Page 11 of Salt Magic, Skin Magic
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Thornby got back tothe house empty-handed. Trying to borrow money from the rector had gone spectacularly badly. Thornby, hadn’t, of course, been able to actually call upon the man, because he couldn’t walk to the village any more, but he’d hovered at the gates to the estate until he’d been able to persuade a passer-by to fetch the fellow for him. The rector had listened, purse-mouthed, to Thornby’s plea for money, then read him a little lecture about gambling debts and prodigal sons and wished him good day. Thornby, hot-faced with embarrassment and fury, had simply had to watch him go.
Hoping to remain undetected, he went up by the servant’s staircase and through the gloomy Drake Gallery. He was nearly at his room when he realised Mr Blake was standing on the first floor landing, looking at a bust of Cato. Thornby stopped, hiding in the shadows behind the gallery door. Blake was standing with his arms crossed, glaring at the bust as if it had just insulted his mother. His dark, sober suiting was as immaculate as his dark, sober hair. He looked clever; not one to suffer fools. Was he really a magician? With a ghastly bloody baboon thing slavering in his room? Possibly. Yet he looked more like a business man; the type that knows the price of everything.
How could he ask Blake to help when he had nothing to give in return? Thornby could imagine himself squirming under Blake’s withering stare with such clarity that he found himself tiptoeing away. At one time it had never crossed his mind that confidence was partly to do with means. Now he knew better.
Begging from the rector had depleted him. His soul felt raw with the failure and the shame. Perhaps he’d feel like tackling Blake after dinner. Thornby went back outside, to the east side of the house and down into the sunken garden. It was grey and miserable this afternoon except for some bright red rosehips just visible in the gathering dusk. He sat on the wooden seat against the west wall, completely hidden from the house.
Mother had shown him this place when he was a child. He imagined the place as it had been the day she’d shown it to him—a riot of greenery, bright with flowers, alive with bees and butterflies. They had run here hand-in-hand, laughing, breathless, hiding from Nanny. They had curled up on this very seat, and Mother had whispered in his ear that, when he was just a tiny bit older, she would show him a big and marvellous secret. He had begged her to tell himnow, and she had smiled and said she would tell him a little secret, to see if he could keep it. And if he could keep it for a whole month,thenshe would tell him the big one. He’d agreed, and she’d pointed to the nasturtiums that grew beside the seat and shown him the beads of dew that gleamed in the centres of the round leaves. She’d told him they were fairy jewels but that he mustn’t tell a soul or the fairies would be angry. He had believed her, and had come most days to the sunken garden after that, hoping to see a fairy.
Then he had turned eight and been sent away to school. And Mother had died and he had never seen her again.
He realised it had grown dark and he had grown cold and stiff with waiting. But for what was he waiting? Nothing would turn up. He was utterly friendless. He had nothing to give Mr Blake to persuade him to help, and no way of getting anything.
And now he must go in and change for dinner with his father, the bastard who was responsible for it all.
Chapter Four
Five people sat downto dinner that evening; John himself, Lord Dalton, Lady Dalton, Lady Amelia and the elderly Mr Derwent. There was an empty place setting to John’s right. Lord Dalton glared at it briefly and waved an irritable hand at the butler to begin serving.
They had started the carrot soup when Thornby stalked in. John tried not to stare, and failed.
Thornby had dressed for dinner in tight black silk breeches, waistcoat and coat, black silk stockings, and a black cravat that swathed his throat. He wore on his lapel a sprig of rose-hips that glowed like tiny red lanterns. John had seen such old-fashioned clothes before, but only on elderly gentlemen who, for reasons of habit or thrift, still wore the fashions of their youth. To see such an outfit on a man as young and as handsome as Thornby was striking, to say the least. The wounds on Thornby’s face and hand had scabbed over and did little to mar his elegance. If anything, they heightened the effect of the Regency rake, recently come from an uncommonly dirty duel.
John stood, and bowed, and received a glacial look.
“Good evening,” Thornby said. “Forgive my lateness. Really, the days pass so quickly this time of year.” He sat down, affecting a bored expression as the butler filled his glass. But his eyes were wary. He tossed back the hock as if it were water and motioned impatiently for a refill.
John had hoped to apologise to him without an audience, but thought he might as well get it over with. He’d opened his mouth to do so when he realised Lord Dalton, who sat at the head of the table, had fixed his son with an unpleasant smile.
“Well, Soren, have you come off your horse, boy?” Dalton said.
“How observant you are, Father. That’s exactly what happened.” Thornby flashed a glance at John, as if daring him to tell the truth.
“It’s that old nag you ride. Sinbad, isn’t it? I’ll have Stewart take him for dog’s meat,” said Lord Dalton.
