Butcher watched him stand with a touch of alarm and a great deal more interest. “So be it. I know where to find you.”
His eyes lingered on Wren’s ink-stained fingertips, his blue-veined wrists protruding from his shirtsleeves, and the death’s-head pin on the black neck-cloth tied beneath his throat.
Wren felt the colour rise in his cheeks. If Butcher had demanded to meet him in another sort of establishment, who could tell where their encounter might have led. Alas, in the Green Man, they could have nothing. And so Wren’s secret remained safe, though it stuck in his craw.
“Give my regards to the Restive Quills,” Wren said with more confidence than he felt and threw himself into the crowd without looking back.
~
Chapter Three
For the next fortnight, as September passed into October, Wren expected Butcher to descend on Mr Grigsby’s office at any moment.
If he were perfectly honest, Wren had to admit he felt more than a little bitter satisfaction in imagining the Restive Quills’ reaction to his demand for proof. No doubt it would throw them into fits. He felt still more excitement in imagining what sort of street magic, mesmerism, or conjuring trick Butcher would use to prove his story. To say nothing of how, when Butcher returned to show off his so-called magic, Wren might have the opportunity to glean the man’s real name at last.
As the days passed, however, and Butcher did not appear, Wren began to fear he’d set his challenge too high for the Restive Quills to meet.
Which was a shame, because no matter what his reasons for coming, Wren found he did want to see Butcher again. That imposing figure, those high cheekbones, those dark eyes—even his woodsmoke scent had begun to enter Wren’s dreams.
Then, on a mid-October morning, the downstairs bell rang at last.
Wren leapt out of his chair before it occurred to him to conceal his excitement from his employer.
Mr Grigsby blinked at him. “Are we expecting something particular from the penny post?”
“Yes,” Wren lied, glad Mr Grigsby had provided him with a convenient excuse for his behaviour. He went for the door without any further explanation.
But as he reached for the latch, the door swung inward of its own accord and brought an unexpected visitor along with it.
“Ah!” Mr Grigsby exclaimed in genuine delight, which Wren did not share. “Mr Knoll! What a marvellous surprise! Lofthouse, you ought to have told me—but no matter, you are here now, and must sit down and take tea with us.”
“Thank you,” said Mr Felix Knoll, a young gentleman of twenty years in a striking blue suit that matched his sapphire eyes. He swept his silk top hat from his lamb-like golden curls and handed it off to Wren without looking at him. “I’m quite famished.”
Wren resisted the urge to cram the hat into Felix’s mouth. Instead, he shut the door behind Felix and put the top hat in the coat closet beside his and Mr Grigsby’s ownchapeauxand umbrellas.
Mr Grigsby, meanwhile, rose from his own chair to offer it to Felix. “To what occasion do we owe this honour?”
“Oh, nothing particular,” Felix answered with the exaggerated casual air that always bespoke his lies. He draped himself across Mr Grigsby’s chair like a house cat in a sunbeam. “Found myself in the neighbourhood. Thought I’d drop in.”
“Then we must give our thanks to Providence for allowing our paths to cross this day,” Mr Grigsby concluded with an indulgent chuckle.
As a clerk, Wren feigned to take as little notice in Felix as Felix took in him. As an aspiring artist, however, he remained ever observant. And while he considered himself wise enough not to judge aloud, he knew in his heart he wasn’t charitable enough to avoid forming judgments privately. He had formed his judgment of Felix four years ago, when the boy had first come under Mr Grigsby’s legal guardianship, and nothing in Felix’s behaviour since then had caused him to reconsider that judgment. On the contrary, his conviction only deepened with every minute spent either in Felix’s presence or in going through the records of Felix’s considerable inheritance.
Mr Grigsby, meanwhile, went to put the kettle on.
Mr Grigsby was not a clumsy man, precisely. He didn’t often knock over ink-bottles or drop his teacup. Yet he moved as if he expected to become clumsy at any moment. A total lack of surety infused his limbs. He might raise his hand towards a ledger twice or thrice without actually touching it before he summoned the conviction to pull it down from the shelf. He did this with a grim determination suggesting that he fully anticipated the whole shelf would collapse at his fingertips, but have that ledger he must, and so he had resigned himself to his fate. When the shelf did not, in fact, crumble to splinters in front of him, he always seemed pleasantly surprised.
At present, Mr Grigsby employed a similar method when it came to fetching the box of tea down from the shelf where it sat between the years 1815 and 1816 in the endless line of annual rent records. He stood on the tips of his toes to grasp it like a schoolboy flailing at a box of forbidden treats put out of his reach.
The third time Mr Grigsby tried and failed to retrieve the tea, a snort of laughter rang out through the muffled atmosphere of Staple Inn.
Mr Grigsby paused and looked around in puzzlement. By then Felix had already whipped out his handkerchief and turned his laughter into a convincing cough.
“The fog is dreadfully thick today,” Mr Grigsby observed. “But never fear! Lofthouse has stopped up all draughts, and a moment by the fire should put you to rights.”
Felix nodded into his handkerchief, his eyes still sparkling with mirth.
Of all Felix’s many faults, this was the one that most provoked Wren’s wrath. Wren did not—indeed, could not—deny that Mr Grigsby’s awkward habits held some humour now and again, but still he felt the least Felix might do would be to wait until he had departed before he indulged in laughter at the expense of his legal guardian and benefactor, who had behaved far better by half towards Felix than Wren felt he deserved.
