A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [71]
The farms on the land were a source of income for Edmund—Charles had been left money outright, through their mother—and he had to deal frequently with discontented tenants. “What will you do with the land?”
“Southey, on the next parcel of land over, wants to expand. I’ll give him a fair rent to take the Ruxton land—about ten acres, I think—because he doesn’t need the house on them. A hellish little house, you remember.”
“Oh, yes. Mother used to go sit and teach the Ruxton children how to read, though she never got any thanks for it.”
Edmund snorted. “Well, hopefully the son can read well enough, or his new shop will poison half the people we know.”
“What about the boys?”
A glow came into Edmund’s face. “Teddy is owed a lashing for having candy at church, but I shan’t give it to him. Church is boring enough as a child without candy—oh, the door!”
Soon the party was crowded with incoming guests, Lady Jane greeting them, Kirk taking whole double armfuls of shawls and coats here and there, the punch bowl quickly shallowing down. There were small groups forming around the archbishop and around an extremely amusing man named Griggs, a clubman and a wastrel who nonetheless was held to be the most enjoyable conversationalist in London. Edmund and Lenox, deep in their own conversation, broke off when two very important Members came in from the House, looking extremely gratified to redeem their first invitations; this was always an exclusive event, not generally overpolitical in its composition.
Percy Field came in, Lenox noticed, tall, thin, and austere, and soon experienced the same gratification. For a while, fifteen seconds or so, he stood uncomfortably in the doorway. Just as Lenox was going to greet him, however, the Duchess of Marchmain beat him to it. In truth she was more of a cohost than Charles was at these events.
“Can I find you a drink?” she said to Field, as he was stammering out an introduction.
He was both pleased and nonplussed by this sudden intimacy with nobility (“Why—Duchess—no—I couldn’t—ah—yes—punch would be lovely”) and his stern visage, with its rather pompous chin, flushed with the excitement of met expectations. Lenox smiled.
Edmund came over, mouth full. “This is quite nice, actually. Have you tried the crab?”
“Not yet. Generally I wait until the party’s over to eat—there’s so much food left Jane has it for days.”
“By the way, that case—Ludo Starling. Is it true the butler did it?”
“Keep it quiet, but I don’t think so.” Lenox lowered his voice to a whisper. “In fact there’s some suspicion that it was Ludo’s son Paul, though I’m not convinced of that either.”
Edmund’s eyes grew wide. “His son! Never!”
Charles nodded. “We’ll see—at any rate it wasn’t the butler. Be grateful you only have to fret about candy in church.”
Edmund shook his head. “I don’t envy the boy anyway, having Starling for a father—he loves cards and drinking, and no chance of much attention when you compete with those.”
Lenox froze. Something had slotted into place in his brain, but he couldn’t quite see what it was.
“Charles?”
“Just a minute—I need—excuse me.” With a look of deep distraction Lenox left his brother, then left the sitting room altogether, with its gay hum of conversation, and ran into his silent study.
There was rain tapping on the windows, and for ten minutes Lenox stood in front of them, gazing at the wet, shining stones of Hampden Lane and thinking.
Edmund’s comment about Ludo Starling’s faults as a father had raised some possibility in his mind.
Suddenly he remembered what Mrs. Clarke had said that morning.
He needed someone. A real father would have protected him. That’s what he needed—he should have had a real father. Ludovic—Mr. Starling—he could have been that, when I entrusted my poor Freddie with him.
Just as that thought jumped into his brain, another one followed on its heels: the ring. The Starling ring, with LS and FC engraved inside of it.
A real father would have protected him.
Ludo Starling was Frederick Clarke’s father.