Page 63 of A Lady of Conscience

“Dirty beasts,” Cook said as she inspected the wound. “But it should heal up right enough, so long as you keep it clean.” She motioned to one of the chairs at the plank table. “Sit down, my lord, if you please. I’ll tend to it.”

James obeyed her. Taking a seat, he waited while she cleaned and treated the scratch, and then covered it with a sticking plaster.

Jack hovered nearby. “Can you give us a moment?” he asked when she’d finished.

Cook collected the salve and the remains of her nursing kit. She bobbed another curtsy before slipping out the door. It was well past luncheon and many hours yet until dinner. In the Cook’s absence, the kitchen temporarily stood empty, with no sign of any footmen or scullery maids to interrupt them.

“What’s that you’re brandishing about?” James asked his brother, irritated.

Jack tossed the folded periodical to him across the table. “See for yourself.”

James picked it up. It was a thin journal, neatly bound, with its name printed across the cover: The Animal Advocate. He lifted his gaze. “Where did you get this?”

“It was one of several dozen, stacked high on the counter at the draper’s shop in Milsom Street. They’re giving them away to anyone who wants a copy.” Jack’s expression was uncharacteristically sober. “You’ll find Hannah’s contribution on page sixteen.”

James flipped through the pages until he found it—a brief essay illustrated with a drawing of a cat eating from a small, flat dish. He scanned Hannah’s words. On reading them, his first reaction was one of pride. She wrote with eloquence and economy, getting straight to the heart of the matter. She also employed compassion in her argument. He would have expected nothing less.

“What of it?” he asked.

“You’re not alarmed?”

“That she’s contributed to an animal welfare journal? No.”

“That she’s used her full name.” Jack tapped his finger on a line of small print below the essay’s title.

James’s eyes followed. He hadn’t noticed it at first glance, but the attribution jumped out at him now so boldly—so blatantly—that it might have been emblazoned across the sky.

“Written by Miss Hannah Heywood,” Jack said grimly. “How many Hannah Heywoods are there in the West Country, I wonder? Only one, I’d guess. And so has everyone else who has read her name here, Fennick included.”

James slowly set down the journal and met his brother’s gaze. “What about Fennick?”

“That’s how I knew to look at the draper’s shop,” Jack said. “That blackguard and his cronies were bandying about Hannah’s name at the Pump Room.”

James’s blood simmered with fury. “Were they.”

“Had I not been with Colonel Jensen, I would have done something about it there and then. Indeed, I should have done. Fennick was making her a figure of fun. He was laughing at her.”

Laughing at Hannah?

No longer simmering, James’s blood swiftly rose to a raging boil. He stood from the table. “Where is he now?”

Jack took a step back. Something he saw in James’s face made his own face lose its color. “He and the others went into Kelston for the afternoon. I heard him say he wouldn’t be returning until this evening. He plans to attend the concert at the Assembly Rooms.”

“How fortuitous,” James said. “So do I.”

* * *

James arrived at the Assembly Rooms that evening to find Lord Fennick standing with a small group of acquaintances by one of the four fireplaces in the Octagon Room. Several other ladies and gentlemen were similarly disposed throughout the room. Hannah wasn’t among them.

“You’re not going to cause a scene, I trust,” Jack said, following in James’s wake as he crossed the floor toward Fennick.

James’s gaze was fixed on his former schoolmate. “I shouldn’t think it likely.”

“Nor would I,” Jack said under his breath, “in normal circumstances.”

Fennick turned his head as they approached. He was dressed in elegant eveningwear, his hair and mustache pomaded into meticulous order. Seeing James, his mouth curved into a smug smile. “St. Clare.”

Two of the ladies in Fennick’s party joined him in staring at James. One of them was Miss Paley.