‘So now I know?’
‘My father was called back to England to track down your father’s murderer,’ she told him wearily, as if she was quite accustomed to being unwelcome among Sir Hadrian’s victims, or should that be his clients? ‘Lord Carrowe sent me here when he decided Carrowe House was unsafe for adventurous boys. We had nowhere else to stay at the drop of a hat,’ she explained reluctantly, and even in this state he thought she was probably skimming over a chapter of disasters.
Another wave of guilt washed over Magnus as he looked round his mother’s dining parlour and wondered if it looked any better than Gresley’s ancestral wreck in town at the moment, thanks to him. Not much of a welcome to be had here nor any comfort. Wouldn’t his mother be ashamed if she could see him? He heard himself groan as if he’d been kicked by his uneasy conscience, then glowered at them for hearing it and seeing him like this. Though, if they thought him objectionable enough they might go away and leave him to find oblivion in a bottle at last. He eyed them with disfavour and wondered if he ought to go on with his potations to underline how little he wanted them here.
‘I beg your pardon for interrupting, Mr Haile,’ Mrs Champion said. ‘But the front door is open and this one was ajar.’ She carried on as if that was a good enough excuse for rushing in here even when his glare argued it wasn’t.
‘Your son would march into hell to argue with the devil uninvited, if you ask me,’ he said harshly. Unfair, but he might as well try to get drunk in a busy London street and he didn’t feel like being fair.
‘You are the devil,’ the boy argued, chin out and a fine glare of his own.
For a moment Magnus almost smiled and might have managed to laugh at himself if those words hadn’t hit home so hard. It was devilish of him to speak to a child like this. He had sworn never to be like his father at a very early age, but he caught the glower and meanness of the man in his own frown and gruff unfairness now and felt his sins grind in his gut all over again. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he hated the man he’d become with a bitter passion close to despair. He heard an unearthly noise, more like an animal in pain than a human being, and realised he had made it as the awful fear he was about to disgrace himself washed over him like icy water. Desperate to prevent the final disgrace of having them see him spew, he lurched to his feet and shot past them at a speed he didn’t know he had in him. A brief image of the woman and her boy staring as he fumbled blindly past them haunted him as he ran for the back of the house, blessing the fact the door was open as he dashed past the kitchen. Lingering cooking smells didn’t help, but he was vaguely aware of Cook and Peg, the middle-aged maid who stayed with his family through thick and thin, staring after him open-mouthed, but they at least must have been expecting it after the amount of time he’d spent in the darkened dining room trying to drown his sorrows. At last he was outside and in the kitchen garden, gulping in clean air, and dared to hope he had managed to overcome his ills.
Wrong, an evil little voice in the back of his mind chortled triumphantly. Heat and icy chills washed over him in waves and he managed to stumble as far as the stable midden before casting up his accounts as the smell hastened wave after wave of wretched sickness, so he doubled over in self-inflicted misery and gave in. No effort of will could halt the cramping nausea now and he hardly had time to moan his woes into thin air between bouts as brandy scorched out of him a lot faster than he had put it in.
Magnus had no idea how much time passed before he finally dared hope he was done. A wonder if there was anything left in his belly to retch on now and he dearly wanted to believe it was empty. The cold of his own sweat on his skin belied the glorious summer day all around him and he had a horrible suspicion he might be about to faint. The threat beat in his ears as the world seemed to come and go with an angry buzz every time he moved his head, so it would be foolish to straighten up just yet.
Not that, he silently pleaded with the gloating voice of his conscience. Don’t let me be found lying on a muck heap by a nosy boy.
Determined to save a small scrap of dignity from the wreck of fashionable and almost Honourable Magnus Haile, he straightened up slowly and carefully and waited for the world to stop spinning.
‘Come on, Mr Magnus. Let’s get you under the pump.’ He heard Jem’s resigned voice behind him and he realised Peg or Cook must have run to fetch the lad so he could deal with Magnus while they welcomed their unexpected visitors.
‘I am a damned fool, Jem,’ he managed to mutter as he lurched towards the pump in the far corner of the yard and felt better as the smell of manure faded a little.
‘There’s a lot of it about,’ Jem said wisely, and Magnus felt like a child with a patient and resigned adult telling him boys will be boys.
Then even thinking was impossible as ice-cold water rushed over his still-reeling head and shoulders and soaked him to the skin. Feeling as miserable as sin, he made himself stay under the relentless flow while Jem pumped and he shivered. At last he called a halt and shook like a great, misguided and miserable dog. Standing still for a long moment, he signalled Jem to pump again and made himself gulp icy handfuls of water to test his still-complaining belly. Shaking water from his sodden hair, he dared stand back and strip off his soaking shirt.
‘Finished?’ Jem asked.
‘Aye.’
‘Best have this, then,’ Jem said and first presented him with a towel, then exchanged it for a pristine shirt Magnus pulled over his head, at the same time wishing he’d never even heard of brandy as the thunder of it rang in his temples. Why had he thought getting drunk would solve anything?
‘Cook said you was to drink this,’ Jem said glumly and passed over a concoction that smelt of peppermint and something a lot less tempting, so Magnus gulped it down as fast as he could and grimaced as the taste clashed with everything else he’d put into his belly lately.
‘I will do now, go and help Peg,’ Magnus managed to say gruffly, and Jem took one last look at him, then nodded as if he agreed the worst was over, before leaving him.
Magnus felt his stomach give one of those ominous rolls as it objected to whatever the drink was before it settled and felt surprisingly better. At least he had the taste of peppermint in his mouth now instead of the sour aftermath of his sins. He stood still for long moments like a chastened dog bathed after a really good roll in something awful. After a while he dared hope he might be himself again in a week or two and the sturdy wall at the end of the kitchen garden looked just the right height to support a failed gentleman in a fragile state of health. Somehow, he made his way there without toppling over, but he could not face going back inside to apologise to the woman from Dover and her unruly boy quite yet.
It would make sense to build this wall higher and block out the wind, he reasoned to distract himself from the thunder of his own pulse in his ears at the thought of her and all he had to be sorry about this time. Peaches and grapes and apricots could shelter under its sunny warmth and fruit almost as happily as they would in their Mediterranean home, but why would anyone wall out such a view even for those natural riches? And where did grapes and apricots and peaches come from originally if not those warm and sunny lands?
Magnus leaned on solid stones under a benign July sun and gazed across wide acres of blessed space as the Heath spread out before him. Out there was real life—the glory of nature he ought to have clung to as his world fell apart, instead of trying to lose himself in a brandy bottle. He listened to the quiet buzz of bees happily occupied among the bean flowers and mused on the origin of garden plants in an attempt to forget his troubles. His shirt was still clinging to him like a lover and his head was thumping as if Thor’s hammer was busy inside it, but the world was wondrous again and he needed to remember how small a part of it he was.
Soft footsteps sounded from behind him and he heard the rustle of feminine