“We’re taking your mind off your niece until we sit down and work things through,” Anthony said. “Lady Liberty is an excellent topic to do that as clearly she unsettles you with that history between you.”
“She does not unsettle me, and there is nothing further to discuss. Now there is something else I need to ask your advice on,” Toby said. “It is to do with Bidham.”
“The little village close to your estate?” Jamie asked.
“Yes. I have not been there for many years.”
“For so long, it was Jamie, or me, that had a problem we needed help with. It seems that is all about to change, along with your life, Toby,” Anthony said.
“I am going to be the guardian of a five-year-old girl. I doubt anything either of you do could improve on that for a problem.”
“True,” his friends both agreed.
Toby explained what his butler had told him, and then what he’d seen in the village. Lastly, he spoke of what happened in that tavern he’d spent the night in with Liberty. He didn’t mention the fact she was there, however.
“So, finally, we have the reason for those bruises you returned to London with,” Jamie said.
“Why have you stayed away from Bidham for so long?” Anthony asked.
“And why did you not take us there when we visited Hawthorne years ago?” Jamie added.
“Are you sending someone to investigate what is going on in the village?” Anthony said.
“Which of those questions do you want me to answer first?”
“Mine,” Anthony said before Jamie spoke.
“I am sending someone to the village to investigate, and had planned to go back in a few weeks for the Bidham festival, but now that is uncertain because of Florence.” Silence greeted these words, so he took another large bite of spiced cake.
“Bidham festival?” Anthony asked with his mouth full of food.
“You should swallow that before you choke. And you’re only eating like a barbarian because your wife is not here,” Toby said.
“True. But we digress. There is a Bidham festival?”
Toby nodded. “It has been going for many years.”
“Do they have sweet foods there?” Jamie demanded.
“Of course.”
“I’m exceedingly vexed that you never told us about this, Toby, or for that matter, took us to this festival. That will change this year, as Florence will wish to go, and we will accompany you,” Anthony said.
“I don’t think so, and you make that sound like she already knows you, or for that matter will like you.”
“She will. We’re likeable, and there are always sweets to bribe her with,” Jamie said.
Did Florence like sweets?He didn’t know a child who wouldn’t, but then Toby didn’t know any children, so there was that. Would Liberty be attending the festival, and if so, did he want to?
“A Corbyn has opened that festival for hundreds of years,” Toby added softly.
“And that stopped when you refused to go?” Anthony asked.
“The year I returned from Blackwood, I refused the three years following. They never asked me again.”
“Your mother—”
“Couldn’t make herself go there after my father’s death,” Toby said.
