A Seditious Affair(20)

“Is it really,” Skelton said.

There was a crash as a bookcase went over. “Oi!” Silas bellowed, not holding back the volume for the man right in front of him, and relished Skelton’s involuntary flinch. “You sodding respect my stock, you cow-handed lackeys!”

“Mind your manners,” Skelton spat.

“You ain’t,” Silas retorted. “What is this farradiddle about Harry Gordon? What do I know or care? Boy stacked books for me—”

“For six years,” Skelton put in. “He was your friend.”

“Friend?” Silas loaded the word with scorn. “Shop boy. This look like a friend to you?” He grabbed George’s arm. The lad was trembling. “Doesn’t know a bloody thing. Turns up late as often as not, moves my boxes, eats my profits, and if he keeps out of the Spotted Cat on my time, it’s as much as he does. Like I’m going to tell this wastrel my business? He knows naught about anything, and him and Harry Gordon were peas in a pod. And that had better do you, ’cause it’s all I got for you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Skelton said. “I don’t think so at all. You were a known associate of the Gordons when they fled England in the year eight. You took in their son when he slunk back to this country like a whipped dog—”

Frey cleared his throat. Skelton stopped.

“You must pursue your questioning as you see fit,” Frey said, voice reasonable. “But Harry Vane is cousin to the Marquess of Cirencester.” He didn’t say, Mind your tongue, still less, Leave this subject. Just the statement of fact.

Cold-blooded, treacherous fuckster.

“Very true, Mr. Frey,” Skelton said. “But if Lord Cirencester is nurturing a serpent in his bosom?”

Frey inclined his head graciously. Skelton turned back to Silas. “You know what happened with Harry Gordon.”

“No, I don’t,” Silas said. “Some great Gogmagog in a fancy coat came in my shop, called himself a lordship, took the lad off. I don’t know why.” Lord Richard Vane, that was. The Tory’s lost love. He could feel Frey’s tension.

“Then I shall enlighten you. Alexander Vane was disinherited by his father when he married a radical strumpet—”

“Oi,” Silas said. “Listen, friend, you can talk to me. You can order your clodhoppers to make a mess of my shop. But you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when it comes to a woman whose boots you weren’t fit to button, or I’ll leave you shitting your own teeth, you dirty-mouthed arse rag.”

Skelton’s face darkened. He drew in a breath—to shout for his men, Silas would have wagered—but Frey said calmly, “Alexander Vane was disinherited, yes. Go on, Mr. Skelton. I should like to understand your line of questioning.”

“Disinherited,” Skelton said. “Harry Vane was left alone, with no prospects. A radical like his parents. Like you.”

“I’m a radical and proud to own it,” Silas said. “Harry? Ha. I never saw him take an interest in aught but drink and wenches. No backbone, that’s his trouble.”

“I say Harry Vane is a radical—”

“And I say he ain’t, and if he should be, what the devil has it to do with me or you?” Silas demanded. “An Englishman still had the right to the thoughts in his head when last I looked!”

“Lord Gideon Vane sought out his lost grandson Harry when his other son and grandson had both died. Do you know how they died?”

“How the bloody hell should I?”

“A house fire last autumn,” Skelton said. “Their deaths removed the obstacles standing between your radical shop boy and his grandfather’s immense wealth.”

“Lucky for Harry,” Silas said without sympathy.

“Lucky?” Skelton asked. “Or convenient?”

The Tory opened his mouth, snapped it shut again. Silas inhaled, feeling his chest swell. “You got something to say, you come out and say it.”

“Say what?” Skelton asked. “Say that those deaths left Lord Gideon Vane with just one living male descendant? Say that you knew Harry Gordon’s birth put him in line for a fortune? Say that an old man’s wealth would come in very handy when all you have is this.” He looked around the shabby shop with an expression of distaste. “And say that only a lighted candle was needed—”

“Bollocks,” Silas said with force. “Bull’s bollocks. Slander, spite, and shit. If you’ve got nothing better to say, piss off out of my shop, and take your lapdogs with you.” He jerked his chin at the Tory, just as there was a huge scrape-groan of wood, and a heavy bit of shelving moved behind him.