“The fact remains,” he went on, taking off his hat and tucking it under his arm to keep it from being carried away by the wind, “that I don’t feel entitled—as it were—to any of the titles I was supposedly born to …. Besides—” A thought struck him, and he gave his uncle a narrow look.
“You said you didn’t accept the dukedom’s income. I don’t suppose you also neglected the care of the estates you weren’t profiting from?”
“Of course n—” Hal broke off and gave William a look in which annoyance was tempered by a certain respect. “Who taught you to think, boy? Your father?”
“I imagine Lord John may have had some small influence,” William said politely. His insides had turned over—as they did with monotonous regularity recently—at mention of his erstwhile father. He couldn’t forget the look of fearful eagerness in John Cinnamon’s eyes … oh, bloody hell, of course he could forget. It was a matter of will, that’s all. He shoved it aside, the next best thing.
“But you didn’t in fact renounce your responsibilities, even though you wouldn’t profit by them. You’re telling me, though, that you couldn’t have done so. There are no circumstances in which a peer can stop being a peer?”
“Well, not at his own whim, no. Mind you, a peerage is the gift of a grateful monarch. A monarch who ceases to be grateful can indeed strip a peer of his titles, though I doubt any monarch could do so without support from the House of Lords. Peers don’t like to feel threatened—it so seldom happens to any of them these days, they’re not used to it,” he added sardonically.
“Even so—it isn’t a matter of kingly whim, either. Grounds for revoking a peerage are rather limited, I believe. The only one that comes to mind is engaging in a rebellion against the Crown.”
“You don’t say.”
William had spoken lightly—or meant to—but Hal stopped and turned a piercing look on his nephew.
“If you consider treason and the betrayal of your King, your country, and your family a suitable means of solving your personal difficulties, William, then perhaps John hasn’t taught you as well as I supposed.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and stumped off through the beds of rotting waterweed, leaving amorphous footprints in the sand.
WILLIAM STAYED BY the shore for some little while. Not thinking. Not feeling much of anything, either. Just watching the currents move through the river, washing out his tired brain. A squadron of brown pelicans with white heads came floating down the sky, keeping formation as they skimmed two feet above the surface of the water. Evidently seeing nothing interesting, they rose again as one and sailed back over the marshes toward the open sea.
No wonder that people run away to sea, he thought, with a small sense of longing. To slough off the small cares of daily life and escape the demands of a life unwanted. Nothing but miles of boundless water, boundless sky.
And bad food, seasickness, and the chance of being killed at any moment by pirates, rogue whales, or, much more likely, the weather.
The thought of rogue whales made him laugh and the thought of food, bad or not, reminded him that he was starving. Turning to go, he discovered that while he had stood there vegetating, a large bull alligator had crawled out of the shrubbery behind him and was reposing about four feet away. He shrieked, and the reptile, startled and indignant, opened a horrifying set of jaws and made a noise between a growl and an enormous belch.
He had no idea exactly how he’d done it, but when he stopped, panting and drenched with sweat, he was in the middle of the army camp. Heart still pounding, he made his way through the neat aisles of tents, feeling once more safe amid the normal noises of a camp settling toward supper, the air thick with the smells of wood fire, hot earth from the camp kitchens, grilling meat, and simmering stew.
He was ravenous by the time he reached Papa’s house, though at this time of summer, it would be broad daylight for another hour at least. He assumed that Trevor would be abed, sunlight notwithstanding, and so walked as quietly as he could, using the damp grass beside the brick walk.
As Trevor—and necessarily Trevor’s mother—was in his mind, he glanced round the side of the house and discovered that the bench in the grape arbor was occupied, all right, but not by Amaranthus, with or without baby attached.
“Guillaume!” John Cinnamon spotted him and erupted from the leafy bower with such force as to scatter leaves and stray grapes across the gravel.
“John! How did it go?” He could see Cinnamon’s broad face, shining with joy, and his inner organs shriveled. Had Papa accepted John Cinnamon as his son?
“Oh! It was—he was—your father is a great, good man, Guillaume! You’re so fortunate to have him.”
“I—er—yes,” William said, a little dubiously. “But what did he say—”
“He told me all about my father,” Cinnamon said, and stopped to swallow at the enormity of the word. “My father. He’s called Malcolm Stubbs; have you ever met him?”
“I’m not sure,” William said, frowning in an effort at recollection. “I’m sure I’ve heard the name once or twice, but if I’ve ever met him, it must have been when I was quite young.”
Cinnamon flapped a large hand, dismissing this.
“He was a soldier, a captain. He was badly hurt in the big battle for the City of Quebec, up on the Plains of Abraham, you know?”
“I know about the battle, yes. But he survived?”
“He did. He lives in London.” Cinnamon squeezed William’s shoulder in a transport of delight at the name, and William felt his collarbone shift.
“I see. Well, that’s good, I suppose?”
“Lord John says that if I choose to write a letter, he will see that Captain Stubbs receives it. In London!” Clearly, London was next door to Faery-land, and William smiled at his friend, at once truly happy that Cinnamon was genuinely thrilled about this revelation—and secretly and shamefacedly relieved that, after all, Cinnamon really wasn’t Papa’s natural son.
It was necessary to walk up and down the yard several times, listening to Cinnamon’s excited account of exactly what he had said, and what Lord John had said, and what he had thought when Lord John said it, and …
“So you are going to write a letter, aren’t you?” William finally managed to interrupt him sufficiently as to ask.
“Oh, yes.” Cinnamon grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Will you help me, Guillaume? Help me decide what to say?”
“Ouch. Yes, of course.” He retrieved his crushed hand and flexed the fingers gently. “Well. I suppose that means that you’d like to remain here in Savannah for a bit, in case there should be a reply from Captain Stubbs?”
Cinnamon seemed to pale slightly, whether at the thought of receiving such a reply, or at the possibility that he might not, but he took a huge breath and nodded.
“Yes. Lord John was so kind as to invite us to remain with him, but I think that wouldn’t be right. I told him I’ll find work, a little place to live. Oh, Guillaume, I’m so happy. Je n’arrive pas à y croire!”
“So am I, mon ami,” William said, and smiled; Cinnamon’s delight was catching. “But I tell you what—let’s go and be happy together over supper. I’m going to drop dead of starvation any minute.”