The Gilded Scarab (19 page)

“I’m constrained by the terms of my lease, Rafe, in what I can accept as a purchase price. House Gallowglass owns most of this part of town, and their agent will oversee the sale of the lease and enforce the conditions. It’s a nuisance, but there it is. They’re responsible landlords—I’d never say otherwise. They like to keep the character of the place.”

By character, Mr. Pearse possibly meant dilapidation, but I liked the old man too well to say so. I didn’t need to. He knew it for himself.

It turned out I was purchasing the long lease of the entire building—the coffeehouse on the ground floor and three floors above. Mr. Pearse lived on the top floor and sublet the middle storeys to the import-export business.

“I hadn’t realized those two upstairs were your tenants.” I frowned, wondering if this was a plus or a minus. On the whole, a plus. I wouldn’t want the entire building to myself, and obviously the rent entered on the positive side of the balance sheet.

“Ah, yes.” Mr. Pearse didn’t meet my gaze, turning instead to stare out the window into the street, where the snow had turned to a chill sleet, slanting down out of the north. “I should really tell you a little about Rosens and Matthews.”

“I can’t tell them apart. What do they import and export, then?”

“I believe they have some interest in the Near East trade,” said Mr. Pearse, and the back of his neck turned red. He continued to stare out at the weather. I couldn’t imagine what was so fascinating.

“Well, as long as they pay the rent on time.”

He nodded. “They do. They pay very promptly. I suppose I’d better let that play out as it will.” Which was an interesting but incomprehensible sentiment. He sighed and turned back to face me. “The place is structurally sound, I think, but you’ll want to redecorate—”

“Fifty pounds should see to that,” I said, rather grandly.

“I can recommend some local men to do the work. Probably for half that.” Mr. Pearse poured himself a coffee and sipped at it. “I live on the top floor, Rafe. Two large rooms, and a smaller one fitted out already with a kitchen stove. I’ll leave most of the furniture. There should certainly be enough for a bachelor like yourself to set up housekeeping. I’ll throw the lot in with the price. No extras.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.”

“I won’t need the things. I’m going to my sister’s girl, who’ll look after me in my dotage.” He smiled, but it was sad. “In the hope she’ll inherit, of course.” He brisked up when he saw me looking at him. My expression must not have been as bland as I hoped. “Now then, you’ll need a new espresso machine. I’ve been putting off replacing it, but it won’t last much longer. The coffee grinders are fine, only a couple of years old, but the espresso machine is practically a museum piece. It was here when I bought the place. I had started looking into replacing it, so I can point you to a good supplier.”

I hadn’t missed how old some of the machinery was. A new espresso machine would eat a sizable chunk out of my capital and leave a larger shortfall on the purchase price. Despite my enthusiasm for the coffeehouse, I was going to have to do some serious thinking about how I was going to finance it.

A visit to my banker was in order.

The next day Henry Frith, Esq. of Drummond’s bank was graciously pleased to grant me an interview to inspect the coffeehouse ledgers and discuss the possibility of a loan. His assessment of the books was much as I expected. The coffeehouse was barely ticking over in financial terms, and Mr. Pearse was making just enough to live on. The fact he lived above the shop, rent free, was the saving of him. Frith’s eyebrow rose higher and higher as he read, and his subsequent polite refusal to lend me the extra money I needed was hardly a surprise.

“I can quite see the potential, Captain, but it’s very far from realization. And weighed in the balance against it is the large outlay needed to make the coffeehouse a going concern, the lean period that must inevitably follow acquisition as the business is built up, and—forgive me—your own lack of commercial experience. The risks are too great for the bank to consider a mortgage for the remainder of the purchase price.”

I both was and wasn’t disappointed. Of course, I would have preferred to borrow money from anywhere other than my House, but there was no denying the bank’s rate of 7 percent was a financial burden I couldn’t really afford. House rates were much, much lower. But I’ll admit it was with a strong sense of ill-usage that I wrote to the Stravaigor’s First Heir, my some-sort-of-cousin-or-other, and asked for an interview.

I had an uneasy feeling that some swallowing of pride was going to be necessary. I hoped it went well with a slice of humble pie.

F
OUR
DAYS
after Mr. Pearse told me he was intending to sell, I plodded up the steps of Stravaigor House and rang the bell. I hadn’t been back since Christmas Day, although I had, of course, sent a floral tribute afterward to Madame Stravaigor and penned a polite thank-you note for the hospitality shown me. In my best handwriting too—joined up letters and everything fine about it.

The First Heir met me in the library, a dark and gloomy room where the books were imprisoned in bookcases with glass doors embellished with brass fretwork. I doubted that many of them were ever taken out and read. They were for show.

John Lancaster was very like his father. He had the same cold dark eyes. He and Peter had been contemporaries at Eton, five years ahead of me, but I didn’t know him at all well. We had barely spoken on Christmas Day, and then it was a greeting and a nod, before he took the opportunity to tell me he really quite missed Peter and hoped the old chap was keeping well out there in Shanghai. Enough said. Any friend of Peter’s was unlikely to look on me with great favor, and it certainly didn’t help that I most certainly did not miss Peter and, so far from knowing how he was doing in China, hadn’t exchanged so much as a Christmas card with him since our father’s death.

So when John gave me a reasonably pleasant reception, it was a surprise. He had the butler bring the claret, and while we awaited its arrival, we discussed the health of the family (“All bouncing, thank you, Rafe. I’ll tell them you inquired.”), the weather (arctic, even for the time of year), and the prospects for the coming century (exciting progress expected on all fronts, particularly in industry and technology). Until the butler had bowed and departed, our conversation was quite unexceptional.

Once the door had closed, John reverted to First Heir. He sipped his wine, regarding me over the rim of his glass. “You know, I hadn’t thought to see you here cap-in-hand quite so quickly, Rafe. My father gave me to understand he had treated generously your request to sell your mother’s jewelry—and what I saw of last month’s accounts certainly bears that out. He was quite remarkably indulgent, I thought.”

Well, now. What a charmer this jackal cub was.

I managed a smile. “I believe he accepted the independent valuation of the Queen’s jeweler, John, that I sent him at his personal request. That is, he paid what the jewelry is worth.”

John inclined his head and took another sip of his wine. I took a drink myself to stop the smile turning into a smirk. That point was mine.

He let a moment go by in silence. I was sure he intended to disconcert me, but it takes more than silent condemnation to manage that. Better men than him have tried and failed. I kept my expression guileless and unengaged. It’s another one I keep polished up and practiced, because it’s as useful as the charming smile. I had used it often in the service, so by-the-book it was insolent in its very innocence. It was very effective against Abercrombie and others of that ilk. And John Lancaster was definitely of that ilk.

“And yet,” he said, “I suppose I am also surprised you have been so slow to ask for a House position. In your circumstances, trained for nothing but flying, I had half expected your family loyalties to have a fervent renaissance. I suppose that’s why you’re here?”

“No.” I took another sip of claret and kept the expression as disinterested as I could. “Not at all.”

“Mmmn.” John pursed his lips and raised his glass to the light, eying it critically. “A fine vintage.”

“Very fine.” I waited. I had brought the books with me, and the business plan I’d drawn up after my discussion with Frith at the bank, but I’d wait to be asked. With men like John Lancaster, to offer was to show weakness. He and the great white shark have a kind of morality in common.

More House games. He had to know why I was there, but he kept the silence going in the hope of staring me out. I drank my claret and waited a little longer.

“So,” said John, at last. He gave me a faint smile. “Not a House posting. I assume your visit is in connection with the Stravaigor having, very generously, permitted you access to House resources. What can we do for you?”

I didn’t smirk because he’d blinked first. I opened the leather case in which I had my documents. “I have had a business opportunity presented to me, and I would like to discuss investment.”

M
R
. P
EARSE
was sorry. He stood wreathed in steam from his coffee machines, looking like a modern day Delphic oracle wearing a shabby town suit and a pained expression. And like all oracles, he prophesied doom and disaster.

“My dear boy, I’d hoped you’d stay out of their clutches. Let me talk to the Gallowglass’s people and see if I can reduce the price. Or perhaps we can come to some arrangement about that final fifteen hundred guineas. I’d rather that, than find you enveloped by your House like Laocoön in the serpent’s coils.”

“The price already reflects the work that needs to be done, and I know I’m getting a bargain here. No, Mr. Pearse. This is the best way forward for both of us. You get your retirement, and I get my coffeehouse. I’ll make paying the House back my priority. With luck, I’ll be free of them in a couple of years.” I frowned. “Odd. They didn’t care what I was investing in. John Lancaster waved the documents away and gave me the money.”

“Oh dear,” said Mr. Pearse, his mouth tightening. “They want you under an obligation, don’t they?”

“Yes. I thought so too. What I really hated was John Lancaster treating me like a mendicant and saying, in that oily way of his as we parted, that he supposed I’d be paying my tithes from now on, to show I was—how did he put it?—cognizant of the favor granted, and that my gratitude would be expressed in a respectful adherence to House customs. I was very tempted to give him back his banker’s draft, along with the application of my fist to his nose.” I chuffed out a laugh. “I curbed my baser instincts. I’m not simpleminded, and I can be as hypocritical as the next man when it’s in my interest.”

“I don’t like it. Give them an inch and they’d take your hand off at the wrist with it. They’re not to be trusted, Rafe. Not for an instant.”

It had me wondering at the breach with his own House and what had caused it; he was so firmly against the entire notion of government by those most economically and educationally fitted to do so. And yes, my eyes rolled in unison with his at that idea.

But he understood why I’d taken a House loan. And if he shook his head and looked anxious, at least he didn’t run mad through the streets tearing at his hair and wailing. Believe me, I had to restrain Daniel Meredith’s histrionics at the news. If Mr. Pearse was sorry, Daniel was struck with horror.

Sadly, he wasn’t struck dumb.

Chapter 13

“A
COFFEEHOUSE
?
Rafe, are you sure? I mean”—and here Daniel colored and cleared his throat—“it’s not exactly the sort of employment a gentleman normally considers, that’s all. It’s rather… I mean, it smacks a little of….”

“Trade?” I said.

Daniel grimaced. “Well, yes.”

I rolled over and stared up at Daniel’s bedroom ceiling. There was a stain there the shape of the tip of South Africa. The hooked peninsula near Cape Town, in fact, that was all harsh gray hills running down from Table Mountain and tumbling into the ocean. How bizarre. “I suppose it is. But I don’t see it’s any more demeaning than working in a business in the City, because buying a clerkship at merchant’s or accepting one from my House are my only other options.”

Daniel squirmed, an action that sent some very suggestive messages to the part of my anatomy most impacted by the squirming. “But Rafe! My dear man, trade? Is that really necessary?”

“I have to find some occupation. I need an income, Daniel. I can’t live on the interest of my capital, and the Imperium’s pension is meager, at best. I have a small income from the farms my father left me, but to make anything of them I’d have to turn farmer myself and take over from the tenants. I can’t do that. I don’t like sheep. Whereas I do like the coffeehouse, and I think I can make a go of it.”

“Surely there’s something else? You’re an educated man.”

I blew out a sigh. “I came down from Oxford in ’90 with a first in Greats, but I went straight into the Aero Corps. I’m not trained for anything other than flying aeroships in one or other of Her Majesty’s wars. I suppose I might teach Classics—”