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Arthur nodded, appreciating the comparison. “I thought the Indies, one of the Spanish colonies. Puerto Rico, perhaps. He should feel at home there.”
Their subject’s comfort didn’t appear to interest Tom. “Won’t he just come right back though?”
“We’ll send him off with no money. He doesn’t seem to have a fortune of his own. He seems a cunning rogue and will likely accumulate funds. But it will take him some time. And by then everything will be different.” Arthur didn’t know how, yet he was certain it would be.
“How will we manage it?” Tom asked.
“That is the question. I considered offering a bribe, but…”
“You can’t let him get a whiff of your fortune,” Tom interrupted. “He’s a blackmailer, and they just keep wanting more. You’d never be rid of him.”
“I agree.”
Tom frowned over the problem. “We’ll just have to bung him onto a ship our own selves, willy-nilly. Like a press-gang.”
It was a role Arthur had never expected to fill. “I expect he would object to that. Rather loudly.”
“We’d have to make certain he couldn’t then.”
The thought of rendering the Spaniard unable to protest had its attractions. “The fellow is a toadeater. I could invite him here and then…”
“Have him walk into your house and never come out again?” objected Tom. “That’s no good. What, order your butler to cosh him and the footmen to truss him up with curtain cords?”
Arthur thought of the august individual who managed his household. Chirt would be appalled at the idea. Then he recalled how ruthlessly the butler depressed the pretensions of encroaching callers. “Chirt might be up to it.”
Tom, who was well acquainted with this servitor, laughed. “Mebbe so, but you don’t want the man vanishin’ from here. Better to invite him to go riding. I kin wait for you someplace out of the way, and we’ll jump him.”
“And what then? Tie him up with our neckcloths? Choose a ship at random on the docks and hand over a rebellious captive? Most captains would call in the law. And those who wouldn’t…”
“Probably ain’t men we want to trust. It is a puzzle.” Tom shook his head. “Be easier if wewasgoing to kill him.”
“Tom!”
“Beg your pardon, my lord. I ain’t been called on to dispose of many people before this.” He cocked his head. “Not any, actually.”
“It was not included in my training either,” replied Arthur ruefully. “Eton didn’t go much beyond the cut direct.”
“Is that sword fighting? Like a duel?”
“No, it is a public refusal to acknowledge someone. You turn your back where all of society can see.”
“Oh.” Tom clearly didn’t think much of this. “Couldyou challenge him to a duel?”
“A cumbersome process, with inconvenient rules which would reveal matters we hope to keep private. Also, it would not dispose of the man unless I killed him. Which we have ruled out.”
“He might be a good fighter, too.”
“And killme. Very true.” Arthur began to wonder how things had come to this in his ordered, settled life. A harsh inner voice noted that Señora Alvarez had no doubt felt the same—no, far worse—when hers had fallen into ruins.
“Well, I don’t think he would kill you, ’cause then he’d have to scarper, and he don’t want to do that. But I can see it ain’t the best plan.” Tom gazed at the Turkey carpet, rubbing his hands together as if the motion promoted thought. “Ah.”
“You’ve thought of something?”
“Somebody. Who might be able to help.”
“We don’t want word of this to spread.”
“He knows how to keep mum.”
