He was silent, a heaviness settling about his heart.
From the depths of his being, he asked, “Do you know what you are asking me to do?”
There was a cry in her own heart, but she forced it down. “I know.”
He felt dead. It did not seem as if his voice belonged to him. But he said the words nevertheless.
“Then so be it.”
It was eleven of the clock before Denzell left his room the next morning. Even then he was moving with some care, for fear that the dreadful symptoms that had attacked him might start up again. The headache had reduced to a bearable level, but any sudden noise or movement made him start and wince.
His hosts, he was informed by the manservant Mayberry, had repaired to the garden, whither Denzell followed them, having rejected with loathing an offer of breakfast and requesting that some hot coffee might be sent outside.
He paused on the threshold of the rear door that led from a small back parlour to the neat patch of lawn behind the house, lifting one hand to shut out the glare and frowning under it towards the chestnut tree. Unice, looking cool in her muslin, was seated in one of the iron garden chairs dotted about the tree, the infant Julia in her arms, while Osmond, in his shirt-sleeves, lay at his length on the grass, his two boys gambolling about him.
The sight of this contented domestic bliss did nothing to lighten Denzell’s grey mood, belied somewhat by his having allowed his valet to help him into his olive-green coat and waistcoat. Moreover, the shrieking welcome of Felix and Miles served to make him close his eyes in anguish.
Osmond laughed out. “That’ll teach you to roll in drunk as a wheelbarrow at three o’clock in the morning, Hawk!”
Denzell held up a hand. “I thank you, the lesson has already made its mark.”
But Unice was eyeing him with a grave look in her face. “It is not in your style, Denzell.”
His shoulders shifted, as if a full shrug demanded too much of him. “Much that I do these days is not in my style.”
He carefully sat himself down under the chestnut tree, thankfully leaning his back against the trunk and closing his eyes again to the persistent and unwelcome memory of last night’s events. He had been as good as his word. Returning to the Rooms, he had conducted himself in a manner that had drawn down even Sir John Frinton’s censure upon his head.
During a brief lull in his flirtatious perambulations among a selection of young women whose faces he had not even seen clearly, having been performed in a travesty of his erstwhilegame and over a sensation of blankness that had dulled all feeling, the old roué had approached him with the faintest of disapproving frowns between his brows.
“To what, my dear young sir, do we owe this sudden excursion into your old tricks?”
Denzell had been unable to summon the vestige of a smile. “To circumstance, Sir John.”
“It would be well,” the old man had returned tartly, “if your circumstance did not inconvenience a series of vulnerable young women with hopes raised unnecessarily.”
Denzell’s jaw had tightened. “I cannot help that. There is more at stake here than you know.”
The light of compassion had entered the other’s eyes. “Matters go against you, do they? Is there anything I can do, my boy?”
“Nothing, I thank you.” He had grimaced. “Unless you care to ensure that my remains are suitably interred in a hackney cab later tonight?”
Sir John’s brows had risen. “You are not, I trust, contemplating a violent end?”
“I am contemplating a violent inebriation!”
The aged exquisite had laughed. “You may rely on me, dear boy.”
He had been as good as his word. Better, in fact. For not only had he accompanied Denzell to the Gentleman’s Rooms, matching him glass for glass — deuce take it, the man had a head like a rock! — but he had seen him escorted into his own coach and personally deposited the body into the hands of Osmond Ruishton himself.
Denzell came out of his reverie to discover his hosts calling for Dinah and the infant’s new nurse, both of whom were within earshot. His eyes flicked open, to find that the boys were being led off to the larger ground beyond the garden to play, while thebaby was lowered into a basket crib and removed to a position just outside the house.
“Now then,” said Osmond on a determined note.
Denzell glanced from one to the other of them. Unice was still watching him with that solemn look in her face, while Osmond was frowning.
“What?” he demanded.
“Yes, that’s just what we want to know,” said his friend. “Not like you to be secretive with us, Hawk. And just because we didn’t accompany you to the Rooms last night, does not mean we haven’t heard of your doings.”
