“I—” he began.
But Mr. Fawkes did not hear him.
“Suppose you are wanting to know what could bring down an ornery buzzard like your grandfather,” Mr. Fawkes said with a hacking laugh.
Benjamin had no wish for a detailed accounting. “I—”
“Quincy,” Mr. Fawkes continued unabated. “Spent weeks with poultices wrapped about his head. Looked like an Egyptian mummy, he did. Except for the size of his neck and chin and tongue. Swelled right up after that dental abscess. I’m thinking of having every one of my teeth pulled to be safe.”
“Have you enough to bother?” cackled the gentleman who had been debating gout remedies moments earlier.
“Good point,” Mr. Fawkes said, slapping his knee. He turned back to Benjamin. “A man must dosomethingto prepare for his eventuality, wouldn’t you say?”
Benjamin swallowed. “I…”
“This lad takes more precautions than most,” Mr. Fawkes boomed to his companion. “Can’t blame him. His sire also died during Christmastide. He suffered the ague. Virulent strain even cinchona bark couldn’t cure.”
This time, Benjamin didn’t try to speak. He couldn’t. The breath had been robbed from his lungs at the reminder of his loss.
All Christmastide had ever done was steal family members from him. Father’s loss had nearly broken him. Becoming duke was easy. Duke was merely a job, a task to perform. But Benjamin had not been ready to lose another parent.
Mr. Fawkes’s companion lifted a quizzing glass and squinted at Benjamin. “Didn’t the old duke have black hair?”
“That he did,” Mr. Fawkes agreed. “My lad here takes after his mother in that regard.”
Each word sliced open old wounds.
Everyone Grandfather’s age remembered Benjamin’s mother. They could tell at a glance which parts of him reminded them of her.
He could not. His grandfather had absconded with the only heirloom he had ever cared about. The one with the portrait of Benjamin’s mother inside.
Mr. Fawkes used his ear trumpet to gesture toward Benjamin. “My lad here is the last of his line on his mother’s side.”
That was why he needed the locket. He tried not to clench his fists at the unwelcome reminder. This quest wasn’t just a matter of retrieving something that was lost, but a chance to get his family back. If only as painted miniatures hanging about his neck.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight. How he had hated being estranged from his grandfather. He missed having family. Would have visited as often as he could if it were possible to get along.
It had not been possible. Benjamin’s birth had caused his mother’s death, and Grandfather had never forgiven him for the loss. He had turned all his love to Cressmouth instead. For Benjamin, there had only been coldness.
Grandfather had once snarled that he would rather have lost his grandchild than his daughter. What use was a baby? She could always have another. Or at least, she might have, had she recovered from Benjamin’s difficult birth.
After realizing the depth of his grandfather’s hatred, Benjamin had taken his words to heart. He would be as useful as ten dukes. He would make the House of Lords his family, his home, his reason for being. He would not limit his responsibilities to one small village but rather the whole of England. Perhaps in doing so, Benjamin could make his mother’s sacrifice worth it.
“Well,” Mr. Fawkes’s gouty companion said with a smile. “At least Your Grace is still kicking. That makes it a happy Christmas, I say.”
“There’s nothing happy about Christmas,” Benjamin said flatly.
He hadn’t expected Mr. Fawkes to overhear him, but the man’s eyes had been following Benjamin’s lips close. “Now, lad, it isn’t all bad. What about the title? You inherited a dukedom.”
“And lost my family,” Benjamin pointed out.
“True.” Mr. Fawkes leaned forward to pat Benjamin on the forearm in sympathy. “But it is far better to have loved and lost than never to love at all.”
Benjamin could not help but scoff. It would be betternotto love than to have someone unexpectedly ripped from one’s life.
But before he could answer, the growing crowd of onlookers could not hold their tongues any longer. They interrupted Mr. Fawkes like a basket of kittens, tumbling over each other to present themselves to Benjamin. Before he could object, he was swept away from Noelle and into their midst.
“Your grandfather was the loveliest man I ever met,” said a stout woman in a flour-dusted apron. “Christmas wouldn’t exist without him.”
