Page 34 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
“It’s a funny story, in fact,” Everett continued, arching his brow. “And one I don’t believe should be told in such mixed company.”
“Oh?” Nathaniel asked. In the corner of his eye, he spotted Lord Frederick once more, scuttling along the edge of the room. Nathaniel’s heart began to patter, knowing he would soon be forced into an introduction with his daughter.
Nathaniel sneaked his head closer to Everett’s, feeling at the mercy of the next few minutes. “Everett, truth be told, I came to this ball tonight to enhance my political career, and nothing more,” he said. “I can’t imagine myself dancing with any of these political heads’ daughters, nor can I imagine explaining them why their daughters aren’t ‘good enough’ for me or my situation. Not that that’s entirely the truth. I simply …”
Nathaniel trailed off as the violins in the orchestra swelled higher, faster. He swallowed, searching Everett’s eyes. He’d known Everett when he’d been a much younger, more optimistic man. When he’d spent long nights chatting with his father, and longer days still roaming the woods. He hadn’t craved the attention of Parliament, nor had he felt the pressing weight of time, creeping ever forward.
He hadn’t imagined that his father would ever be murdered by highwaymen.
“All right. Let’s sneak off,” Everett said, his eyes alight. “I work with several of these blokes, as you well know, and I can’t imagine spending another moment with them, when I’m not paid for it. Food’s wretched, anyway.”
Everett spun on his heels and sneaked through the crowd, so snake-like and sneaky. He glanced back to ensure that Nathaniel followed. Nathaniel suddenly felt they were boys again, up to hi-jinks, playing pranks.
Seconds later, they passed within three feet of Lord Frederick, who opened his lips to blare out Nathaniel’s name. But in response, Nathaniel forced his smile from his face, turned his head to the side, pretended that he didn’t see the older man. He nodded to an invisible form, saying, “Wonderful to see you, sir,” before darting the rest of the way to the foyer.
Once outside, Everett sneaked along the edge of the foyer to a side exit, where he paused and waggled his eyebrows back at Nathaniel. Nathaniel sprung forward, feeling light and fresh. He’d met Everett when he’d been a teenager, a young and strapping and wild boy who hadn’t a single thought for growing old. Now, he felt a glimmer of that promise. That promise of forever youth.
Finally, Everett and Nathaniel found themselves outside, beneath the sparkling stars and in the chilly, yet oddly electric night air. Nathaniel flashed his eyes to the right, watching as Everett devolved into another set of chuckles.
“Why were you even there in the first place? Only for the face of it? Your colleagues?” Nathaniel asked, laughing, himself. “You seemed oddly willing to escape the minute I arrived.”
“Well, certainly, for the business side of things. But beyond that, my boy, it truly is a fine thing that I haven’t yet found a way to settle down. They can’t possibly understand it.”
He paused for a moment, gasping for air. “Besides, one can always convince one’s self of things unfortunately. I, for one, convinced myself that perhaps these balls weren’t so terribly horrific. And I found myself in a sad mental state, you see, and wanted to kick myself out of it. Shall we wander through the garden?”
Everett cut across the grass towards the walled garden, forcing Nathaniel to follow quickly behind him. Nathaniel wasn’t accustomed to having to “keep up” with anyone, in fact, and found himself soon out of breath, huffing beside the only-slightly shorter man.
“You’ve been around the world,” Lord Linfield said as they slid through the gates of the garden and wandered across the bricked walkway. On either side, dead rose vines tossed to and fro in the night-time wind. They looked like odd skeletons.
“Absolutely,” Everett said. He paused, dropping his hand across his chest.
“I suppose I haven’t seen you since, well …” Nathaniel paused, trying to trace it all back to before his father’s funeral. This drudged up countless memories, memories of his father’s dead body—so pale his face had been!—and his mother weeping across Nathaniel’s shoulder.
“I tried to contact you after it happened,” Everett said, his voice lowering. “I knew how much you loved your father. Looked up to him. Wanted to become him, as, it seems, you’re taking steps to do now.”
“I don’t remember hearing from you,” Nathaniel said.
“Well, Richard—I believe that was your father’s man at the time …”
“He works for me, now,” Nathaniel said, nodding.
“Well, Richard told me that you received my word, but that you weren’t bothering to leave your room much at the time—only for long jaunts through the woods. You should have seen the old boy at that time, that Richard. Absolutely stricken. Seems that he was meant to be in that carriage with your father but had had to attend to his own family. Something about his sister falling ill,” Everett said.
Lord Linfield paused, inching his feet across the bricks. Along the garden wall, rabbits hopped over the frigid grass, their eyes beady and strange in the night.
“His family? HIs sister?” Nathaniel murmured. He realised he’d given Richard very little time to speak of himself. How selfish had Nathaniel been over the years, swirling in his own pain about his father’s death?
“I believed the guilt would destroy him. But I’m grateful to hear that he’s taken up with you. Perhaps he feels he owes it to your father,” Everett said.
The men walked on, two dominant forces in the garden while the party whizzed along inside. Everett cleared his throat, perhaps sensing that Nathaniel had now grown lost in thought.
“I was in India for nearly a year, you know,” he began. “It took months to get there, months of arduous travel, and when I arrived, the sun was shining over Bombay, and I saw people, countless numbers of them, milling in and out of the rivers. You’ve never seen so many people in your life, Nathaniel. Not if you stretched the entirety of London out into a single line. Of course, while there, I wasn’t dressed like an English gentleman. Couldn’t very well wear my top hat or three-piece suit, you know, but they still sensed a difference in me. Children scampered up to me, grabbing my hands and staring at the colour of my skin. They tried to drag me towards the river, if you can believe it, but I hung back. Never been partial to water, you know.”
Nathaniel remembered something about Everett’s past. Something about Everett nearly dying as a child, nearly drowning at a nearby lake. Since then, Everett hadn’t so much as touched a body of water.
“And while there, I wrote,” Everett continued. “First one novel, then another. I found that when I was all the way across the world, I could see the perversities of England in a far fresher light.”
“Perversities?” Nathaniel asked, tilting his head. “I don’t suppose I know entirely what you mean.”
