Page 29 of Unforeseen Affairs (The Sedleys #6)

Breakfast at the Rag was something Colin typically enjoyed, despite the rudimentary fare.

The club, with its membership of military men used to being about before dawn, was always buzzing with a quiet busyness he found soothing and familiar.

Of course, there was always still some of the prior evening’s lot, wrung out and bleary-eyed as they choked down their possets before heading home to a hot towel, but they usually avoided conversation and even eye contact.

Colin had finished his eggs and hash by the time his old friend appeared, ambling across the breakfast room with a rolling, off-kilter gait, as if he’d just ridden all the way from Newcastle to get there.

Colin was not surprised to see Beaky in such a state; in fact, the likelihood of it was why he had requested such an early meeting time in the first place.

“Morning,” Colin offered in a cheery voice, though he felt far from it. In truth, his head was tingling worryingly.

“Beastly hour,” Beaky said by way of a greeting, grimacing as he sat down.

“Have you gone and injured yourself?” Colin asked, frowning.

“In a manner of speaking,” Beaky groused.

Colin waited, but no more information seemed to be forthcoming, so he decided against pressing the matter. He did his best to steady himself as he reached for his tea.

“Will you not eat?”

Beaky shook his head, looking a bit green.

“Something to drink?”

“What, this bilgewater?” Beaky sneered in the direction of Colin’s tea.

“Right.” Colin set his cup down, feeling more certain of what must be done. He decided not to tarry any longer.

“Alice has a beau, then?”

“A beau ? You say it so glibly,” Beaky scoffed as if he couldn’t believe it all. “Very well, if that is how you play it… yes , Sir Colin, my sister is quite taken with some Army chap. I daresay she’ll not be thinking of you much longer.”

“That’s quite alright,” Colin said, and he meant it wholeheartedly. Alice Pearce was not for him. Not anymore.

“Quite alright?” Beaky echoed in disbelief. “I thought you meant to do right by her.”

His eyes were rimmed with red, and his fine hair looked flat and greasy, like he hadn’t yet had a wash that morning.

“There were never any promises,” Colin said, an edge of warning to his words. “Not from me, nor given by her.”

Beaky stared at him, incredulous as Colin bit into a roll with some dripping.

“But she wrote to you! She begged me to send it along with mine.”

“She did.” Colin swabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “But it was only to implore me to make haste on your behalf. Along with a bit about this Captain Samuels of hers.”

Privately, Colin was quite glad that Alice seemingly harbored no bitterness toward him upon finding some happiness elsewhere.

It made this all the easier. Alice had no designs on him, and was clearly far more taken with this Army captain than she’d ever been with him.

Which meant that, in kissing Miss Sedley, he’d not violated an unspoken agreement between them.

Colin felt a warm flutter in his belly as he recalled that night. But he quickly set the thought aside.

This matter with Beaky was more urgent, and more difficult.

But it had to be done. Colin was putting an end to their long-running friendship, and once he’d fulfilled his promise, he would extricate himself from their association entirely.

Colin thought of the sketch Beaky had drawn, of a little yapping spaniel, and he swallowed his anger.

“Captain Samuels,” Beaky muttered scornfully, rubbing his face with both hands. “I’m so bloody tired of Captain Samuels. Constantly muddying up the house, he is.”

“I say, have you slept?” Colin asked.

“Of course I haven’t,” Beaky replied, glaring at Colin. “You requested such a godawful hour. I figured I might as well come here straightaway.”

“From where?”

At that Beaky chuckled derisively. “Oh, not a place you would dare to tread, I should think. No place fit for such a good, upstanding young man as yourself, Sir Colin.”

Colin brought his hand down flat upon the table, just hard enough to clink the flatware. “Where?”

Beaky jumped at the sharp sound, then glanced about, squirming under Colin’s stare. “The Argyll Rooms,” he finally spat out.

Colin said nothing, only stared, hardly believing what he’d heard. Barring men from brothels and prostitutes was futile, every Navy man knew, but any decent officer ought to scorn the practice rather than join in.

“I never—” Colin finally started, but he didn’t get any further than that.

“Of course you’d never!” Beaky laughed, with a hint of cruelty glinting in his eyes. “You’re so frigid, so nervy. Wound tighter than an eight-day clock!”

As if to prove Beaky’s point, Colin clenched his jaw as his head began to sway. He shut his eyes. No . He imagined the waves, the seabirds. The smell of salt. He breathed deeply.

“Besides, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? At the crack of dawn? So you can recite some pious screed against me, and scold me for tupping some girl in a far-flung Italian port? Did your father put you up to it?”

“Crack of dawn? It’s half past six,” Colin said, slightly dumbfounded. Just how had Beaky gotten on as a lieutenant? He’d no discipline—at least, not anymore.

“I counted you as a friend,” Beaky hissed, ignoring what Colin had said about the time.

“I was,” Colin said morosely. “But no longer.”

“You made a promise!”

“I did. And I will keep my word—I always do.”

Colin picked up his fork to poke at a bit of sausage, then decided he was no longer hungry. He set the fork back down.

Beaky stared at the table with a hollow expression, as if he’d just heard something he’d suspected was a long time coming. And yet he said nothing, did nothing. Offered no apology. That stung Colin more than he expected it to.

It was a terrible thing, realizing a friend was false. Colin bolstered himself and pressed on.

“I intend to discredit Mr. Bass, but I no longer think we can get on as we once did,” he said sadly. “Besides being beholden to you, I’ve also given my word to someone else with the same aim.”

“Someone else?” Beaky looked up, his eyes lit with curiosity.

“Yes,” Colin stammered, still feeling a deep ache in his gut. So casually would Beaky throw aside their long friendship; he had more interest in wheedling out gossip than repairing their connection. Colin had known it would be so, but even still…

“Who is it?”

“I… I’m not at liberty to speak of it…”

Charlotte hadn’t said as much, but Colin would not divulge the slightest thing about her to someone as hateful as Beaky.

Never again. He thought of her eyes, ablaze as she triumphantly held up the seized puppet, and his heart swelled.

She was far too magnificent for people as small as Lieutenant Abdon Pearce.

But Colin watched as a look of recognition dawned on Beaky’s face, and he knew he remembered.

“It’s her , isn’t it?” Beaky croaked. “The medium’s assistant? The Sedley girl?”

“It’s no one for you to know,” Colin said icily.

“I knew it,” Beaky laughed hollowly. “Sir Colin Gearing, too good for my sister, for the likes of us. But not too good for a Sedley .”

Colin stood up in a rage, though he was far better than Beaky at keeping his composure in spite of it.

“I will not hear this,” he growled, looking down at his former friend with his most disapproving glare. “I will expose Mr. Bass. But after that, consider my vow fulfilled. Do not write me. Do not call upon me. We no longer know each other.”

At that, finally, a small look of pain crossed Beaky’s face.

Colin felt as if a deep, long-buried reservoir of spite had finally broken through. He threw his napkin to the table.

“If you find yourself wanting for companionship, you might consider a dog. I believe spaniels are nice and loyal.”

Colin did not bother waiting to see Beaky’s reaction. He left, fury still singing in his veins and tightening the vise inside his head.

When Charlotte arrived at The Black Candle, Mrs. Stone was scrying.

She allowed herself a shadow of hope, that the temperamental medium might one day soon resume her communication with the spirit world, to reach out and…

Charlotte shut her eyes and took a steadying breath.

She tiptoed about so as not to disturb Mrs. Stone, choosing to tidy the front room as quietly as she could.

She’d never been interested in scrying herself; it seemed pointless to her, for if one could know the future, would one not then have the power to change it?

But if Mrs. Stone had felt the pull to the shallow bowl of water and seen fit to sit staring into it, then it stood to reason that she might be on the way to feeling herself again.

Which meant that she might soon be capable of seeing something of Charlotte’s mother. Charlotte tried not to get her hopes up, but if Mrs. Stone could sense that she was out there, either somewhere in the ether or in the hazily defined Heaven her stepmother spoke of…

Maybe there was a chance it could happen. And if not now, then perhaps once Charlotte was able to deliver news of Mr. Bass’s downfall.

And perhaps then she could feel at peace.

She set down the damp rag she’d been polishing the oak counter with and took hold of the watch fob around her neck.

The carnelian, though also polished, appeared dull, having little light to reflect from the dim surroundings.

Charlotte frowned and examined it more intently.

If only she possessed the tiniest pinch of Mrs. Stone’s talent.

She lifted the carnelian closer to her face. It had a pleasing color, the deep orange-red of burnished copper… of Sir Colin Gearing’s thick, shiny hair. Charlotte bit her lip.

She started at the sound of the shop door opening. The watch fob fell from her hands, hitting her chest with all its considerable weight.

There he stood, upon the threshold. He looked wary, with his hand still on the banged-up brass doorknob as if undecided as to whether he should enter.