Free Home by Nightfall by Charles Finch Page A

more cheerful here, at least. On his mother’s sideboard there was a rounded china urn of hot tea, with plates of biscuits and sandwiches near it, and gratefully he poured himself a cup, spooning in a small noiseless snowfall of sugar, then pouring a bit of milk in to follow it. Ranged across the long wall, opposite the windows looking out at the garden, were the old familiar portraits he had ignored so intimately in his childhood, when he spent hour upon hour in this room, especially on rainy days. One of the old Lenoxes—Sir Albion Lenox, 1712–1749, a small brass plate said—looked exactly like a cross between Charles’s father and a large frog.
    He took his cup over to the piano and found on the deep black shine of its surface a letter and a telegram waiting for him. (This was where Edmund always had Waller leave his post, and Lenox followed suit when he visited.) There was also a large stack of official pouches from Parliament, and he smiled, remembering the ceaseless flow of documents and constituents’ letters and blue books from his own time in the House, and feeling glad that this cataract fell upon Edmund now, not him. He picked up the wire with his name on it and read it.
    His eyes moved quickly. When he was finished, he said, in a low voice, “Well.”
    He tossed the telegram down onto the piano. Down here, sadly, he’d be at least half a day behind in hearing any news of the missing German, even if Dallington wired, as he had now. Anyone who really wanted to take a hand in the Muller case had to be in London.
    The young lord’s telegrams had a unique style, for he tried to be economical with his words, since they cost a halfpenny each, but could never quite manage to contain himself. His message said:
    Scotland Yard admitting stuck Muller STOP have called in agency STOP not us blast them STOP LeMaire STOP Polly advises independent investigation STOP urges you return STOP all here vexed in extreme STOP hope all well STOP Dall

 
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Lenox woke up very early the next morning, with the first dark blue light. After taking a cup of strong coffee, he unstabled and saddled Daisy, gave her a handful of oats, and then set out with her across the country. Yesterday had been sunny, but this new day was wet and dark, a thin mist hanging over the open green landscape. He rode very hard. The horse responded beautifully, though he learned that he had to angle her off on downslopes, where she might easily have tumbled heels-over-head, for she didn’t slow her pace at all. During their whole gallop his mind was an utter blank: the noise of the horse, the air in his face, the sensation of the thousands of pounds of muscles working beneath him, the close control he needed in his hands and his legs to stay safely astride her.
    At last they stopped at a small brook, where he ladled water from the stream for both of them, first himself and then the horse. The soft rain was wonderfully cooling. After his breath had slowed, Lenox looked back and saw the house, only a small rectangle on the horizon. He ate a hard rind of cheese he had brought, chewing almost automatically because he was so hungry, and fed Daisy first an apple, then a few cubes of sugar, both of which she took with snorting joy.
    He thought of Sophia; she could sit on a small stool in the stable for hours, feet swinging above the ground, watching the horses as they were combed and fed—indeed, watching them do nearly anything. He felt a thud in his heart, the sensation of missing his only child, sad but not unpleasant
    In his breast pocket he had Jane’s letter, and as he caught his breath he took it out and read it again. Not very much news, since she had written it only a few hours after he left.
    My dear Charles,
    Does the post arrive there only four times a day, rather than six? Now I cannot recall, for some reason. Still, this should be with you tomorrow, with any luck—with it my love and