Most of the men around the table hummed and nodded with interest. Even Jonathan’s father lightened from his frown. He glanced around at the men who reacted so favorably toward his son, then looked at Jonathan with a different sort of calculation.
The subtle shift in his father’s regard had Jonathan’s heart racing and his stomach feeling as if it were full of butterflies. Which was inconvenient as the stony-faced footmen brought the fish course around.
“Has Frome set up some sort of darkroom for you here at Fairford?” another gentleman Jonathan didn’t know asked.
Jonathan shook his head as he reached for his wine glass. He was certainly going to need the fortification of the drink to keep his nerves from getting the best of him.
“This new process allows for the storing of exposed plates so that they can be developed as much as weeks later,” he explained. “Why, I know of a gentleman explorer who has hiked some of the tallest Alps with his camera, captured the views, and returned to civilization after more than a fortnight to develop the photographs he took.”
The comment was met with more sounds of interest and approval.
Approval from his own class. It was not something Jonathan was used to.
He took a long draught of his wine, then dove into the food that had been placed in front of him with enthusiasm.
“Photography is your profession, not merely your passion, am I correct?” the first man Jonathan didn’t know asked.
“Yes, it is, Mr.—” Jonathan raised his eyebrows slightly as he fished for the man’s identity.
“Copeland,” the gentleman said with a smile. “Albert Copeland.”
Jonathan didn’t have the first idea who Albert Copeland was, but he made a note of the name anyhow. He felt woefully inadequate for the mission Brutus and Titus had set for him, but at least he could remember names.
“It is my profession, yes,” Jonathan answered.
“One he is quite accomplished at,” Hammond answered from the other side of the table and a few seats down.
Jonathan glanced the man’s way, only to find him smiling at him, rather like a shark.
It was suddenly difficult to swallow the bite he’d just taken.
“Are you familiar with Mr. Moorgate’s work, then?” the second gentleman Jonathan didn’t know asked.
Heat flushed through Jonathan as Hammond’s smile turned even more predatory. Jonathan reached for his wine glass again, bracing for the nature of his most popular photographs to be revealed.
“I am,” Hammond said. “He has a reputation for taking the most dazzling portraits.”
More sounds of interest and approval echoed around the table.
Jonathan gulped down the last of his wine, praying that no one would ask for more details about his portraits.
“We should have you take all of our portraits,” Thomas suggested with a laugh a few seats down from Jonathan. “That would be a lark.”
Jonathan smiled at him, feeling once again like Balthazar Thomas was on his side somehow.
“I would be more than happy to set up a studio in one of Lord Frome’s parlors for the purpose of taking portraits of you all,” he said.
As luck would have it, Jonathan was instantly given a glimpse into which of Frome’s guests were important for Brutus and Titus’s purposes and which were likely innocent by their reactions. A few men, like Thomas and two others whom Jonathan didn’t know smiled and chattered enthusiastically about the idea. Several others, like Jonathan’s father, seemed indifferent.
But a few, Dalhurst and Hammond among them, did not seem to like the idea at all.
It wasn’t much, but Jonathan did his best to note which men rejected the idea, some going so far as to turn away from him and strike up conversations with their neighbors. They would be the ones he would pursue most intently.
The supper conversation veered out in several different directions after that. Jonathan’s gut eased as most of theattention shifted away from him. He wasn’t left entirely on his own, though. The men seated on either side of him, Dalhurst and a Dr. Reinhardt from Germany, engaged him in a lively discussion about the latest complications in relations between Britain and Germany.
Jonathan paid very little attention to politics, at home or abroad, so he knew nothing of what the two men were so passionate about. But he was able to feign his way into looking knowledgeable and took first one man’s side, then the other’s as a way to ingratiate himself to both.
By the time their company quit the dining room, some moving into a cozy smoking parlor that contained a billiard’s table and some leaving for their own pursuits, Jonathan was entirely comfortable with his new friends. They smiled at him and included him in their games and conversations instead of turning up their noses at him and seeing him as an aberration. Dr. Reinhardt, who had drunk a bit too much during the meal and after, laughed raucously at one of Jonathan’s jokes, which was not particularly good, and thumped him on the back. Even Hammond seemed to ease up on his innuendo to include Jonathan in yet another uninteresting discussion of politics.
