“Hawthorn!”
He turned. Pete Manning had a hand upraised, the other arm full of papers. Only half a head taller than Ross, broad-chested and with a neat, dense beard, Manning made his way across the lobby like a bulldog parting pigeons.
“Damned refurbishments, forcing me halfway round the palace to get to my own office,” he puffed. “You owe me a chat and a pint, Hawthorn. What’s this? Found yourself a proper secretary, have you? How d’you do, boy. Don’t let his lordship bully you, he’s mostly bark, y’know.”
Jack had no idea how that would go down, but a glance showed him that all of Ross’s animosity had been packed away beneath the sharp features.
“This is a journalist friend of mine—unbusheled, Pete—Mr. Alan Ross. He’s interested in the fuss over the budget. Ross, this is the Honourable Peter Manning, Member for some insignificant hedgerow or other.”
Manning’s look of surprise at the word unbusheled gave way to a throaty chuckle. He extended a hand. After a moment, Ross shook.
“How d’you do, sir. Should I congratulate or commiserate with you on the budget passing the Commons?”
“Cheeky sod, isn’t he?” Manning grinned approvingly. His own accent had the Somerset burr rubbed smooth by education. “I’m of Asquith’s party, boy. I’ll take the congratulations. Someone needs to hammer the words public good into those peers of the realm who are screaming like foxes in traps at the prospect of their precious lands being taxed.”
Ross’s hand went instantly to his pocket and emerged with a notepad and pencil. Jack could already see the next day’s fox-based caricature if Ross had worked for a more progressive paper.
“And I heard the Irish Party’s not pleased about the proposed import duties either?”
“Hah. Yes. Glad it’s not my fight any longer. It’ll be a messy business. But I suppose you know that, given how hard Lord Hawthorn here is working to haul it past the screamers and through the Lords.” Manning’s head rose at the sound of the bell for the Commons. “It’s going to be a devilish long day. Best to your family, Hawthorn.”
“And yours. Did I hear Arthur’s doing some work at the Barrel now?”
Manning gave Jack a sharp look from beneath his heavy brows. Their friendship over the past several years, like most connections that Jack had maintained with magicians, had been based in pretending that both of them were as unmagical as the next man.
“That’s right. My son,” he explained, for Ross’s benefit. “Barrister. Trained up in magical law as well, so he stands as dicentis in the Library when he’s called upon. Just got himself engaged to be married too.” He brightened with pride. “Now, if only the wife and I could drag Abigail’s head out of her books and get her to show some interest in the prospect. Ah, well. Time enough. Better be off.”
Jack beckoned Ross towards the Peers’ Corridor. “As he said, it’s out of that House’s voting power now. We’ll try the Peers’ Lobby. That’s where the properly screaming ones congregate.”
Ross, however, showed no sign of moving. He stepped aside to allow for the northward migration of MPs towards the exit to the Commons, and drew Jack, by an impatient tug on the sleeve, to stand in one of the small alcoves beneath a monarch’s statue. The glare was back.
“What did he mean, you’re working for it to pass?”
“Are you criticising the clarity of his words?”
A frustrated hiss emerged from Ross. Jack smothered a smile and leaned against the smooth, ancient wall. Power drenched this place as surely as it did Spinet House, even if it was of a different sort.
“You’ll inherit an earldom!”
“There are several Liberal-affiliated peers in the House. I believe this is how government works.”
“And the supertax clauses—you’re rich as bloody Midas.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I have been trying to give some of it away to the ungrateful poor, but I’ve only had limited success.” He adjusted his cufflinks. Ross followed the action with his eyes, and spots of colour appeared in his flawless cheeks. “Taxation has the appeal of efficiency.”
“You’re—no. I don’t believe it.”
Jack could have pointed out that not once, during the frequent displays of Ross’s anti-aristocratic principles aboard the Lyric, had Jack ever given any indication that he disagreed with them. Instead he shrugged and turned away, striding to the southern exit and down the corridor quickly enough that Ross would have to scurry to catch up. The light of the man’s indignation made Jack feel alive. He could have stood there all day, stirring the embers of it whenever they threatened to dim.
There were certainly enough Conservative-affiliated peers in the lobby that it was easy to steer Ross at a cluster of them, once he’d spent a few seconds transferring his glare from Jack to the gilt decoration above the Brass Gates.
“Not a word about magic to anyone here, or I’ll cut your tongue out,” Jack murmured. “How d’you do, Hunterbury. Morton.”
He introduced Ross in this company as the son of an enlisted man he’d served with—“Good, solid fellow, saved my life in the Boer. I promised to look out for his son, and only just found him. Writes for the Post,” he added, which would be far better currency here than with Manning.
A gleam of grudging approval came through the Earl of Hunterbury’s glasses. Little prompting was needed; the People’s Budget wasn’t far from anyone’s mind at the moment. Ross’s notepad came out to receive a stream of complaint about that frothing socialist Lloyd George and his grasping, unreasonable piece of legislation.
“I’m sure Hawthorn would have you believe Lloyd George cares about the welfare of the British people,” Hunterbury finished sourly. “Stuff and nonsense. He wants to gut us.”
“Do you think the Lords will vote to reject, my lord?” asked Ross. “As you haven’t the power to amend it.”
“Be a piece of damned foolishness not to,” said Hunterbury.
“In which case Asquith has all but promised to take aim at the Lords’ legislative power, if he wins re-election, and that gutting would be done with a rusty fork,” said Jack. “Better to swallow a few taxes now, surely?”
Hunterbury harrumphed. Lord Morton roused himself to say, rather meanly, “No need to spill your sour grapes here, Hawthorn, just because you haven’t a seat yourself and you don’t like the way your father’s voting.” He looked at Ross. “I hope you plan to speak to Cheetham. We’ve a committee meeting later this morning. I’m sure he’s in the building.”
The pause was like missing a step: short, but jarring to the stomach.
“What a good suggestion, my lord,” said Ross.
“Indeed,” said Jack.