“I have been thoroughly entangled,” he said with a warm look.
There was a sharp rap at the door.
Nicholas opened it and a lad shoved a paper at him. “There you are,guv.” The boy ran off to make his other ordered deliveries of the specialedition.
They were all abruptly sobered. Nicholas looked at the paper then up atBeth and Lucien. “Do you want to know?”
“Of course,” said Lucien.
They went back into the drawing room. Silence fell, Nicholas opened thepaper and scanned the page. “God, what a list,” he muttered. “And thedamned thing is it can’t be complete . . .” He ran his eyes over the fineprint then stopped, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
Then, “Dare,” he said.
He passed the paper over to Hal Beaumont and went to stare out thewindow. Eleanor joined him and after a moment he drew her to him, and sherested her head on his shoulder.
Beth looked at Lucien, a very sober Lucien. She reached out and tookhis hand. She’d only known the lighthearted young man slightly. He’d beenthe one who had once tried to build a champagne fountain. She remembereddancing with him at her betrothal ball. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. Itwas inadequate, but it was all she could think to say.
He squeezed her hand. “Another sacrifice. He wanted so much to be partof it. . .” He looked at Hal. “Are there any more?”
“Many, many more,” said Hal, grim faced. “I’m sorry. I know too many ofthese fellows. I don’t see Con.” He passed the paper blindly to StephenBall and hid his face in his hand. After a moment he looked up. “Do youthink . . . would Blanche turn me from the door?”
“No,” said Lucien.
Hal walked out.
Stephen said, “I don’t think Con’s name is here. Or Leander. Simon’s inCanada anyway. As Nicholas said, the list can’t be complete but there’shope.” He passed the paper on to Miles Cavanagh.
Nicholas came back and poured wine for all, making it clear he wasabout to propose a toast. Everyone stood. “The Company of Rogues is nownine,” he said soberly. He raised his glass. “To all the fallen: may theybe young forever in heaven. To all the wounded: may they have strength andheal. To all the bereaved: may they feel joy again. And please God,” headded quietly, “may there one day be an end to war.”
He drained his glass and sent it smashing into the empty fireplace.Everyone followed suit, even Beth, though she was shocked by themoment.
Soon after she and Lucien slipped out of the house to walk home. Thestreets were still vibrant with the delirium of victory but every now andthen Beth saw a face as sober as theirs.
“It may not be the end of war,” she said tentatively, “but it surely isthe end of this war.”
“I should have been there,” Lucien said and quoted again the words fromHenry V. “ ‘And gentlemen in England now abed / Shall think themselvesaccursed they were not here, / And hold their manhoods cheap . . .’ Notfor glory,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know if there was any glory.It’s just that I should have been there. And to hell with the pride of thede Vaux.”
Beth felt helpless in the face of this grief, felt almost as if he wasshutting her out. Acting on instinct, as soon as they were in BelcravenHouse she said, “Let’s go to my rooms.”
Once there she sat on the sofa and drew him down beside her. “Tell meabout him.”
And so he did. Eyes closed, resting in her arms, he recalled for herthe whole story of the Company of Rogues. How Nicholas Delaney, already aleader at thirteen, had gathered together some boys to be a mutualprotection society with vague overtones of the Knights of the Round Table,which was why they’d stopped at twelve members.
“We wanted to call ourselves the Golden Knights, I think,” Lucien saidwith a smile, “but Nick said we weren’t there to protect the weak andinnocent but to protect ourselves. And so we became the Company of Rogues.Which was pretty apt. The tricks we used to get up to ...”
He went on to describe their tricks ? some acts of revenge for crueltydone to one of the members but many just very inventive mischief. “We hada rule ? I’m sure it was Nick’s doing ? that we couldn’t use the Companyto evade just punishment. I seem to remember him saying it was necessaryto learn not to get caught, but if we were caught we had to take ourmedicine. God, when I think of some of the floggings. . . . Do you thinkit toughens us into mighty warriors?”
Beth stroked his hair. “I don’t know, love.”
“Dare,” he said. “Dare could take the worst beating with a smile.Afterwards he’d howl, but at the time he’d keep this silly smile on hisface. It used to drive the masters wild. I suppose he smiled . . .” Aftera moment he went on. “There’s nine of us now, assuming Con’s all right.Allan Ingram followed his father into the Navy straight from Harrow. Hewas killed three years ago. A fight with a Yankee ship. Roger Merryhewdied of wounds he received at Corunna. Leander ? he’s Lord Haybridge ? he’s with the guards. He must have beenat this battle of Waterloo.”
“His name wasn’t on the list,” Beth reminded him.
“The lists aren’t complete, and they give scarcely any of the wounded.He could have lost a limb, been blinded ...”
They lapsed into silence. Beth found herself pondering the business ofthe toy soldier. Eleanor had reported Nicholas’s comment that there was noreason his daughter shouldn’t grow up to be a soldier. It was clear thatNicholas Delaney had no fondness for war, so why would he say such athing? Because it was a consequence of the equality of the sexes heobviously believed in. Beth found herself chilled by that implicationwhich had never been addressed by Mary Wollstonecraft.
Lucien sat up and buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Beth, Ithink I want to go back to Lauriston Street. Apart from anything else,there’s still this Deveril business to be taken care of. Do you mind?”
