Roman had replaced the falcon on his shoulder with Christian, and they stood on the upper deck next to Isra and Lou, and behind Lady Mary, who appeared to have taken control of the wheel ofThe Azure Skullwhile a particularly brutish-looking fellow bounced Valentina on his arm. Maisie was presently at the opposite rail from Adrian, holding a long cylinder to her eye under the close guidance of Francisco, who seemed to be directing her gaze over the choppy gray waves.
If he hadn’t known the man was completely devoted to Valentine’s lovely sister, Teresa, Adrian might have been jealous.
But as it were, he turned back to the railing alone. Although the fog was still thick over the water, he could see the far-off hills of the countryside.
“Good-bye,” he whispered, although precisely to whom or what he was bidding farewell, he couldn’t have said. Perhaps to dear Victor and Melk and all the brethren they had come to know so well. Perhaps to the wretchedness and sorrow, the death and injury he had known. Perhaps to the man he had been upon his arrival there so many years before.
But he suspected that, more than anything else he could be leaving behind, it was to Constantine Gerard himself. For even if they found Constantine alive in England, Adrian doubted he would be the same man he had come to know and to love as a brother. No longer the general; no longer the earl of his estate. No longer the man nearly broken by his imprisonment in Damascus or devastated by loneliness and despair once he’d learned of the tragedy at Benningsgate. He feared Constantine could only be the man he’d been the night he’d left Melk without so much as a note for the friends he’d left behind.
Adrian had been that man once, not so very long ago. And so he knew the depths of apathy and how deceivingly benign it could appear to the casual observer. He knew how it could consume a heart whole, tinging even the act of inhaling and exhaling with bitterness.
As Adrian watched the continent fade away, he remembered Constantine praying aloud while chained to the wall of a Damascene dungeon by his neck. He remembered lying on the floor of the prison, his body—filled with fever and maggots—slowly dying but still feeling such scornful pity for his friend, who had resorted to superstitious nonsense in his desperation.
Christian’s laugh echoing over the decks brought Adrian back from that wretched past. And then Adrian closed his eyes and prayed.
* * *
“There you are, there you are,” Glayer said as he handed the baby to Eseld, who had already taken her seat in the carriage. He was not in the habit of allowing the old woman to be seated before him—especially not in the grand conveyance that would carry them all to London—but it was important to Glayer that he arrive at Henry’s castle as a family. A wealthy widower lord and his infant son. A valuable ally now for the king and a ready source of financial and political support. Once Henry scratched his back by allowing Glayer to purchase Benningsgate at an outrageously inflated price, Glayer would be more than happy to acquiesce to a politically beneficial marriage.
He’d need a wife to tend his home and child, after all. And Glayer was especially good at persuading those who would have their women relatives cared for to do as he suggested.
Little Glander whimpered at the separation. “Papa shall be along directly,” Glayer assured the infant and then gestured to the door with a flick of his eyes so that the footman closed it. He then turned to the reason for his delay in alighting as Simon came to a stop before him.
The old priest had been looking quite raggedy of late; Glayer supposed the winter had been harsh on the fool. And he’d seemed to take disposing of Theodora Rosemont rather personally. She must have fought with amazing strength for a woman nearly bled to death on her childbed and poisoned to her very eyeballs with pennyroyal and nightshade. Old Simon had staggered back to Thurston Hold full of mud and with a broken arm.
But the spring air following the torrential rains seemed to have enlivened the man—or perhaps it was the task Glayer had recently set the priest to. Was it possible that the once-holy Simon was now fully loyal in his duties to the lord of Thurston Hold?
“What is it?” Glayer demanded of the man. “Can’t you see I’m leaving?”
“Why, I’ve only come to bid you farewell, my lord,” Simon said. “And to bless your journey.”
Glayer raised an eyebrow at the man. “Really?”
“No,” the priest said in an emotionless voice. “Everything had been arranged.”
“Very well,” Glayer said. “When do you depart?”
“Perhaps a week.”
“A week?” Glayer repeated with a frown. “Why the delay?”
“I’ve need to secure provisions for the orphans left at the rectory, my lord. They will need looking after until my return.”
“Oh,” he said, not caring to keep the distaste from his tone. “Well, I suppose that is necessary, for I certainly don’t wish the charge of them. Very well. But you must be on that ship when it sails.”
Father Simon gave a shallow bow.
Glayer would have rebuked him for such a paltry display of homage, but he let the slight go. He would consider it the priest’s going-away present.
Glayer glanced at the door again and the footman opened it at once. He ducked into the plush interior and was closed into its hushed opulence with the old woman, who had at least managed to secure more appropriate garments befitting the nurse of his son. The carriage began to rumble and sway as it circled in the yard and Glayer pulled off his gloves in order to take the baby onto his own lap.
What a devoted father he was.
“Will we be long away from Thurston Hold, milord?” Eseld asked, and although he did not like it when she questioned him on any matter, her tone was one of curious deference and so he thought to oblige her. Also, it made him happy to relay his brilliant plans. Plans that he could execute or not at his very whim, with all the fortune of the estate growing only marginally smaller as the fine carriage whisked them down the road.
“As long as it takes for Henry to sign the documents granting me Benningsgate Castle,” he replied mildly, nestling the boy in the crook of his arm and pulling the heavy curtain aside with the back of his hand so that Glander could watch the misty countryside of his father’s realm roll by. “He hardly remembers my petition lest I am beneath his very nose, and his court is a proper circus on any given day. This time I shan’t leave until the deed is in my hand. I daresay my stalwart presence shall be a breath of sanity to our harried monarch.”
“We’ll surely return to the keep before Father Simon, though, will we not?”
