“This place is clean,” Colin said carefully. “Too clean. And too quiet. It’s unnatural. It’s giving me the shudders.”
Bram had to admit, the village was oddly immaculate and eerily empty of people. Each cobble sparkled in the street. The dirt lanes were swept clean of debris. Every shop front and cottage boasted neat window boxes overflowing with red geraniums.
A pair of lads rushed toward them. “Can we help with the horses, Lord Rycliff?”
Lord Rycliff? So, they knew him already. News traveled fast in a small village, he supposed.
Bram handed his reins to one of two eager, towheaded youths. “What are your names, lads?”
“Rufus Bright,” the one on the left said. “And this is Finn.”
“We’re twins,” Finn offered.
“You don’t say.” The Brights. A suitable name, what with those incandescent shocks of hair—so blond as to be nearly white. “See?” he said to Colin. “I told you the place couldn’t be devoid of men.”
“They’re not men,” Colin replied. “They’re boys.”
“They didn’t germinate from the soil. If there are children, there must be men. What’s more, men whose pegos aren’t withered to twigs.” He beckoned one of the youths. “Is your father about?”
A shock of lightning hair swiveled in the negative. “He’s . . . uh, not here.”
“When do you expect him back?”
The twins looked to each other, exchanging wary glances.
Finally, Rufus said, “Can’t say, my lord. Errol—that’s our older brother—he travels to and fro, bringing in wares for the shop. We own the All Things, across the way. As for Father . . . he hasn’t been around for some time.”
“Last time was almost two years ago,” Finn said. “Came around just long enough to get another babe on Mum and dole out his knocks to the rest of us. He’s fonder of his drink than his brats.”
Rufus elbowed his twin. “That’ll be enough airing of family business, then. What are you going to reveal next? The patches in your smallclothes?”
“He asked about our father. I told him the truth.”
The truth was a damned shame. Not only because these boys had an absent sot for a father, but because Bram could have used a sober Mr. Bright in his militia. He sized up the twins before him. Fourteen, perhaps fifteen at the outside. A shade too young to be of any real use.
“Can you point us toward the smithy?” he asked.
“Has your horse thrown a shoe, my lord?”
“No. But I have other work for him.” He needed to find the strongest, most capable men in the neighborhood. The smithy was as likely a place as any to start.
As the morning wore on, Bram began to comprehend why this Mr. Bright would have taken to drink.
This was supposed to be a simple task. As a lieutenant colonel, he’d been responsible for a thousand infantrymen. Here, he required only four-and-twenty men to form a volunteer force. After an hour spent scouring the village, he’d rounded up fewer likely prospects than he could count on one hand. Perhaps fewer than he could count on one thumb.
Discovering the absence of Mr. Bright was only the first disappointment, followed close on its heels by his visit to the smithy. The blacksmith, Aaron Dawes, was a strapping, solid fellow, as smiths usually were—and by appearances alone, Bram would have marked him an excellent candidate. What gave him pause, however, was entering the forge to find the man not shoeing an ox or hammering out an axe blade, but meticulously fashioning the hinge on a dainty locket.
Then there was the vicar. Bram had thought it prudent to stop in at the church and introduce himself. He hoped he could explain his military mission and have the clergyman’s cooperation in recruiting local men. The vicar, one Mr. Keane, was young and clever enough from the looks of him—but all the excitable fellow could speak about was some Ladies’ Auxiliary and new crewelwork cushions for the pews.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Colin said, as they left their discouraging interview with Keane.
“What kind of vicar wears a pink waistcoat?”
“One in Spindle Cove. It’s like I’ve been telling you, Bram. Shriveled twigs. Dried currants.”
“There are other men. Real men. Somewhere.”
There had to be others. The fishermen were all out to sea, of course, so the row of a half-dozen hovels and net huts by the cove had been emptied of men for the day. Surely there must be farmers out in the surrounding countryside. But they’d likely traveled to the nearest market town, this being Saturday.
For the time being, Bram supposed there was only one likely location to round up men. The long-favored haunt of army recruiters and navy press gangs alike.
“Let’s head for the tavern,” he said. “I need a drink.”
“I need a steak,” Thorne said.