He was a pragmatic man who saw the best course of action as the one that did the least damage over time. Set that time horizon far enough and the best course of action from a pragmatic point of view matched well with the right thing to do on principle. It was one of the reasons that Mr. Gladstone had come to value him: His levelheaded approach to governing complemented the Grand Old Man’s passionate moral commitment.
“Let’s hope our MPs see it as you do.”
“They will,” said Stuart. There was nothing he could do about the outcome in the House of Lords, but he did not intend to fail in his role in the lower house. That vote he would deliver to Mr. Gladstone if he had to browbeat, bludgeon, and blackmail every last Liberal MP into line.
“I might have some useful information on a few MPs, sir,” said Marsden.
“Excellent,” said Stuart. Any intelligence Marsden supplied was certain to be something no MP would ever want publicly known. “We might yet make a backstabbing, blackhearted tactician out of you.”
Despite a letter of character from the mayor of Paris himself, Stuart had been reluctant to take on as his secretary an aristocratic young man who’d spent five years in Paris, rubbing shoulders with writers and artists—and anarchists, for all Stuart knew. Will Marsden, however, had turned out to be an extremely pleasant surprise. He was exactly as the mayor had said: competent, meticulous, and unfailingly reliable.
“I understand from the servants that you are to be married, sir,” said Marsden.
“The servants are always the first to know everything,” answered Stuart. Though in this instance the servants’ excessive knowledge was entirely his doing—after he’d informed Madame Durant, he’d gone ahead and told his own valet, with the understanding that it was not news that the latter needed to keep to himself. “Yes, Miss Bessler has accepted my suit.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
Marsden did not sound overly enthusiastic. Stuart wondered whether he reciprocated Lizzy’s antagonism in some way.
“Thank you,” he said. “The wedding will take place mid-January—much too soon really, but I want it done before Parliament opens. It is rather an unfair burden to place on Miss Bessler’s shoulders alone, so I have pledged your assistance in the matter. I trust you will prove as invaluable to Miss Bessler as you are to me?”
Marsden lifted the cover of his notebook halfway. He didn’t look at Stuart. “Are you certain that I would be able to do justice to your wedding, sir? I’ve no experience in the staging of weddings.”
“I understand that as part of your duties at the mairie you undertook social events of a similar scale and brought them off successfully. You’ll do fine.”
Marsden let the notebook cover drop. He tapped his pen twice against it. “Thank you for your confidence, sir. I shall strive to make it a most worthy event.”
Stuart arrived at the church ahead of everyone else. The vicar, a kindly man, asked him if he wished to spend a private moment with Bertie. It was a sincere, if routine, offer for a minute of seclusion with the dearly departed. Yet Stuart found himself paralyzed, as if he’d been thrust before a monumental decision.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, because it was expected of him.
Bertie’s casket rested on a catafalque at the end of the nave, before a wall of wreaths. It was a beautiful casket, the best mahogany money could buy. As Stuart approached, his reflection walked toward him in the glossy varnish, his face distorted by the curve and angle of the coffin.
A large spray of white lilies adorned the top of the casket. Stuart ran his finger along a cool green stem.
Do you like flowers? Bertie had asked. It had been a bright June morning, a few days after Stuart’s arrival.
Stuart had nodded. He’d never seen so many flowers in bloom. Roses, roses, and more roses. The garden had been a fairy tale.
I’m going to make new varietals of roses. Dozens of them. Do you want to have a rose named after you?
Stuart had smiled. It was the first time he’d smiled since his mother had left. If you are sure it’s a boy rose.
Ever since his return to Fairleigh Park, old memories he didn’t even know he still retained had crowded just beneath the surface of his mind, waiting for only the slightest trigger to break into his consciousness.
He and Bertie had played hide-and-seek in this very church. Afterward, Bertie had taken Stuart to High Street and introduced him to old Mrs. Tate, whose dusty shop sold books and bizarre odds and ends, and whispered in his ear that he’d heard Mrs. Tate had been a naughty woman in her youth. On their way home it had rained. And Bertie had talked of his mother, because his face was already wet.
That boy would grow up to be jealous and fearful of him, Stuart reminded himself. He would tell Stuart that Sir Francis had prayed for Nelda Lamb to die, when it seemed she might recover from her illness. And whip an army of lawyers before him, driving Stuart to the brink of bankruptcy.