Dunham

Chapter 43

43

Admiral Lord Hylton had aged so badly since Celia had last seen him, she could not control her gasp.

"My lord," the butler intoned from his position at Celia's side in the threshold of the admiral's library, "your daughter has arrived. Lady Hylton awaits without."

It was the most unnecessary announcement any servant had ever made, since Bancroft was staring at her as if she were a ghost, apparently equally shocked. But then he gathered himself and strode across the warm and cozily cluttered room with his arms spread as if greeting an old friend.

Get her out of my sight before I kill her!

Celia stepped back, pressing herself against the butler's wall of a chest, and fashioned her expression into one of fear.

Bancroft halted and slowly dropped his arms, then looked down at the thick Persian rug and sighed. He did not look at her again, but turned away from her with a light gesture.

"Come," he said low. "Please. Have a seat."

The butler gently prodded her and directed her, but she went without a peep, as it seemed Bancroft was aware of his sins and would keep his distance from her. She sat in a leather chair on the powerless side of the desk, folded her hands in her lap, and directed her face toward the floor while watching him out of the corner of her eye.

He dismissed the butler and commenced to pacing once the library doors were closed. Though Bancroft had a tasteful wig in both style and color, it could not draw her attention away from the deep grooves worn into his face from his brow to his cheeks to his mouth to his jowls. He was still as tall—taller, with his heels—as she remembered, but he was much thinner, less muscular, and his hands were long and spindly where they had been broad and strong. His shoulders were a bit hunched, even accounting for the fact that he was striving to make himself less intimidating to her.

In short, he appeared to be carrying the weight of the world upon his shoulders and would welcome death when it came, to relieve him of his burdens.

Excellent.

She would gladly assist him to the end of his mortal path.

"Your hair," he said abruptly, startling her. "'Tis brown. I thought ... Your fath—" He stopped, unable to say it. "I, ah, remember it a more vibrant color."

Of course he would.

"I don't remember," she said tonelessly, making a note to give her wigmaker a handsome bonus.

"Ah ... Oh. That's ... Hm."

Celia took her eyes off the pacing admiral for a moment to study his library. It was a modest one, in a modest terrace near Grosvenor Square. The thick rug was bald in spots; the books that lined three of the walls were a bit dusty; the sofas were a bit out of date; and the leather of the wing chairs was a bit worn and cracked. The liquor cabinet was open and well-stocked; the hearth was cold and dark but clean; and the desk and floor around it were cluttered with carefully haphazard stacks of books, parchments, and various naval trinkets holding the papers down. Though it gave a good impression of it, this was not the library of an impoverished baron; it was the library of a powerful but overworked man.

For a wealthy baron, it was entirely modest, particularly as compared to the large, fine Philadelphia home in which she had spent the first eight years of her life—the one to which she had longed to return since Dunham took her to sea.

Finally Bancroft seated himself behind his desk, his chair turned so that he faced the windows. He remained silent and still he would not look at her. His fingertips drummed the desk. Ten full minutes passed this way, but The Simpleton would not fidget because The Simpleton did not know boredom, only blankness.