if Sycamore Dorning counted among her joys, Rye would find a way to be cordial to the man—when Jeanette was on hand.
“Fetch the lady with the kind eyes,” Benny said as the hay rustled. “I won’t talk to you.”
“Miss Pearson?” She was an assistant cook in the vast kitchens at the Coventry. Rye had met her once under less than ideal circumstances, but like Benny, he recalled the compassion in her green eyes.
“Aye, Miss Ann. She’ll come.”
Benny’s tone rekindled Rye’s worry. The boy wasn’t having a mere pout, he was miserable. Rye nudged the hay aside with his hand.
“Benny, are you well?” More nudging and swiping at the hay revealed the boy lying on his side curled in a blanket. Not well, was the obvious answer, not well at all.
“Go away.” Benny pulled the blanket up over his head. “Fetch Miss Ann. I ain’t tellin’ ye again.”
Ann Pearson knew her herbs, of that much Rye was certain. She had been a calm, sensible presence when Jeanette’s health had been imperiled.
“Benny, what’s amiss?” Rye asked, trying for a jocular tone. How long had the boy been in this condition, and what the hell was wrong with him?
“Fetch Miss Ann, please.” The lad was begging now. “I’m dying, Colonel. You have to fetch Miss Ann.”
Rye had half reached for the boy, prepared to extract him from his cocoon of wool and distress, but something stopped him. He’d been through many a battle, and yet, it still took him a moment to realize why he hesitated.
Benny’s unwillingness to move, his desperate rudeness to the person who provided him food and shelter, his decision to hide in the place that signified safety to him, all converged to support one conclusion. Benny wasn’t having a sulk or enduring a case of too much winter ale. He exuded the same quality of hopeless suffering common to soldiers wounded in battle, half fearing death and half comforted by the possibility. Rye had seen enough battles and their aftermaths to recognize the condition.
Benny was injured.
Seriously injured.
“I’ll send for Miss Ann. Don’t move, boy. Stay right where you are.”
Rye half slid down the ladder, spooked both horses, and bellowed for Louis to attend him immediately.
“The lad says he’s come from Colonel Orion Goddard,” Henry announced. “Says he needs to talk to you, Miss Ann. Won’t talk to nobody else.”
Henry was cheerful and energetic and subscribed to the universal understanding at the Coventry that footmen were entitled to flirt with maids, customers, char girls, and other footmen. He’d learned—as they all learned—not to waste his time flirting with Ann.
Colonel Goddard’s emissary, by contrast, was a spare, lean lad of ten or twelve years. With the poor, guessing an age was chancy. Generations of inadequate nutrition resulted in delayed development and less height.
“Are you hungry, young man?” Ann asked.
The boy shook his head, but peered past her into the vast, bustling kitchen.
“Henry, please have Nancy put together some bread and butter for the lad. What is your name, child?”
“M’name’s Louis. The colonel gimme this for ya.” A surprisingly clean paw held a folded and sealed note.
Ann knew two things about Colonel Sir Orion Goddard. First, he had come to his sister’s side when called. He’d sat with Jeanette, Lady Tavistock, now Jeanette Dorning, for more than an hour while Sycamore Dorning had been unable to guard his lady. The colonel hadn’t taken so much as a sip of tea or a crust of bread while on duty at his sister’s bedside.
Nor had he lingered when it had become apparent that the lady was on the mend. He’d asked Ann to send word if he was needed again and slipped away without bidding his sibling farewell.
That had been several months ago, and Ann hadn’t seen the colonel at the club since.
The other fact she recalled about Colonel Sir Orion Goddard was that he favored good old lavender soap, and plenty of it. He did not merely douse himself with lavender water and pretend that passed for washing. He scrubbed himself thoroughly, the scent emanating from his hair and his clothing, as well as his person.
The soap he used was French rather than English, based on the aroma of the lavender, and hard-milled French soap came dear. Ann did favor a man who took cleanliness seriously enough to pay for good soap.
She slit the seal on the note. In the kitchen, Monsieur Delacourt began yelling about the impossibility of finding fresh leeks—fresh, not three days old!—in the foul blight upon the face of civilization known as London. The sun had barely set, and Monsieur was already in fine form.
Sir Orion had an elegant hand for a soldier: Young Benny has been hurt and is asking for you. I fear serious injury. Please come with all possible haste, Your Obed Serv, Colonel Orion Goddard.
Only a very upset man would neglect to refer to his knighthood in his correspondence. Ann untied her apron and slipped it over her head.
“What do you know of this?” she asked the boy.
“Benny went missing yesterday—went missing again. He were out of pocket a few weeks ago too. Tendin’ to business, like the colonel says. Colonel says please come double-quick-forced-march-enemy-in-pursuit.”
Monsieur would have three apoplexies if Ann abandoned her post this early in the evening. Henry returned and passed the child a sandwich of cheese, butter, and bread with the crusts still on.
“Best get back to the kitchen, miss. Monsieur’s in rare form.”
Monsieur’s rare form made a nigh nightly appearance. The man was incapable of subtle emotion, and every evening’s buffet was a performance. Jules Delacourt could be funny, but he could also be savagely critical, and needlessly so.