Page 20 of A Convenient Fiction

Alex had come to view it as the price of doing business with the man.

As he hoisted George up, the front door of the vicarage swung open. A small, gray-haired gentleman in dark trousers and a well-worn frock coat emerged. Had Alex any doubt as to his identity, the leather-bound Bible clutched in the gentleman’s hand would have confirmed it.

“Oh dear, he’s been at Squire Talbot’s port, I see.” The vicar urged Alex into the house. “You must be Mr. Archer. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to receive you. But you’ve had a good meal at the Park, I trust.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Squire Talbot’s cellars are rumored to contain some of the finest vintages in Surrey. My son seems determined to prove it. Put him in the parlor, if you please. He can sleep there tonight. No one will disturb him.”

Alex did as the vicar bid him, half dragging George into the vicarage parlor and dropping him onto an overstuffed sofa near the hearth.

George yawned mightily, one booted foot stretched out on the cushions and one set on the floor.

“Oh, dear,” the vicar said again as he looked at him. And then he raised his gaze to Alex. There were crinkles around his eyes. Evidence of a man who smiled more than he frowned. “Leopold Wright, at your service.” He extended his hand.

Alex shook it. “Alex Archer. Thank you for having me to stay.”

“You’re very welcome, sir. I was just reading my scripture for the evening. The parable of the prodigal son. It seems rather apt at the moment. If you’d care to join me?”

It had been a long time since Alex had opened a Bible, let alone read a scripture. But when the vicar gestured toward the pair of winged chairs near the cold fireplace, he sat down without a word.

The vicar lowered himself into the remaining chair and opened his Bible on his lap, his finger holding his place in the text. “Many view the parable as one of repentance and forgiveness. Of a man brought low after riotous living. But the scripture is much more than that. It’s a story of homecoming. Of reconciliation. ‘For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’”

Alex felt something deep within him give way as the vicar recited the scripture. He didn’t want to think about homecomings. About brothers resurrected from the dead.

“My son hasn’t been home for a long while,” the vicar said when he’d finished reading the parable. “I believe he’s come back due to your influence. For that, I can only thank you.” He looked at Alex over the rim of his wire-framed spectacles. “Do you have a family, sir?”

Alex returned the vicar’s gently enquiring gaze. “I did. A lifetime ago.”

“Are they still living?”

Were they? Alex had done his best not to find out. Nevertheless, there had been no avoiding the news that Justin Thornhill had wed the daughter of a wealthy nobleman last September. An earl’s daughter, if one could believe it. The announcement had been in the London papers for all to see. It had been the very incident that had sparked Alex’s own interest in finding a wealthy wife.

As for Tom Finchley and Neville Cross…

Alex didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.

The orphanage at Abbot’s Holcombe was a part of his past. The ache of hunger. The ice-cold dormitories. The ever-present fear of punishment. Of death. It had been a lifetime ago. So long ago that he could almost fancy it had happened to another person.

“Some of them,” he said. “I don’t know about the others. It’s been many years. Decades.”

The vicar nodded. “Then I shall pray that you will be reunited with them, as my son has been with me.”

Laura stepped out of the crowded railway carriage onto the busy platform at London’s Waterloo Station, her valise clutched in her hand. Porters shouted over the blare of the whistle, and travelers hurried past her, striding every which way through the smoke and steam. They scarcely spared her a glance. It was a relief, really. She never felt entirely at ease venturing into the city, especially when unaccompanied.

She could think of only three occasions she’d done so in the past three years—once right after Papa’s death, and then twice more when Teddy’s health had necessitated that she appeal to Mr. Weatherwax for a larger allowance.

Harold P. Weatherwax was a distinguished solicitor in his middle forties. Their father had employed him to write contracts and other documents for the family business, as well as to draft his will. Weatherwax had been a young man then, with precious little legal experience. His services had come at a bargain. Now, however, he was a canny practitioner with a stable of clients far more important than the Hayes family—or so he claimed. It was the chief reason he was never at liberty to call on her in Lower Hawley.

She smoothed a hand over her dark blue traveling gown as she walked to the nearby cabstand. There, she hired a hansom to take her to Fleet Street. Mr. Weatherwax was expecting her at half past two. She had no time to spare.

Next month was Teddy’s birthday. He would be one and twenty. A man grown, as far as the law was concerned. Which meant that their time under Mr. Weatherwax’s power was almost at an end.

It was quite clear to her under the terms of Papa’s will. Teddy would now be responsible for what little remained of the Hayes family’s business. All that was needed was for Mr. Weatherwax to cooperate. And why shouldn’t he? After all, it was he who had set out the very rules by which they were all bound.

As she bounced along the streets of London in the ill-sprung hansom cab, Laura felt rather optimistic about the whole thing. It was Teddy who remained doubtful. He’d never cared for Mr. Weatherwax. Never trusted him.

“The law is the law,” Laura often said in response to Teddy’s predictions of doom and gloom. “Even if he is a villain, he must abide by it.”