Dunham

Chapter 27

Elliott ran his fingers through his hair many hours later as he strode from the stable to the manor, the otherwise pitch-dark path lit by intermittent oil lamps hanging from decorative posts. His mother had ordered them hung when Elliott went back to sea after Newgate to guide him and the villagers home from their smuggling operations. They had first been lit in preparation for his maiden voyage as a smuggler and there had not been a dark night since.

Aye, well, but now he had returned for good and his mother could not bear to put the lamps out. He didn't suppose it mattered; everyone on the estate had grown to depend on their presence and certainly the earldom could afford it.

His mouth twisted. After his row with her and Lucy (after which he had summarily dismissed them all and sat down to his own supper) (alone), he had half expected the lamps to be out just to spite him.

He opened the rear courtyard door and stepped into the hall he expected to be dark, but was also dimly lit owing to the light spilling from the open library doors. His brow wrinkling, he strode down the hall and stopped in the threshold to see his mother at one of two massive desks, writing.

In this enormous room, behind the enormous desk, she looked smaller than she was and far more fragile. Her white-streaked blonde hair, the long curls flowing down about her black-clad shoulders, only added to the illusion—and it was an illusion. He had met few women as strong as the countess, but of those, only one who was not of her blood, the one who'd left him in Rotterdam.

She did not raise her head, but spoke in brisk French. "I'll not ask if you enjoyed yourself."

Elliott snorted. "Oui," he returned likewise. She only spoke her native tongue when her mind was weary or troubled. "I did, in fact. Mother, it's five of the morning. What are you doing up and about so early?"

"So early?" she hooted. "I've not retired."

Nay, he supposed she wouldn't have. "Were you awaiting me?"

"Don't flatter yourself." He laughed as much with humor as relief, and she raised her head from her work, her smile tender. "Ah, now that's what I have not seen nor heard since you returned." Elliott's smile began to fade. "No, no! Do not let that go. I have worried all this past week you would find no reason to smile again, and I refuse to believe my son is dead."

Elliott stood in the threshold awkwardly, feeling as if he were yet again nine years old, overset by Flip's wanton destruction of a rabbit trap he had spent hours building, and his mother teasing him and offering him cakes to coax him back to his usual good humor.

And, as she had when he was a boy, she waved him in. "Come, sit. Talk with an old woman."

He complied, even though conducting an interview with his mother after having come straight from a whore's bed was not something he truly wanted to do. He dropped into one of the overstuffed chairs facing the desk and slouched into it, sighing with gratitude at its luxury.

"Eli, you have been in the village every day since you returned, working like a common laborer from dawn to dusk, forcing me to be the very picture of patience, but no longer." She leaned forward and spoke earnestly. "Did you succeed in your quest?"

"Mother," he drawled. "For shame. You have seen the pirate's treasure with your own eyes. The answer is obvious."

She cast him a moue. "You know what I mean, naughty boy. Speak plainly."

"Aye, I did," he murmured. "Kitteridge is dead."

She said nothing for a moment, sitting back into her wheeled chair and studying him. "Even after Newgate, your hair was black as night. Now ... " She sighed. "Your turn at piracy has aged you."