Page 58 of Provoked

“Where do you come from?”

“A village called Midlauder, about twenty miles from here. My father leases a small farm there. In Midlauder, there’s the big house where the laird lives—his estate manager runs the home farm. Then there are the tenanted farms, like my father’s. Most of the people who live in the village are labourers, other than Mr. Odell, the minister and Mr. Graeme, the physician. Then there’s the smithy and the inn. And one shop, run by the widow McAndrew.” He smiled a little wistfully. “It’s a small place.”

“Believe it or not,” Balfour said drily, “I’m familiar with the concept of villages.”

“Ah, but you would’ve been the son of the big house.”

“Well, yes.”

“What did they call you when you were a boy? Lord Murdo?”

“Most of them, yes. Or Master Murdo.”

David smiled. “You’re so used to it, you don’t even notice. Men of your class—the way you’re addressed—it tells the story of who you are and where you came from.”

Balfour arched a brow. “But not men like you?”

“Not to the same degree. It’s different. When I was boy, everyone called me Davy, except my father.”

“What did he call you?”

“David. Always my Sunday name.” He smiled, half fond, half sad. “My brother’s Andrew, but he got Drew, even from my father. I was different.”

“And now,” Balfour said, “you’re a man of letters, and they call you Mr. Lauriston. You’ve moved up in the world. Congratulations.” He tipped his head back, emptying his glass.

“Not everyone. When I met the weavers and their families, I saw how I intimidated them—how we all did. So I told them I was just like them. I told them I didn’t come from money, and I told them about the wee farm my family lived on and how hard it was to make ends meet. I told them my name was Davy. And so that was what they called me.”

Balfour turned his head during that speech, and when David finished, their eyes met and held.

“That’s why Euan calls me Davy. And why I call him Euan. Because we’re the same, in a way.”

“In more ways than one. He’s a university man like yourself, isn’t he?”

“You know about that?”

“Hugh mentioned it earlier. He thinks—like my father—that educating working men is a dangerous thing.”

“Do you think that?”

Balfour shrugged. “Too late to worry about it. The world is changing. My father is trying to preserve a world of aristocratic power and privilege that’s already dead. He doesn’t see it, but I do.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’s dead to me,” David said.

“No. Well, there’s nothing like a dying animal for fighting back, is there? But you only have to look at the aristocracy to see we’ve only got a generation or two left in us. All we’ve got is land—and most of us are selling that off to pay our gambling debts. We don’t make anything; we don’t even manage what we do have very well, most of us.”

“You aren’t you going to fight for it?” David asked, curious.

Balfour yawned and shook his head, stretching his legs out before him. “I don’t see the point of fighting losing battles for other people. I’d rather concentrate on making the best of what I’ve got in the here and now.”

“Just because you lose a battle, doesn’t mean it was never worth fighting.”

“A noble sentiment, Lauriston. How very you.”

David bristled, hating the fact that Balfour’s mocking words made him feel like a naïve boy. “There’s nothing wrong with noble sentiments.”

“No,” Balfour agreed. “But they won’t keep you warm at night.”

“You’re not without principles,” David said. “You came all this way to save your cousin, didn’t you?”