Page 37 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘Yes, sir, the irony has not escaped me: your nephew play-acts, little knowing that members of his family have for generations belonged to a secret Order sharing the burden of a great secret.’
If it had come as a surprise to the new Lord Rayven that his predecessor’s rather mismatched band of old cronies should expect to continue to gather at Priory Chase on a certain date every year, then it had been as nothing to his discovery of the real reason for that meeting.
‘Seven families,’ said Mr Hartwood now, meditatively. ‘Seven members of the Order, one from each family, a line unbroken down the centuries. Keeping the secret; keeping the faith.’
‘A secret I am not yet privy to,’ remarked Rayven, who had found himself recruited to the Order’s ranks on his return to take up his inheritance.
‘You will learn it when you have served seven years faithfully and then you may find the knowledge a burden hard to bear.’ The old man sighed. ‘But who is to take my place as the representative of the Hartwoods when I am gone I do not know, for Nat has yet to prove himself anything other than a fashionable fribble.’
‘Many young men are wild in their youth, yet grow sober and responsible when they turn thirty.’
‘Yes, that is sometimes the case. Charles Rayven thought much the same about his son, and yet he had started to show signs of maturity shortly before his death, thinking of marriage and taking an interest in the estate.’
‘And so may your nephew settle down yet.’
‘I have long wanted to think so, but I grow old and infirm and there is no sign of it.’
‘Indeed, sir, I am amazed that you have managed to make the annual journey to Priory Chase every autumn these last few years.
‘I must, for who is to take my place? Three wives I have buried, and not a son to show for it!’
‘I believe in the past women have been admitted as members of the Order,’ Rayven suggested. ‘Do you not also have a niece?’
‘Yes, Arabella.’ Mr Hartwood’s face lightened. ‘She’s a pretty little thing, but just eighteen and with a head full of gewgaws, gowns and beaux. Too much of a feather-head to be burdened with serious affairs, even if I agreed with women being privy to such a secret, which I do not, whatever others in the past may have thought!’
Drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair, he frowned. ‘Perhaps, if I were to marry her to the right man …’ He shot a look at Rayven from deep-set eyes under bushy brows: ‘I suppose you are not hanging out for a wife? If so, then perhaps you could stand in the Order for both our houses … only then the Seven would be Six, so that would not do. This situation has not arisen before. I must give it further thought.’
‘I am sure Miss Hartwood is delightful,’ Rayven said politely, ‘but although I do intend to marry soon, I do not think giddy eighteen and sober twenty-nine go well together.’
‘Perhaps not, but she’s having a coming-out ball and I’ll get Lavinia – William’s widow, you know – to send you an invitation. Come and cast your eye over her.’
‘Thank you, I will look forward to it. But going back toyour problem, perhaps there is a distant relative who might be suitable?’
‘Not that I know of. Of course, I’ve got a granddaughter, but she is out of the reckoning.’
‘Agranddaughter?’ Rayven raised a surprised dark brow. ‘I had no idea.’
‘My only daughter ran off with a fortune hunter when she was seventeen, a gambler who lived on his soldier’s pay and the throw of the dice. Much good it did him, though, for I cast her off and she died soon after the child’s birth.’ He uttered a harsh bark of laughter. ‘He wrote to me later, of course, wanting money, but I had nothing to say to him.’
‘But surely your granddaughter deserved your notice?’
‘She was half his, and bad blood. Of course, had she been a boy, that would have been different. Then I might have made a push to remove him from his father and have him brought up under my own eye, so I could see how he turned out.’
‘So you have never met your granddaughter, sir?’
‘No, but I have just this day received a letter from her, saying that since her father is dead she has come to Town, and wishes to restore the Poseidon jewel to me. I knew that my daughter must have taken it, even though the blackguard she married denied all knowledge of it.’
‘Well, that is good news, is it not?’ Rayven said. He considered that the tokens the seven members of the Order assumed during their meetings were merely pointless embellishments to their purpose, but he kept his opinion to himself. He had sworn eternal faith to the cause, even if he was still inclined to think that the secret he would one day learn would turn out to be of no very great moment: thelocation of yet another Grail or portion of the True Cross, perhaps?
‘Growing up under such a father’s influence, she cannot have escaped the taint,’ Hartwood said. ‘I suspect she has an ulterior motive in making the offer and expects to receive something equally valuable in return, if only a public acknowledgement of our relationship. She is staying with a friend for the season and, at three or four and twenty, with no money or prospects, must be scrambling after her last chance of a respectable marriage. But I will see her, if only to give her a set-down for her presumption.’
‘But sheisyour granddaughter, acknowledged or not,’ Rayven pointed out, ‘and she may be sincere.’
‘That cannot be, or why would she have waited so long to return the jewel?’
‘If her father is recently dead, perhaps she has only now learned of its existence.’
‘Perhaps. Well, we will see, but if Miss Alys Weston thinks to cozen an old man in his dotage, she will be very much mistaken.’
