‘Oh yes. Very convivial at breakfast and those who took their dinner here always made conversation. They tell me in the morning if they want their dinner in, you see.’
She seemed quite open about it, there was none of the reserve I’d sensed when she spoke about George and women callers. ‘But Mr Coates wasn’t his usual self last night?’ I prompted.
‘No, Miss. It wasn’t like him not to have a pleasant word with us, But he hasn’t been quite right, not for a week or so, I don’t think,’ Dora said from her place on a stool at Mrs Kentish’s side. ‘Worried, he seemed. But then, he’d taken on the better apartment and he must have had more responsibility at work, don’t you think? To pay for it, like.’
I wondered about these new responsibilities. Was this as simple as stress at work, some bullying, perhaps a mistake made that had assumed monumental proportions in George’s eyes?
‘You didn’t think to call the Constable when you found him?’
‘No, Miss Lawrence.’ Mrs Kentish shook her head vigorously. ‘I didn’t know who to send to at the Home Office, but I thought they ought to be the first to be told. And Mr Franklin is brother to the Earl and he’s an Honourable, isn’t he? He is the most important person I’d met who was a friend of Mr Coates, you see. He’ll talk to the right people.’
I wasn’t convinced. In the first shock and panic of the discovery anyone’s first instinct would be to call for the Constable, surely? If she had known about George being gay, did she know about James too? And how dangerous was that? ‘Very wise,’ I said briskly. Perhaps I was applying twenty-first century values. Possibly the deferential attitudes of this time, and Mrs Kentish’s anxiety about her respectable house and nice young gentlemen, made perfect sense of her decision.
Luc tapped on the door and came in. ‘Mrs Kentish, my brother has gone for the Constable and to alert the Coroner or the Magistrate, whichever he can find first. Mr Coates is lying decently covered in the front room, but you should leave everything as it is until the Coroner tells you what to do.’
‘Is there someone who can help you?’ I asked. ‘There are the other tenants to look after and you’ve had such a shock, both of you.’
‘I’ll send to my sister in Hampstead,’ the landlady said, visibly cheered by the thought. ‘Jenny, her eldest, will look after the children if she comes here for a day or so. It’d be a comfort, I can’t deny it.’
I took Dora aside as Luc talked to Mrs Kentish, suggesting she write a note and he’d have it sent by messenger to her sister with a carriage to bring her back. ‘If you remember anything at all about who might have been here last night, or anything that Mr Coates said or did earlier that might give us some idea of why this happened, you’ll let me know, won’t you, Dora? You’ll find me through his lordship’s Albany address.’
‘Yes, Miss, thank you, Miss.’
We finally got away just before the arrival of a plain black carriage. Luc looked back from the corner of the street. ‘That will be the Coroner or his officer and the Constable.’ He hailed a hackney. ‘I told James to meet us back at Albany.’
‘I hope the twins are well. And your mother,’ I said when we’d settled into the musty interior and Luc sat opposite me, silent, staring out of the window. ‘I’ve just realised, I don’t know their names. They are two, aren’t they?’
‘Are you making conversation, Cassie?’
‘Er, yes,’ I admitted. I didn’t know how to feel now I was alone with him and I had no idea what he was thinking at all. We hadn’t been lovers, but we were, almost. The fact that we weren’t wasn’t through any reluctance on Luc’s side, but my own inability to deal with having a relationship with a man from the past. Relationships with older men, eh? Always difficult…
‘They are just three. Charles Trenton Franklin, Viscount Cheven, my heir and Matthew James Anthony Franklin, his brother, are very well, thank you. As is my Mama. I saw them all last week.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, inanely. And then I was in his arms. I don’t know how it happened, who moved, but we came together with an inelegant thump, limbs tangling, mouths mashing. And then… Then for a moment it was perfect. Right. Coming home in the best way.
The hackney turned a corner sharply, lurched, I fell back on the seat and we stared at each other in the poor light that penetrated the dirty glass. ‘You are still not certain, are you?’ Luc demanded.
‘That I want us to be lovers?’ I snapped. ‘Yes, I’m quite certain of that. But do I think it would be sensible – ’
‘Sensible?’
‘It isn’t just the sex, is it? There’s more than that, we both know it. I can’t risk it, not when I might never see you again. I can’t risk becoming attached to you.’ Oh, who am I fooling? I couldn’t risk falling in love with the man, although I had more sense than to use the word love. If I did, Luc probably couldn’t run fast enough.
‘Damn it, Cassandra. You know I have feelings for you.’ The fact that he swore at all showed I’d shaken him.
‘I know that there are, in this time, women you might marry, women you might sleep with and women who are off-limits. And I understand that few of those women have any personal control over which category they fall into. And I know you find it difficult that when I come from, in my culture, women have that choice and that marriage is only one option. But it is difficult for me too, that freedom. Choice isn’t easy, choice has consequences.’
‘I am not in the habit of carelessly leaving by-blows,’ Luc said stiffly.
I’d lost him. ‘That is not the kind of consequences I was talking about.’ I was on the Pill and I’d got a more than adequate supply of condoms. ‘We can’t talk about this now, Luc.’ I glanced out of the window as the hackney drew up in front of the Albany steps. ‘Certainly not here.’
‘No.’ He climbed down, then held out his hand for me. ‘But we will talk,’ he added as he paid the driver. ‘Soon.’
The porters, as usual, didn’t exactly ignore me, but didn’t quite acknowledge me either. It was as though the Earl had walked in with a large and exotic wild bird sitting on his hat and they were too polite to mention it.
We went through the main building to the path bordered by pleached lime trees that ran north with the two wings of apartments on either side. ‘How much are you paying them to pretend I don’t exist?’ I asked as Lucian turned off to his own front door. ‘I can’t believe for a moment that females are encouraged in here.’
‘They aren’t. On the other hand, we are being exceedingly discreet, you are clearly respectable and the porters value their tips far too much to create an issue. If the committee doesn’t take an interest, then they will turn a blind eye.’