Page 31

T he Cuckoo’s Nest felt louder today, more oppressive. Perhaps it was just in contrast with the morning before, so serene and domestic alongside Millie Yardley until Freddy had come storming in with opinions and concerns and hollandaise sauce.

Still, Freddy seemed almost subdued today, picking at his breakfast with a single tine on the corner of his fork, frowning into the plate like it had just told him something distressing.

“Is he all right?” Cresson asked Abe, not quite softly enough for Freddy not to hear.

“I’m fine,” Freddy had snapped, looking up at the other two men with annoyance. “I’ve just got a long couple of weeks ahead of me.”

“When are you heading to Dover, by the by?” Abe put in, wincing at how hot the coffee was. “Are you waiting for the servant girl to heal?”

“She’s fine,” Freddy answered, glancing up. “She looks a fright, but she’s fine. I haven’t been enjoying the fact that every inn we stop at will assume I did that to her face, however.”

Cresson grimaced in what looked like agreement. “I’d hate that too,” he said.

Freddy shrugged, putting on a pale imitation of his usual flippancy. “Ah, well,” he sighed, spearing a kipper, “everyone I actually know already thinks I’m a scoundrel. What should it matter if some strangers do too?”

“You’re not that kind of scoundrel, Bentley,” Abe replied, frowning.

Freddy hesitated for the briefest moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

Then he sighed, loudly and dramatically, as though he wanted everyone to just forget it had been mentioned in the first place. “Speaking of Paula,” he said, pausing to chew the bite of food he’d finally curated, “have you been able to spring that old man she framed, Cresson?”

Cresson made a noise of annoyance. “Soon,” he said unconvincingly.

Abe perked up at this, curious about what he’d missed that night when he was with Millie and these two were with the fugitives. “Did she say she did that?” he pressed, leaning forward. “Did she actually admit to targeting the old man?”

Freddy chuckled while Cresson turned a bit pink at the neck.

“She picked someone old and mostly retired,” Freddy explained, the chuckle seeming to brighten him right away. “But she said he was the worst person she’d ever had to work with, so it didn’t bother her at all if he finally had to suffer a little for being such a miserable curmudgeon.”

“She’s not wrong,” Cresson grumbled. “In her description, I mean. Framing him is another matter.”

“Where are the jewels? Are they going to keep them?” Abe pressed, that delicious investigative buzzing reaching a higher pitch in his chest. “Maybe if I get some of them back, I can still collect the bounty and close the case.”

“You’re not getting anything back,” Freddy said immediately, narrowing his eyes at Abe. “They’ll fence the rest of it once they’re on the Continent. We only have enough liquid coin to get them over the Channel. Forget the bounty.”

This made Cresson laugh. “Forget the bounty?” he repeated, glad he was not the current target of observation. “Have you met our friend Mr. Murphy, Lord Bentley?”

“Well, hold on a minute—” said Abe, cut off by a refrain of, “I told you to call me Freddy.”

“Why should I?” returned Cresson. “Neither of you ever use my Christian name.”

Abe let them dissolve into a bickering match, feeling oddly fond of the whole thing.

Still, being directly told he would never close that case was irking him right in the professional center of his being. He knew who did it. He knew everything. And he’d never be able to tell anyone or go back to Bow Street to gloat about it over his old colleagues?

Unbearable.

“You know,” he said in an act of petty retribution, “when I interviewed Mr. Aiden, he was a perfectly pleasant grandfather of a man.”

Cresson turned to him so slowly that Abe wondered if he was about to get stabbed with a fork. But the other man didn’t say a word. His face said it all.

The tension was severed by the appearance of Silas, looking harried and impatient as he made his way to the table. It was so rare of him to join them for these morning meetings lately that Freddy leaned back, grinned, and said, “Oh! All rise.”

Silas, rather than responding, just swatted his brother on the back of the head, looked around in mild outrage, and asked, “Did no one order a plate for me?”

Freddy pushed over his own barely touched plate and encouraged Silas to “have at it.”

And so continued their weekly ritual.

“What is his Christian name?” Freddy appeared like an ambush, apron askew, whisk in hand, several hours later at Abe’s office door. “Cresson’s?”

“Jesus, Bentley, don’t scare me like that,” Abe replied with immediate annoyance. Then, “It’s Joseph.”

“Joseph,” Freddy repeated to himself, nodding. “Well, he asked for it.”

“Oh, leave him alone,” Abe said without any real desire for Freddy to leave Cresson alone. He chuckled to himself as he met the other man’s eye, rising from his desk. “Poor lad. You know Silas is shipping him off to Portugal?”

“Really? Why?”

Abe followed Freddy back into the kitchen, sniffing at the air where an assortment of bubbling pots were playing harmony to the sounds of the early evening on the street beyond their windows.

“God knows, something to do with his client’s estates. And, erm, we should talk about that client. Have you ever heard of him? Dom Raul de Faria?”

Freddy paused, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Don’t think so. Ought I have?”

Abe sighed. That wasn’t the answer he’d wanted.

He pulled out a chair at the little table near the stove and sank into it.

“He’s an acquaintance of your mother’s,” he began, formulating an entire scene to set before realizing there was absolutely nothing to be gained by dragging this out with unnecessary context. “He’s courting her.”

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Anger, maybe? Indignation? A rapid-fire sequence of barbed jests?

Freddy just stopped whisking for a moment to consider it, his eyes floating out to the window.

“I would have told you earlier,” Abe continued, bracing for the explosion, “it was just that you seemed overwhelmed for a time, and I didn’t want to worsen it.”

“No,” said Freddy, waving the whisk impatiently, a few flecks of his roux spattering on the floor. “No, that’s fine. Have you met the man? Observed him?”

Abe felt like a rabbit trying to sneak past a bear cave, keeping overly still in confusion over how this was unfolding. “I met him,” he said evenly, “I liked him. Seems like a good man, and he is clearly besotted with your mum. He called her his fofo.”

Freddy turned to him, looking almost as though he wanted to laugh. “The devil does that mean?”

“I do not know,” Abe said. “But if he’d called me that, I probably would have run off with him on the spot.”

“Well, you are a harlot,” Freddy said dismissively. “I’d expect nothing less. Millicent would likely have a few choice opinions on the matter, however.”

“She certainly would have,” Abe replied with a flicker of a grin. “Honestly, Bentley, the fellow seems extremely sincere in his interest. I got the impression that they’ve known each other for a long time. Perhaps he was a rival of your father’s.”

Freddy winced, rolling his right shoulder like something had just landed on it. “God forbid,” he muttered with no real feeling. “Well, then I suppose that’s good news. Maybe that’s what her secret reason for coming back to London was. You solved the case.”

“Did I?” Abe responded, uncertain.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Freddy sighed, going back to his cooking. “What does it matter anymore?”

“Freddy!” Abe heard himself exclaim in a voice that was quite unseemly. “What is the matter with you?”

“What do you mean?” Freddy asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Nothing is the matter.”

“Yes, that’s the problem!” Abe exclaimed, gripping the edge of the table. “I am concerned .”

“Don’t be,” Freddy said in that same neutral, perfectly reasonable voice that set off every alarm in Abe’s body.

For a time, there was no conversation. Freddy cooked and Abe watched, anxiety threading through his chest that he couldn’t quite qualify anymore.

“I think I should go with you,” Abe said carefully, “to Dover.”

“Not necessary,” said Freddy.

“I didn’t say it was necessary,” Abe snapped back, impatient for the man he knew to arrive and replace this unsettling, emotionless statue in his kitchen. “I said I think I should.”

“If you like, I suppose,” said Freddy, “but you’ll only be in the way.”

This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Direct confrontation was not going to permeate whatever the hell had overtaken Freddy Hightower.

“I was thinking about you and Millicent,” Freddy continued without turning around. “When are you planning to marry?”

“What?” Abe gaped at him, blindsided by this very reasonable question. “I don’t know! We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

Freddy pulled one of the pots free of the fire and carefully removed its lid, a rich, beefy smell unfurling into the kitchen.

“It’s only that I imagine it will affect my place here,” he said.

“I’m happy for you, of course, and for her, but we all know I’m a selfish git at the end of the day.

So, of course all I can think is: What will happen to me? Where will I go?”

“What the hell do you mean, where will you go?” Abe shouted, coming halfway out of the chair from his own shock at this conversation, which had been meant only to shock dear Freddy. “You don’t have to go anywhere. This is your home!”

Freddy gave a humorless little smile. “Murphy, please. You, her, and me? Together? That’s not going to work.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Ignoring the entire context around how your wife-to-be and I are acquainted,” Freddy said patiently, “newlyweds do not traditionally have a housemate roaming around in their nest. Come now, Abe, you know I’m right.”

“Is that what this has been about?” Abe demanded, outraged for reasons he couldn’t even name to himself. “That’s why you’ve been moping around all day? I thought you were upset about the smuggling business.”

“I’m not moping,” Freddy said, moping.

Abe glowered, a great deal of sharp things culminating on his tongue. God knew what he might have said had the bell not gone off at the front in that moment.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Freddy had asked, just as calm, just as unbothered.

“No,” barked Abe.

“Answer the damn door,” Freddy pressed with a sigh. “It could be a client.”

“Fine!” Abe raged, shoving himself away from the table and stomping off to wrench the door off its hinges, his head filled with nothing but fire and static.

It was Cresson, who looked politely surprised by Abe’s glower.

“Get in here, Joseph!” Abe thundered, pointing into the house. “You’re staying for dinner.”