Page 19

Chapter 18

Rory strode down the corridor in the direction of Mr Humphrey’s tutoring room, a multitude of plans running through his mind. The arrival of the new year had instilled a renewed sense of purpose in him, and he was eager to get started.

Emily had gone to Harrogate for her first term at the art academy but he wouldn’t let that dishearten him – though he might be feeling lonely without her, she was pursuing her artistic dream and he would rather walk over hot coals than get in the way of anything that made her happy. Besides, he already had a clear idea for how to make the most of her next visit home, which involved spending a lot of time behind the locked door of their suite, appreciating a different kind of art form: every line and curve of her body.

He still intended to travel to Liverpool in the next week or two, although today he was more focused on having a discussion with Mr Humphrey about his tutoring. While he didn’t want to leave Jack and Gus behind, their differences to him in age and aptitude had grown more apparent over the last few months. He had caught on to the principles of mathematics better than he had expected and he now desired a greater challenge in that area, especially if it would aid him in his training as deputy land agent. He hoped Mr Humphrey might be able to teach him geometry for land surveying, as well as accounting and financial forecasting, with the ultimate goal that he would become a much more useful assistant to Mr Comerford.

And maybe in the future a more proficient, confident Rory Carey would be able to give the Duke of Desmond a run for his money.

As he approached Mr Humphrey’s room, he heard speaking from within and realised that he wasn’t the first to arrive. Gus’s earnest voice drifted through the open doorway.

‘Mr Humphrey, don’t you think it would be a good geography lesson to carry out a practical study on the effects of the frost on the river? We could observe the thickness of the ice, and take notes on how it’s formed…and maybe we should bring our skates along for, uh, a thorough examination.’

Rory snorted quietly as he reached to push open the door further, but he halted when clipped footsteps sounded behind him.

‘A moment, Mr Carey?’

He turned to see Mr Sheppard coming towards him, a look of consternation creasing his usually composed features. Stepping back from the door, Rory wondered what had caused the butler such disquiet and what it could possibly have to do with him. Then his heart jolted. Had there been a message from Emily? Had she fallen ill or had some sort of accident at the art academy? What if she was being mistreated there? She had told him when she received her acceptance letter that it was a male-dominated institution in terms of both students and instructors, which had made him even prouder of her accomplishment – but what if they had subjected her to harassment or ridicule for being a woman? He would race up to Yorkshire this very instant and tear into whoever had made her feel alone or unsafe.

But then Mr Sheppard said, ‘You have a visitor, sir.’

Rory’s anger transformed into confusion. ‘A visitor?’ he repeated. Who on earth would call upon him at Bewley Hall?

‘Yes, sir. I thought it best for David to bring him straight down to the kitchens.’

Rory gaped, now at a total loss.

Mr Sheppard cleared his throat. ‘He started to say that his name was Alfie Carey but quickly corrected it to Alfie Pratt.’

Rory blinked. That provided some illumination, at least, although it prompted a plethora of other questions. What the bloody hell was Alfie doing in Bedfordshire, and how did he get here from Liverpool? Had Maud sent him? What had happened to make him come all this way?

Uneasiness swirled in Rory’s gut. ‘Thanks for telling me. I’ll go see him right away.’

Leaving the butler behind, he hurried off down the corridor, his planned discussion with Mr Humphrey forgotten. As he made for the servants’ stairs that led down to the kitchens, his apprehension swelled. There could be no good reason for his half-brother turning up out of the blue like this.

Reaching the lower level, he passed by the offices belonging to Mr Comerford and Mrs Hawkins and entered the main kitchen, where the lingering aromas of bread and bacon mingled with the clatter of pans and dishes being washed in the nearby scullery. His gaze skated over the maids bustling about wiping down surfaces after the morning’s breakfast preparations and landed on the shivering figure hunched on a stool in front of the large hearth.

Alfie’s unkempt brown hair framed his face, which Rory could only see in profile, and yet even from this angle it looked too worn for his young age. He was wearing a threadbare coat, inadequate for the bitter January weather, with a thin scarf wrapped around his neck, and his feet were extended towards the blazing fire, revealing the gap where the soles of his boots had come loose at the toes. His right arm hung awkwardly in his lap, while his left hand clutched a thick slice of bread slathered with butter, which he was devouring in quick, hungry bites.

David stood over him with a worried expression. Relief flooded his face at Rory’s appearance and he strode across the kitchen to him.

‘I’m glad you’re here, sir,’ he said in an undertone. ‘He’s in a bad way but the girls have promised to make him a bowl of soup shortly. He says he’s your…’

The footman trailed off uncertainly, but Rory responded with a firm nod – there was no point beating about the bush. ‘My half-brother, yes.’

He led the way back over to the fireplace. Alfie started when Rory came into his line of sight and hastily swallowed the last of his bread.

‘Crikey, Rory,’ he said through chattering teeth. ‘I’d no idea you lived in a place like this. Our whole house could fit in this kitchen.’

Rory grimaced. ‘It’s not mine—it belongs to my father-in-law,’ he said, choosing not to mention the enormous property he would gain when Emily eventually inherited Oakleigh. ‘Tell me what’s happened, Alfie. Why are you here?’

The lad’s gaze darted away. He huddled in on himself, his left arm cradling his right. Rory’s eyes narrowed, remembering Maud’s wrist and wondering if a similar bruise was concealed beneath the sleeve of Alfie’s coat.

‘You’re hurt,’ he said tightly. ‘Did Tommy do that to you?’

Alfie jerked his head back towards him, fearful. ‘How’d you know?’

‘I just had an inkling,’ Rory said, his voice grim. ‘How bad is it?’

Alfie shrugged, wincing when the movement jolted his arm. ‘It’s not so bad, really. It’s nothing in comparison to—’ He choked, and his whole body seemed to wilt. ‘Nothing in comparison to what he did to Ma,’ he finished miserably.

Rory stiffened with alarm. ‘What did he do to her?’ he demanded, his mind hurtling through all kinds of awful possibilities.

Alfie tucked his feet under the stool, the soles of his tattered boots flapping against the flagstone floor. ‘He beat her,’ he whispered. ‘He kept at it for so long that he beat the baby out of her. It’s dead.’

Rory’s stomach roiled with nausea. He put out a hand to steady himself on the mantel above the hearth. Next to him, David went pale with shock.

‘Jesus Christ, Alfie,’ Rory croaked. ‘Is your ma—’

‘She’s alive,’ the lad replied. ‘But that’s the best that can be said about her.’ He gulped. ‘There was a lot of blood. A-and she was screaming. May went for Elsie. After she came, Tommy headed out to the pub like it was just any normal evening. Elsie took care of Ma, got her upstairs and washed her and tried to calm her down. They left behind the…’ Alfie shuddered. ‘I put it on the fire. I didn’t know what else to do.’

Rory could hardly think past the horror that engulfed him. Moved by utter pity, he dropped to a knee on the flagstones and grasped Alfie’s left shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry you had to do that,’ he said as gently as he could, even as his fury burgeoned. Emily was desperate for a baby, and yet that bastard Tommy Jones had squandered his and Maud’s child like it was nothing.

‘I did the wrong thing,’ Alfie said hoarsely. ‘Ma came stumbling back downstairs ’cause she wanted to hold it. I-I had to tell her it was gone.’ The lad’s face crumpled.

Rory swallowed, unable to conceive of the guilt his half-brother must have felt, nor the grief Maud had experienced. How far gone had she been? Seven months? Eight? The tiny creature that had been forced so brutally from her body wouldn’t have been fully formed, but would it have looked enough like an infant for her to cradle it and mourn the life that had been cruelly extinguished?

Still aghast, he realised he needed to stifle his feelings in order to establish the most important details of this appalling affair. He tightened his grip on Alfie’s shoulder.

‘I know ’tis hard to talk about, but I have to ask—when did this happen?’

Alfie stared down into his lap. ‘On Christmas Day.’

Rory’s conscience pricked as he recalled the merry festivities that had been taking place at Bewley Hall while terror was unfolding inside the little house in Liverpool. ‘Is Tommy still at Penny Close?’

Alfie scoffed. ‘’Course he is, acting like nothing even happened.’

‘Is your ma healing? Does she need a doctor?’ Rory didn’t even bother asking whether Tommy had called for one.

‘Elsie’s been looking after her. She’s not able to move very well. She manages to get up in the mornings, but as soon as Tommy heads off to the foundry, she goes back to bed and just lies there. She stopped doing any sewing so I took over a few pieces that I knew needed to be finished.’ Alfie cringed. ‘Tommy came home early one day and caught me. He wrenched my arm and roared that men don’t do women’s work, not even soft weaklings like myself.’

Rory clenched his jaw. ‘How long has he been this violent?’

‘He’s always been rough with us, ever since he moved in. He broke Frankie’s leg back during the summer—kicked him ’cause he was in the way.’

‘Good God,’ muttered David.

How Rory wished Maud hadn’t covered up her husband’s ill treatment when he came to visit. Had he known, he could have dealt with the situation so much sooner, preventing it from escalating as grievously as it had.

‘D’you know what sparked his temper on Christmas Day?’

Alfie chewed on his chapped lower lip. ‘He accused Ma of getting special benefits at the grocer’s and offering them in return. I didn’t know what he meant and she wouldn’t tell me after.’

‘I see,’ Rory said, exchanging a look with David and privately speculating about Tommy’s level of paranoia.

‘I’m worried it’s only a matter of time before he beats Ma again. I’ve told her we can’t carry on like this, but she says we’re stuck and there’s nothing to be done.’

A heavy silence fell, pierced only by the chatter and footsteps of the maids going about their work.

‘So you’ve come to me for help?’ Rory asked.

Alfie nodded, raising hopeful eyes to him. ‘There must be something you can do, right? As our broth—I mean, as our landlord?’

‘I’m sure as hell not going to let things stay the way they are,’ Rory replied, though he didn’t yet have a clear idea as to how he would proceed. He felt some of the tension in Alfie’s body recede under his grip. ‘How’d you know where to find me? And how were you able to get here all the way from Liverpool?’ He surely wouldn’t have had the money for a train ticket, not even in a third-class carriage.

‘You told Tommy you lived on the Bewley Estate in Bedfordshire—that was enough to set off with.’ Alfie’s sheepish expression betrayed his awareness of how rash a move this had been. ‘I was lucky and met a metalwork tradesman driving his cart out of town. He knew the route I needed to take and he was going as far as Birmingham himself, so he let me travel with him if I’d help load and unload his goods along the journey. Once he turned off the road to Birmingham, I walked the rest of the way.’

Alfie reached up to loosen the scarf around his throat, and Rory released his shoulder to let him unwind it. He dropped it into his lap before continuing on.

‘In Bedford, a butcher gave me directions to the Bewley Estate. After that, I figured all I had to do was keep asking around until I found someone who knew you. When a girl in the nearby village told me to come up here, this wasn’t what I was expecting to find.’ He raised his eyebrows.

Rory shrugged. ‘I married into money,’ he said, opting for the simplest explanation, which didn’t account for the fact that he had fallen utterly in love with Emily and would have married her even if she hadn’t had a penny to her name. ‘Does your ma know where you went?’

Alfie flinched. ‘I crept out while she was upstairs in bed and warned Frankie and May not to tell her until after I’d gone. She would’ve only tried to stop me, and then nothing would’ve changed.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘But something’s definitely got to change.’

‘I agree.’ Rory stood, his knee aching from the hard stone floor. ‘We need to make a plan. But first, let’s find a place for you to grab a bit of rest. You’ve been on the road for days—you must be knackered. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get you some warmer clothes, and better boots. I reckon you’re about the same size as my wife’s brother.’ Alfie was maybe a year older than Jack, but his poorer circumstances left him slighter than he ought to be.

Alfie’s cheeks turned crimson. ‘No need for that,’ he mumbled.

Rory perceived his shame, noting that the lad was prepared to receive aid for his family but not for himself. He tried to recall exactly what Mr McGovern had told him the day he’d offered his assistance to Rory. ‘A wiser man than me once said there’s no shame in accepting help from those who are willing and able to give it. In fact, ’tis a sign of strength.’

Alfie squinted up at him doubtfully.

‘Believe it. You can trust that man’s advice. I certainly do, and I know David here does as well.’ Rory clapped David on the back and the footman nodded along. ‘It was fierce brave of you to come this far,’ Rory added. ‘Had you ever been outside of Liverpool before?’

Alfie shook his head. ‘Never in my life.’

‘Maud is very lucky to have you as a son.’

Rory didn’t consider himself to be good with words at all, but he could tell that for once he had said precisely the right thing by the way Alfie’s face blazed with quiet pride.

At that moment, one of the maids trotted over with a tray, steam rising from the bowl of soup on top of it. ‘For the boy,’ she said to Rory, casting her concerned gaze past him towards Alfie.

‘Thanks,’ said Rory, stepping back to let her carry the tray to him. ‘After he’s finished, can you ask Mrs Hawkins to bring him to a room where he can sleep for a few hours?’

He wasn’t sure whether it would be better for the lad to rest in a guest bedchamber or in the servants’ quarters (although he knew where he would feel easiest if he were in Alfie’s position), so he would rely on the judicious housekeeper to make that decision. The maid nodded.

He turned to David. ‘D’you know if Mr McGovern’s at home today, or did he go out after breakfast?’

‘He’s in his study, sir,’ David replied promptly. ‘Lord Sinclair came to pay him a visit not ten minutes before this young man arrived. They’re likely still in conversation.’

‘Thanks,’ Rory said again. ‘Alfie, d’you mind if I leave you for a bit? I’ve got to go figure out what to do next. The housekeeper will be along in a short while to look after you.’

Alfie had lifted the bowl of soup from the tray and was inhaling deeply, letting the steam bathe his face. ‘That’s fine,’ he said absently. ‘Crikey, this smells good. Is there any way for me to bring some of it back to Ma and Frankie and May?’

The maid glanced at Rory before saying, ‘You eat all of that yourself, and we’ll see about bottling up a couple of jars to take back with you.’

Rory sent her a look of gratitude and then spun around, leaving the kitchen at a quick stride. As he ascended the servants’ stairs back to the family section of the house, rage surged up his throat, threatening to choke him. An ample portion of the rage was aimed at the despicable Tommy Jones, for sure, but more of it was directed at himself. Why hadn’t he done something sooner? He’d had his suspicions about that man, but he had procrastinated, and now that unfortunate family had suffered abuses beyond comprehension. He shouldn’t have waited so long to act.

‘God damn it!’ he burst out as he flung open the door that led into the back of the entrance hall.

Three heads turned towards him in astonishment. Mr Sheppard was in the middle of passing Lord Sinclair his hat and gloves, while Mr McGovern stood next to them, his hands clasped behind his back. Their bodies froze in this tableau as they stared at Rory.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, mortified that his outburst had been witnessed by Mr McGovern’s dignified guest. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please carry on.’

Lord Sinclair levelled a stern look at him from beneath his overhanging brow, before returning his attention to Mr McGovern.

‘As I was saying, I’d highly recommend a visit to Aintree when you get the opportunity—if not this February, perhaps next year? There’s no finer course for a race. The spectacle will leave a lasting impression on you.’

‘I appreciate the recommendation,’ Mr McGovern said, inclining his head politely. ‘I’ll most certainly keep it in mind.’

Lord Sinclair bowed and took his leave. As soon as Mr Sheppard had shut the door behind him, Mr McGovern swivelled towards Rory.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, his gaze sharp.

Rory advanced further into the entrance hall. Without any dent to his pride, he said, ‘I need your help, sir.’