Page 38 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
They approached the staircase and marched down. Their footsteps echoed through the foyer before them, solidifying the emptiness of the massive house around them. Behind them, Lady Margaret stumbled slightly on a step and let out a small groan.
At the door, Lord Linfield’s eyes shone, speaking a language Bess could only slightly understand. “I hope you’ll consider coming to help me again with my oration,” he said. “I’m certain that only a few lessons won’t get me to that Parliament seat.”
“It’s my pleasure to assist you,” Bess said. She gave him a slight smirk. “No matter how difficult you can be, on occasion, Lord Linfield.”
Again, the air grew taut between them. But Lady Margaret was anxious to retreat from the mighty house. She slid towards the door, opened the knob, and bowed her head towards Lord Linfield. “It really was a pleasure,” she stammered, her voice high-pitched like a child’s. “Good evening, Lord Linfield. We must bid our leave.”
Once back in the carriage, Bess could feel Lady Margaret’s curious eyes turning towards her—nearly burning through her with curiosity. But she kept her face focused forward, her eyebrows low. The events of the day had made her head fill with questions that had no answers. It made her dream in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to in years.
And when she returned home, slipped beneath her sheets, listened to the cantering of horses outside, the carriages clacking past in the night, she still felt lost in a daydream.
Chapter 18
A few days after Lord Linfield’s next speech, he planned to meet his friend Everett in downtown London for lunch. Lord Linfield was now a recognisable figure throughout the city, known far and wide as a man looking to slot himself into his father’s previous position at Parliament. Known to be a handsome man. A man to raise the emotions of the people in the crowd at his speeches.
A man the people could trust.
Lord Linfield arrived at the restaurant he and Everett had arranged for, a little place that served hearty stews and thick, German breads filled with seeds and nuts, along with hefty pints of beer. As younger boys, he and Everett had once drunk in that restaurant from noon until night, having to hold onto one another’s shoulders to ensure they didn’t fall down on their route to their carriages.
At the time, they’d had very few cares in the world.
The restaurant was a little cozy brick-lined place, with about eleven tables and a surly barmaid who poured Lord Linfield a pint with a perfect inch of foam at the top. She smacked the beer atop the counter, along with a menu, and then pointed towards a table in the corner, near the window. She grunted something Lord Linfield couldn’t understand. It was the sort of belittling Lord Linfield hadn’t had in several months, perhaps years, and it thrilled him to be looked at with such disdain. This 40-something-year-old barmaid had nothing to do with his good looks, nor his position in society. She only wanted his money. Then, she wanted to turn him away.
Everett was nearly 20 minutes late for lunch, which gave Lord Linfield a bit of time to read through the newest The Rising Sun paper. He bided his time with the first few articles, all written up by proud men who blared their names just beneath the titles, unafraid of what people thought of them and grateful to take credit for their work. Lord Linfield snickered to himself, recognising that the writing from every other The Rising Sun writer was lacklustre, seemingly stuffed with words that sounded pompous. It was very much as though the writers wanted to talk DOWN to their readership, rather than allowing them entrance to their minds.
That was of course far different from L.B.’s incredible way with words. She had three political opinion pieces, with the last one acting as a recount of Lord Linfield’s recent speech. He only read through the first few paragraphs of the other two articles before diving into the one about him. His fingers were so tight over the newspaper he thought he might rip it.
“As many of my readership know, I wasn’t an enormous fan of Lord Nathaniel Linfield when his political career began, over a month ago. I found him childish and silly, spewing words that he perhaps remembered from conversations at the dinner table with his father. It seemed that he didn’t want to cultivate any sort of proper personality, one that the people of London could latch onto. But beyond that, he was a stuttering fool, apt to make one feel ill halfway through his speech, if only so one could retreat from the environment in which he spoke and find solace and silence.”
At this, Lord Linfield couldn’t help snickering. He turned his eyes to the people surrounding him at the restaurant. One man, perhaps twenty or thirty years older than Lord Linfield, blew down upon his spoonful of stew. His cheeks were heavy and sagged low, towards his chin. The man gave him a dagger-like expression, one that told Nathaniel he better keep his eyes to himself. He returned them to his paper, tearing through the next few paragraphs.
“But something seems to have shifted in the mind and heart of Lord Linfield, for it seems that his words are more articulate, that he addresses the crowd with more certainty, that he, wonderfully, incredibly, actually has a vision that isn’t just a copy of his father’s. I found myself awash with feeling that perhaps with Lord Linfield in Parliament, we might be privy to a beautiful future, one with more promise than previously thought,” the essay continued.
“Hey there, my boy!”
The words bounced off the walls of the restaurant. Lord Linfield turned his face up to find Everett’s above him, grinning in a way that felt far more youthful than his 32 years. He bounced into his chair, clapping Lord Linfield’s back as he did it. “What are you reading there?” he asked. “Don’t tell me. You’re reading analyses of your speeches, aren’t you?” He coughed as he laughed, tossing a napkin over his lap. “We really cannot get enough of ourselves, can we?” he said with a sigh.
“It’s important to know how the world is perceiving me,” Lord Linfield said, feeling strangely flustered. What did it matter if Everett caught him reading the paper? It wasn’t as though Everett knew a single part of his relationship with Lady Elizabeth—not as if that relationship existed in any capacity.
“Of course. Of course. And it’s also convenient when the world is calling your name from every rooftop, my boy. Of course, the old Nathaniel, the one back in school—that Nathaniel shrunk at any sign that the world could even see him. Now, all this attention. It must be getting to your head.”
Lord Linfield rolled his eyes, knowing Everett was teasing him. “You’ll never change, will you?” he muttered.
“And would you want me to?” Everett countered. “The more things change, the more things stay the same. Isn’t that the old refrain?”
The men ordered their meals: potatoes, slathered with gravy, minced meat pies, and more gallons of beer. The surly barmaid smashed their platters atop the table to serve them acting as though they were the worst possible things to happen to her in her career. She grumbled to herself as she hobbled away, something about “rich men should take their business elsewhere.”
“I don’t suppose she knows we have a history here,” Everett said, wagging his eyebrows.
“A history of drunken buffoonery, you mean.” Lord Linfield laughed.
“We were children, yes, but I have to say we were a bit cleverer than most children I come up against these days,” Everett said. “You should have seen these blokes trying to steal my wallet a few days back. One of them decided to sing me a little tune at the corner, near my carriage. Thought I would surely stop and stare, you know. So impressed with a bit of music. But I sensed something was amiss. His eyes glittered with foolishness. I darted around to find that his mate, another little scoundrel, nearly had his hands in my back pocket! Immediately, I grabbed my wallet, lifted it high in the air—too high for him to reach—and shook it around. Saying something like, ‘Oh, is this here what you want? This here? Goodness, me. How foolish of you to think I wasn’t paying attention.’”
Lord Linfield snickered, stabbing his fork into a piece of minced pie. “And what did you do next, Everett? Make them pay for their petty crimes?”
Everett’s smile faltered slightly. “Lord Linfield, I’ve noticed something about that, in fact.”
“What is it?” Nathaniel asked.
