Page 4 of Provoked

A boy entered the dining room. He placed a jug of ale and two pewter cups on the table and hurried off again, leaving the men to help themselves.

Balfour poured ale for them both and offered his cup in a toast. “To safe journeys.”

David echoed his words obligingly.

The ale was surprisingly decent. A pale ale, the colour of weak tea, hoppy and cool. They both drank deeply, and Balfour filled their cups again.

“Did you see the hanging today?” Balfour asked as he poured, eyes on the jug.

David managed to repress his urge to shudder, though only just. “Yes,” he said. “Though it wasn’t just a hanging.”

“No, they were beheaded too, I heard. Treason, wasn’t it? A pair of radicals?”

David nodded and drank again. “You were not there?” he asked when he placed his cup back on the table.

Balfour shook his head. “I’ve only just arrived in town.”

David took the opportunity to change the subject. “And where have you come from, Mr. Balfour?”

“London.”

“A long journey,” David observed. Odd, he thought, to come through Stirling on the way to Argyllshire, but he made no comment on that.

“I’m used to it. I’ve lived in London for a number of years now, but my family home is in Argyllshire, and I’m back at least once a year.”

“I guessed you were a Scot,” David admitted, “though your accent is difficult to place.”

“So I’m told.” Balfour gave a thin smile. “Most of my own countrymen think I’m English.”

Most of them would. But David came across men like this all the time—wealthy Scots who preferred to spend their time in London, where the real political power was. He’d wager that the home in Argyllshire was a large estate. Balfour seemed like the sort of man used to having his own way, and the carelessly confident way he’d looked David over fitted with that.

The boy returned, carrying two heaped plates of meat pie and a dish of roasted vegetables. He set the dishes down before them wordlessly and hurried off to his next task. David stared down at the golden pie crust and pool of thick brown gravy and wondered why he’d ordered the meal. His already poor appetite had deserted him entirely now.

“This smells good,” Balfour said conversationally. He tucked in with gusto. He probably had to eat a lot with that big, brawny body.

They made civil conversation while they ate, enquiring after one another’s journeys and commenting on weather, which they agreed looked like imminent rain. The topics they chose were safe and bland, and gradually David’s edginess began to ebb a little.

Once he’d forced down half of his dinner, David pushed his plate aside.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Balfour asked.

“Not really.” David took a long draught of ale, wishing he’d asked for some whisky as well. The ale was too light—it didn’t even touch him. He felt raw and too sober. He kept seeing Baird’s and Hardie’s linked hands, their bodies jerking against the rope. The moment he realised they were gone.

A wave of intense sadness and loneliness swamped him. Was this all there was? A few brief moments of connection—the grasp of another’s hand on the scaffold—and then you were cast out, alone, into the great universe?

Balfour’s voice, rising in a question, drew him back to the world.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” David admitted, mortified by the heat he felt creeping into his cheeks.

“I was asking how you occupy yourself day to day, Mr. Lauriston.” Balfour looked David in the eye as he spoke, his gaze disconcertingly direct. He didn’t seem to obey the normal rules of social conversation. Wasn’t it terribly unusual to stare so? Or was David seeing things that weren’t there?

“I am a member of the Faculty of Advocates,” David said. Even now, that announcement gave him a small, prideful thrill, though something about Balfour’s answering smile took away a little of David’s pleasure.

“Ah, a lawyer,” Balfour said with a raised brow. “A noble profession.”

Why did David get the sense that Balfour meant the exact opposite of what he said? He considered pointing that out, but at the last moment decided not to and took another mouthful of ale to swallow the words down with. Balfour grinned, and for some reason, David had the unsettling feeling the man had followed his train of thought.

“I practice mainly civil law,” David said after a moment, aware of the tightness in his voice, “Though I have recently been involved in some criminal cases.”