Carla Kelly (23 page)

“
I
have come to expect nothing less of you, Mr. Platter,” murmured the
viscount. “My congratulations.”

“
And
here are my wife, Maeve, and my children, Davey and Sarah,” Platter
said, his arm around his wife’s waist. “Maeve, this is Matthew
Bering. He will be staying with us a day or two.”

She nodded, as if
this were nothing new to her, and turned her attention back to the
pot on the hook over the fire. Platter sniffed the air
appreciatively. “Irish stew. Maeve, I am fair
gut-foundered.”

There were
insufficient bowls for all of them to eat at once. Matthew and the
lord of the house sat first at table, Davey on his father’s knee,
eating every other bite, as Maeve stood by the fireplace stirring
the stew, holding the baby, and telling her husband in her pleasant
brogue of the events of the neighborhood since his taking leave of
it.

Platter nodded at
the appropriate times and steadily ate his way through two bowls of
stew. When Matthew finished, Maeve filled his bowl and stood by the
fireplace eating out of it. Matthew took the baby from her and
insisted that she sit down. He pulled the stool out for her, and
she looked back in surprise.

Platter flashed
him a warning look. “Not too fancy, Matthew, my friend. Think what
attention Maeve will demand when you leave.”

Matthew put the
baby to his shoulder and let her rest her head in the curve of his
neck. Her hair was brown and wild about her head. He sighed and
thought of Omega as he fingered the curls.

When Maeve
finished, she refilled the communal bowl with a little more stew
for her son. Matthew watched as she helped him, and mentally
resolved to order a whole set of crockery for the Platter
household. His lips twitched. Wouldn’t that be a surprise for
Maeve? He wouldn’t even tell her it was from Platter’s latest
“stray.”

The baby fell
asleep in his arms and he stood where he was, leaning against the
wall, enjoying the pleasurable weight of the child, and the sudden
knowledge that he would sleep well
,
too, this night. He had told his tale; his fate
was in the hands of this strange man. He could only surrender
himself to the acceptance of the fact and enjoy the
moment.

Bedtime came
quickly, dictated by the sputtering of the tallow candle. “I could
light another one,” offered Maeve as she looked at her
husband.

The Runner shook
his head and put his arm around her, drawing her close. “No. Maeve,
my dear, regard our guest there. He will fall on his face and black
his other eye if he stays awake much longer.”

“
Am I
that decrepit?” Matthew asked as he handed over the sleeping child
to her mother. “Or do you merely want to look good, compared to me,
Timothy?”

The Runner
grinned. He pulled a pallet away from the wall and dragged it in
front of the fireplace. “You’ll find this soft as angel hair, my
boy, and Davey will keep you excellent company.”

Davy was too
sleepy to object to his strange bedfellow. He allowed Matthew to
help him into his nightshirt. After Maeve pinched out a candle,
Matthew took off his pants and arranged himself on the pallet next
to Davey, who hesitated only a moment before curling up next to
him, sighing once or twice and surrendering to sleep. Matthew put
his hands behind his head. The Runner and his wife retired to their
bed on the other side of the room.

Breakfast was
toast dipped in sweet hot tea and laced with cream. Maeve buttered
each slice of thick-cut bread, humming to herself. The children
were still asleep, so she sat with her hands folded in her lap,
content to watch her husband as he ate.

“
Mr.
Bering, do you have a family?” It was the first question she had
addressed to him.

He shook his
head, touched by the look of real pity in her eyes. She gave him
another piece of bread, and left more butter on it this time.
Matthew took it with thanks and went to stand by the window,
looking out on the dingy alley as Platter and his wife conversed in
low tones. Gazing on the refuse-filled square far below, he
reflected that it was a poor place to raise children, and wondered
what he could do about it. He leaned against the windowsill. If he
was unable to prove his innocence, he could always put a codicil in
his will and provide Platter and his little ones with a place in
the country. The thought was hardly comforting, even for a budding
philanthropist.

At length Platter
joined him at the window. “Well, sir, let us be off. We can reclaim
our—your—horses and get a little closer to your part of
London.”

They rode
carefully through streets already crowded with the commerce of a
typical summer morning. Milkmaids and knife grinders competed with
butchers and bakers as they shouted their wares to all about them,
and screamed at the stingy.

The horses were
left in a public stable off Piccadilly and the men continued on
foot. The crowds were no less, but the quality of the people had
changed. Instead of looking over his shoulder and staying closer to
Platter, Matthew found the quality looking over their shoulders at
him. Several women went out of their way to avoid him. He knew that
he didn’t smell good and that there was a day’s beard on his face,
but he smiled all the same. “Timothy, we do not precisely shine in
the company of these men,” he said.

The Runner
snorted. “If you consider these fops and popinjays men, my
lord.”

“
I did
at one time,” Matthew confessed. “I can’t imagine why. I may even
have looked like them.”

Platter was
silent a few more moments, and then he changed the subject. “Think,
my lord. What do you recall of that evening?”

Matthew stopped
in front of Eyestone’s Bookstore and rested his back against the
wall. He was hurried on his way by the proprietor, who stepped out
of the door swinging a broom in front of him like a
broadsword.

“
I
used to be his best customer,” said Matthew. They walked a few
paces. “I remember that we first went to Watier’s, where I had
another dinner—Omega had already fed me—and we played
cards.”

They reached the
corner of Bolton and Piccadilly and stood in front of Watier’s.
Matthew looked about him. “We must have left after midnight. The
air was cold and it hit me like a bucket of ice water. Ah, but
you’re not interested in that.”

“
Happens I am, my lord. Sometimes if you just walk backward in
your mind, you think of things. What then?”

“
We
walked along to St. James Square,” said Matthew, and turned in that
direction, with the Runner following. “The house was on one of the
streets off the square. Lord bless me if I can recall which one,
but perhaps when we’re standing in the square ...”

They walked
without conversation to the great square, where Matthew stood for a
moment in silent contemplation. “Do you know, sir,” he said at
last, his voice soft, “I have not seen this square since that
night. Sometimes in the years since, I have almost convinced myself
that the whole thing was a bad dream.” He looked at Platter.
“Standing here again, I know it was not.”

“
Very
well, sir, and what did you do then?”

Matthew shoved
his hands in his pockets, a frown on his face. “It was the oddest
thing ... you will think this silly beyond measure, but my friend
Merrill Watt-Lyon began to sing.” He smiled. “What
was
it?
Oh, I do remember! It was ‘The British Grenadier,’ only he had made
up the most amazingly vulgar lyrics.” Matthew glanced at the Runner
again, and saw nothing but patience on that impatient man’s face.
“What made this something to remember was that he sang through four
dreadful verses, and at the end of the fourth one, we were standing
in front of the house.”

The Runner
nodded. “Then all we need to do is walk down this street humming
the tune, and when we reach the end of the fourth verse, we will be
there?”

“
Something like that,” agreed Matthew, “if I have not taken
total leave of my senses. The trouble is, of course, that I am not
sure which street. We shall have to try them all.”

He looked about
him and then pointed to Alistair Street.

“
That
is as good a beginning as any other, Mr. Platter. Let us be
off.”

Humming to
himself, Lord Byford strolled down the street, and came to a halt
at the end of the second verse. The street was a dead end. Matthew
stared before him at the stone wall covered with ivy that blocked
his forward passage. “Obviously this is not the street. Come, my
good man, let us do an about-face and try again.”

They tried again
and again, and nothing looked familiar, and nothing matched the
song. “You’re certain that it was St. James Square?” ventured
Platter at last.

“
Oh,
yes, oh, yes,” insisted Matthew, even as he felt the edge of doubt
creep into his brain like a London fog.

“
This
is the last street then, my lord,” said the Runner. His voice was
matter-of-fact, but Matthew heard the beginnings of
skepticism.

He shrugged off
the gloom that threatened to settle over him and hummed his way
down the street, looking about him intently, willing the house to
appear, praying for some recognition, some lifting of that veil he
had so deliberately drawn across the events of that
night.

Nothing.

“
Damn,” he exclaimed when he came to the end of the fourth
verse and no house materialized. They stood before a row of shops.
Matthew couldn’t bear to look at the Runner as they started back in
silence toward the square again. Eyes to the pavement, he stepped
off the curb and glanced idly down the alley, and stopped
short.

He took hold of
the Runner’s arm. “I think I can do it now, sir,” he said softly.
“Let us return to the square and try this street again.”

The Runner
followed him without a word. Matthew hummed a little louder this
time and stepped off the paces. When he reached the curb where the
alley intersected, he turned instead of continuing straight
ahead.

Matthew began the
third verse. The alley was narrow, but well-tended, with a clean
roadway. It was an ordinary shopkeepers’ neighborhood.

The song ended.
Matthew stopped and looked up. He had found the house. A shiver
traveled down his back as if a cold wind had suddenly whipped
through the alley. “This is not a place I wished ever to see
again.”

“
You’re certain this is it?”

“
I’m
certain.”

They faced a long
flight of stairs up to the front door. A row of trash barrels, lids
on straight, hugged the staircase wall. The shutters on the first
floor were closed tight, but the windows higher up boasted window
boxes filled to overflowing with petunias. The flowers formed the
only bit of brightness on the building’s facade. All else was dark
stone, darkened further by the smoke of London’s many fires. A
curtain was drawn aside for a moment on one of the upper floors,
and then brushed back again by an unseen hand.

The Runner looked
inquiringly at Matthew. Matthew nodded. What he had not remembered,
he remembered now: the many steps up to the door and the heavy
brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin. He remembered with
startling acuteness how Sir Horace Billings had picked up the
dolphin’s tail and knocked on the door, and then tittered about
it.

And there it was
again. He mounted the steps—wondering if this was how Louis XVI had
felt when he climbed up to the guillotine—and knocked on the door.
The Runner was close behind.

The door was
opened a crack, and Matthew could just barely see into the long
hall, dark with wainscoting. He saw two eyes, a nose, and a mouth,
and little else against the darkness.

“
I
have no rooms to let.”

“
I am
not here to rent a room, sir, but merely to ask for some
information.”

The door started
to close in his face, except that Timothy Platter opened it wider
and pushed his way into the hall. “See here!” sputtered the
landlord, retreating to the stairwell.

Platter dug into
his pocket for the small emblem all Runners carried. The man looked
it over. “Close the door behind you,” he said to Matthew, who
obliged.

The man made no
move to show them into a parlor. He stood there, his arms folded.
“I have nothing to hide,” he declared. “This is not a place where
we are acquainted with the likes of you.”

Platter bowed.
“I’ll not require much of your valuable time, gov’nor,” he said.
“What I have in mind is a history lesson.”

The landlord
stared hard at the Runner, but added nothing to the
conversation.

“
Dredge your mind back to the early spring of 1808, sir,” said
Platter. “There was a party here on the night of ...” The Runner
looked at Matthew.

“
April
9,” said the viscount. “And it was in that set of rooms at the top
of the stairs ... the ones looking out onto the street.”

The landlord
laughed. “My, but that is a faradiddle! Me old mam has lived there
these fifteen years and more! Laddie, you’d better take yourself
off. You’ve got the wrong house.”