A PROLONGED POUNDING WOKE ME UP, THEN SHUFFLING STEPS and masculine muttering, slide of bolt, creak of door. Jencks: “Evening, sir.”
“William!” I ran to the landing, and down to the foyer, though running down a stairway is never a good idea, especially in the dark, in a long skirt. Near the bottom, I stepped on my hem and stumbled, flailed my arms, and fell into Jencks, nearly extinguishing the candle he held. Shadows leaped as he staggered back. “Jencks! Sorry!”
“Pardon me, madam,” he said coldly.
“No, pardon me.” Why was he still awake? But, he had to be: his last job of the night was to make sure the doors were secured against burglars, rioting mobs, and whatever else London might bring.
I turned to Liam, who stood just inside the door, swaying slightly. His face and shirtfront were dirty, his wig askew, his eyes glassy. Jencks clucked in an almost maternal manner as he stepped forward, brushing a leafy twig off Liam’s shoulder and leaning past him to bolt the door.
“Shall I lead you to your room, sir?” he asked with surprising gentleness. “Lean on me if you need.”
I stepped forward. “Thank you, Jencks, but I will take care of my brother. I had intended all along to wait up. I am sorry I did not dismiss you sooner. It was thoughtless of me. But—may I have your candle?”
He handed it over, along with a disapproving look, and started up the stairs to his room at the top of the house. “Good night to ye then, sir. Madam.”
On closer look, it was mud, not blood, along one side of Liam’s face and down his front; he had a scratch on the other cheek that had bled and dried, however. I could smell the alcohol on him. “Where the hell were you?” I asked in an undertone; Jencks was still not far enough away to suit me. “I was worried sick.”
Liam lurched forward, into me. Being smaller, I got the worse of the impact; it was like walking into a wall. I dropped my candle, which went out. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered.
I felt around on the floor and found the candle, reunited it with its candlestick, then stood up. My eyes were adjusting; the fanlight above the door admitted a glow from the streetlamps outside that was almost enough to navigate by.
“Here, let’s go.” I took his elbow and steered him toward the stairs, trying to decide how badly this might have gone.
Liam didn’t notice the first step and stumbled onto the stairs, landing on his hands and knees. “Oops.” He staggered upright.
“You can crawl if you want. Maybe it’s safer. Nowhere to fall.”
“Rachel dear, what a disgrace, crawling up my own staircase.” His accent seemed to have shifted: a rising intonation, a softening of vowels. Hadn’t he said he was from London? “I’m not so wrecked as all that.”
“Fine, hold on to me.” I extended an arm; he hesitated but took it.
We started up the stairs in silent concentration. The farther we got from the foyer and its fanlight, the darker; by the third floor, where our bedrooms were, I was feeling my way along the wall. I guided Liam into his room and toward his bed, where he sat down heavily and sighed. I hesitated by the door, wondering if he was coherent enough to provide useful information, dismayed at his having recklessly gotten drunk amid London’s dangers, relieved he’d survived them.
“Are you going to be all right?” I asked. “Do you need anything? Some water?”
He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. “Are you not going to ask how it went, at all?” He sounded Irish, not that I’m an accent maven.
Amused, I leaned against the doorframe. “Nuuu, how’d it go?”
He sat up again; I could see only his outline in the gloom. “It wasn’t the total disaster anyone would have had a right to expect.”
“So what happened? What did you do?” Besides drink a lot.
“There was this, this bowl of punch.” He paused. “A dangerous substance. Alcohol should not taste good. A few of his friends showed up. Including a physician about my age, who was also at Edinburgh.” Liam paused again to let the effect of this sink in. He laughed, long and low. “Who remembered me from anatomy lectures!”
“Wow.” I had edged back into the room. “Lucky escape! Was he already drunk?”
“And then someone proposed we all go to the theater. But first, more punch. So much more punch that the air all went out of our theater plans. We talked and talked—and later, I don’t know how, Austen and I ended up walking across Westminster Bridge, just talking.” He paused before he went on, quieter: “It was so beautiful. The lights of boats on the water.”
He fell silent, and I was too, envious at the freedom of men.
“We have to take that walk one night, Rachel dear,” he said, and yawned.
“Unfortunately, the only women who get to wander around London after dark are whores.”
“Oh. There were a lot of them, now that you mention it.”
There was another pause.
“So, what’s he like? Tell me everything.”
“He’s lovely. He’s Jane Austen’s favorite brother—what can he be, but lovely? But you can decide for yourself, because we are invited for dinner next week.”
“Are you serious? Both of us? I can’t believe it.” Dinner was a big deal; I would have been happy with less: a morning call, an invitation to tea.
“I hardly can myself.”
This stopped me. “But it did happen? He did invite you? Us?”
“He did,” Liam said, suddenly cautious.
“So why aren’t you more excited? I don’t understand.”
“I am excited.” He’d started trying to pull off his boots. “So excited that—I can’t—even—Jesus—” He stopped trying. “Jencks usually does this.”
Unwilling, I moved closer. “Here, give me a foot.” I took hold of his boot at the ankle and yanked as he leaned back on his bed. This mixture of servile and intimate unsettled me, because it was Liam; with someone less buttoned-up, it would have been funny. “I usually charge extra for this service,” I joked, thinking of myself as a doctor, then realizing that we’d just been talking of whores. His boot slid off all at once, and I lost my balance and hit the floor, still holding it. There was shocked silence before we burst into smothered laughter, conscious of the sleeping house, the servants.
Maybe 75 percent, I thought.
CHAPTER 3
OCTOBER 3
23 Hans Place