But it was Errol Cagney. It was the boy from the stables, all grown up, hands in his pockets, looking somehow both sheepish and friendly.
“Errol?” Elias managed, blinking twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
The other man gave half a smile, as though he knew his own appearance was absurd. “Mal said to come get you,” he explained in that soft brogue of his. “We have to sneak out now before Mr. Harcourt starts the preparations for that dinner of his. None of us wanted to go.”
“‘Sneak out’?” Elias repeated dumbly. “And go where?”
Errol stared at him for a moment, then gave an incredulous little laugh, running a hand over his wispy, blond hair. “Ah, right,” he said. “You were gone when we started doing this, weren’t you? Off to Eton. We’re going to steal out through the root cellar and go for drinks and vittles at the Coin and Cauldron. You’re coming.”
“I am?” asked Elias.
He was.
If it had been Mal or Rhys who’d come to get him, he might have been able to saynoand stick to it, but how did one sternlyreject the likes of Errol Cagney? By Elias’s estimation, it couldn’t be done.
And so he found himself shod and jacketed again, following the other man into the root cellar and up its ladder through the open hatches and into the early evening air.
“We’re last,” Errol said, kicking the hatch doors shut behind him. “And late. I stayed behind to help Da with the fodder and lost track of time. They’ve all had almost two hours now in their cups, so I imagine they’ll all be intolerable. Anyhow, I always go last to make sure our tracks are covered. We used to let Rhys go last because he was the thief, but…”
“But a pickpocket is not a tactician?” Elias guessed, smirking at Errol’s chuckle and nod as he followed him down a narrow dirt path that led down the hill toward the beach.
“Spot on,” Errol said. “Turns out, Rhys’s key aim after a crime is to get away, not to cover his tracks. I suppose that makes sense.”
“Lucky for him, too,” Elias noted. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be amongst us. I don’t believe I’ve heard of the Coin and Cauldron. A public house?”
“And inn,” Errol confirmed, nodding. “It was new back then, and because the owners didn’t know who we were yet, we were able to get away with appearing as a group for a while. By the time the barkeep and so on had settled into Brighton proper, they were too fond of us to kick us out. I think the baroness knew, but she never bothered to drag us home or otherwise destroy the illusion that we had a safe haven.”
“What about your father?” Elias asked curiously, picturing the tall, seemingly stern groom who had saddled his horses as a lad. “He doesn’t seem the indulgent type.”
“Doesn’t he?” Errol replied with another little laugh. “You might be surprised. Few would have described the baroness as ‘indulgent,’ either, you know.”
Elias tilted his head to the side, considering this. Willa rose in his mind, her sharp grin and oiled curls and quick laugh, and he blinked. “My mother did,” he said without thinking. “She thought adopting half a dozen orphans was the very definition of indulgent.”
Errol let out a gust of laughter. “If your vices are tolerating and caring for precocious children, I suppose. Not exactly a leisure activity.”
“I suppose not,” he agreed after a moment. “Indulgentis not the word I’d use, certainly. She wasn’t lax so much as she was… hm.”
“Strategic?” Errol suggested, pointing to a crossroads where they needed to make a left turn. “Unknowable?”
“Unknowable,” Elias repeated. “Yes. I like that.”
Errol glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Do you?”
Elias smirked again, despite himself. “No.”
“At least Hattie is easy to know,” Errol observed as they walked up toward the door of the pub. “If nothing else, she is direct and open, hm?”
Elias did not have the chance to respond to that, but his amusement quickly melted away as the words left Errol’s mouth, even in that charming musicality of his Irish accent. He feared he was halfway to glowering the instant they walked over the threshold, even as a large cheer of welcome arose from the table in the corner, where the other wards were awaiting them, clustered like hours on a clock around a pitcher of ale.
There were a few others with them, Elias noted, hesitating to fall in step behind Errol rather than next to him.
They seemed to be men from the East India offices on the wharf, clustered around Malcolm Lennox like so many barnacles. He only recognized one of them, Malcolm’s lifelong best mate Jasper Townsend, whose bright-red mane was unmistakable, even in adulthood.
Elias sighed, softly to himself.
Why had he come here?
“Oh, Elias, you decided to join us!” Ruby Little exclaimed, coming up from her chair with a splash of ale from her glass, her dark hair gleaming in the candlelight. “Come pour yourself a tipple! You can sit next to me!”
