There was a crack as the wax seal broke, and Iffley cleared his throat. “There has indeed been some mistake, sir,” he said, relief ringing in his voice. “Belying the envelope, the salutation is not addressed to you.”
But Thorn had the same warning feeling that led him to sell stocks when he met a business owner who was just a trifle too jovial, or one whose teeth shone in the candlelight. “It’s addressed to Juby,” he said, resigned.
Juby was his pre-rescue name, the name of a mudlark who had lived in the rough and scavenged in the Thames. Juby was, and was not, Mr. Tobias Dautry, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Villiers. And he was, and was not, Thorn Dautry, an extraordinarily wealthy bastard who owned six factories, a couple of houses, and now a country estate.
Now Thorn looked down with a pulse of sadness at the child huddled in his lap. Presumably, another of his band of boys had died. There had been seven mudlarks slaving under Grindel—a rapacious, brutish master—when Villiers had located Thorn. He had been taken to his father’s country estate, and the duke had dispatched the other boys to good homes. Grindel had gone to prison.
Even so, Fillibert had died that first year of a blood infection. Barty had gotten in a fight, struck his head on a cobblestone, and had never woken again. Rattles was gone the following year. After that, there had been five left, including himself.
There was an enduring bond between them, forged from surviving Grindel’s cruelty, from risking death in the Thames, from coming close to starvation and frostbite more times than he cared to remember. Yet the only boy with whom he’d become true friends was Will Summers. Like Thorn, Will was the illegitimate son of a nobleman, though his father had never acknowledged his baseborn son.
When they were lads, Will had hair like a duckling’s fuzz, an odd yellow that would fluff up in the sunlight after they emerged, shivering, from the Thames, their hands full of scavenged treasures like silver spoons and human teeth—whatever they could find and, more to the point, whatever their master could sell. Will was the stubborn one, persistent to the point of madness, diving into the murkiest water to chase a flash of silver.
Iffley cleared his throat again. “It is indeed addressed to ‘Juby,’ and signed ‘William Summers.’ The handwriting is unclear, and it has apparently been exposed to water. It begins, ‘If you’re reading this, I’ve lost . . .’ but the latter half of the sentence is indecipherable. Something about the child follows. Her mother is apparently dead, then something about the Americas.” He tipped the letter sideways and squinted. “It seems her mother died during her birth.”
After Thorn, Will was the best educated: he had won a place at King’s, and thereafter had gone into the militia. Which made it only more surprising that his daughter was alarmingly thin and distinctly unclean. She had an odd smell about her, like the inside of a tobacco pouch.
“What is her name?” Thorn asked.
“It notes without reference to a proper name that his wife’s sister lives in Virginia, in America. At least—” He caught himself.
Thorn gave him a grim smile. “The child is orphaned but not illegitimate, for which we must all offer hosannas. I was at the wedding, Iffley. It took place at St. Andrew’s, with a lashing of ceremonial rigmarole. But I was asking for her name, not her aunt’s.”
The girl’s thin back hunched, like a bird putting its head under a wing. She was listening, though she chose not to enter the conversation.
The butler squinted at the letter again. “I don’t see a name. From what I see here, you are the guardian and may choose to send the child to America if you wish. There’s a bit in here about a silver teapot. Or the top to a silver teapot, which doesn’t make any sense, followed by the name of his solicitor. I regret to say that the missive is abusive in nature. Summers addresses Juby as a ‘fusty nut.’ I believe he also says that he himself is ‘ignorant as dirt,’ but it could be that Juby is the object of that invective as well. And that’s the entirety of the note.”
Thorn nodded. “Send a message to my solicitor asking him to find out what happened to Will Summers, member of the militia located in Meryton. And ask Mrs. Stella to attend me.” He tightened his arms around Will’s daughter and said gently, into her ear, “Will you please tell me your name?”
The child burst into tears. Thorn sighed and stood up, scooping her into his arms. He hitched her a bit higher and followed Iffley into the entry. Frederick stood against the wall. “I gather you accepted this special delivery, Fred?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was a trunk delivered at the same time?”