They had regained their cheerfulness on the walk back to Portman Square through the simple expedient of Miss Kennedy's refusal to be glum, and Horatio's quiet submission to her rattling communications and determined charm. It was an agreement he was used to.
Alas, upon their return they found Archie in a foul mood, having been denied permission to go to the theater. Despite Horatio's entirely honest reassurance that he was not disappointed, Kennedy continued in a dark sulk, making no effort to add to their conversation. When the boy would not be jollied even by sister Anne into better humor, he was acerbically invited by Lady Anne to return to his room and rest until supper. Likely it was for the best. Kennedy looked tired, eyes bruised with insufficient rest and skin still freckled from the fit the night before.
With that quelling presence gone, the tenor of the room lightened considerably. Tea was ordered and served with an abundance of tiny sandwiches and little iced cakes and wee hot pastries stuffed with chicken and spices. Horatio had never had the like, and spared a thought for poor Archie missing out on the feast.
After, Anne brought over a folio scrapbook filled with clippings, and urged Horatio to take a seat at a comfortable chair near the window. She presented it to him with a small smile saying "I promised," then returned to keep her mother company. Horatio paged through slowly, reading newspaper accounts to the backdrop of Miss Kennedy relaying their morning in considerable detail. Anne described not just the number and quality of her purchases, but also comparisons of all the stores, people they apparently encountered during their day and what they appeared to be buying. She even relayed the names of the more important of the passers by while they had sat in the park, whom he had no idea she had recognized, nor even that she had been taking notice.
It eventually occurred to Horatio that this extensive commentary was not merely Anne's natural loquaciousness, but in the manner of a report to a senior officer. Though he had no sound basis for judging, Archie's sister seemed far more diligent than the middie had ever been. Kennedy's end of watch handovers had tended toward the terse on most occasions that Horatio had witnessed. Though Hornblower quickly found himself absorbed in naval minutia, little sketches and even the occasional letter in a familiar cramped hand pasted into the ledger, he kept one ear to the ladies' conversation as well.
Later, he was pulled from a re-reading of a skirmish during a blockade of Mangalore—in which both the Minerva and the Perseverance had participated— by a particularly vivid description of the sundries shop, to which Lady Anne was paying close and interested attention, prompting her daughter with detailed questions about the fashions displayed in the window and who admired them. He gathered that the countess had not been out shopping herself in some time.
Little as he knew of fashionable female society, Horatio thought there was an unusual avarice in how Lady Anne consumed her daughter's narrative. Taking the liberty of their distraction, he studied his hostess. The countess's stamp on both second daughter and fourth son was clear. They shared the same symmetry of feature and prominent cheekbones, shape of eyes, and straight, slightly upturned nose. But while Anne the younger had plump, pink flushed cheeks and antic energetic mannerisms, her mother's face was finely drawn. In fact, it more resembled her son's, which had not entirely recovered its flesh and color in the last scant weeks since the duel and Simpson's absence from the mess. He hoped he was imagining the slight hollowness, the tension of suppressed pain, because he had seen it so often and so recently in Archie.
Yet, the lady's movements were deliberate, and it occurred to Horatio that she had some of the stillness of the older tars, who bellyached about the weather, and left the climbing and hard jobs for the younger men, rarely roused to vigor. Horatio blushed then, at himself, comparing his friend's elegant and gracious mother to arthritic old seadogs, and ducked back into his book. But he could not escape the thought that while the rich did not wear their years like the lower classes, still she might already be afflicted by age or some other infirmity. It was an observation he did not think he could share with Kennedy, but Horatio wondered if he should.
He escaped the need to decide immediately when Kennedy made no appearance until the bell for supper was rung. The meal was more awkward than either tea or the night before. The table was smaller, with Robert apparently dining out, and young Margaret taking the meal upstairs in the nursery with her younger brother. Horatio was seated at Captain Kennedy's right—the rank fit the man better than the title, though both were equally intimidating to Hornblower—with Anne across from him and Archie beside her, then John at Horatio's right and the countess presiding over the foot of the table.
The food was as varied and rich as before, but Horatio had a hard time enjoying it. Though the order to turn over his log books had never come, despite Archie's threat, the Earl of Cassilis took pains to quiz Horatio, and shout commentary to the table, throughout the meal. It began with the pouring of the wine and a perfunctory remark that 'Alexander' had recommended him for his maths. The earl abruptly asked Horatio to explain the extraction of a square root from a large number chosen seemingly at random. Over fish, Captain Kennedy requested a description of Euclid's thirty-second proposition, then while the butler was ladling a wine sauce Horatio had never tasted before, challenged him to explain how to find altitude and azimuth, and use them in celestial navigation.
Though somewhat unnerved by the lord's piercing blue eyes, similar in color to his friend, but no other way like, Horatio was on solid ground with these questions, and answered each with a surety and completeness that seemed to meet with some approval, judging from the earl's grunts and nods.
After that, however, the footing rapidly became less secure. The earl asked him to describe the best way to rig a third-rate for stormy weather. Horatio had to confess to complete ignorance, then listen to a barrage of sailing terms that between Scottish-American accent and naval abbreviations, he only half-recognized. Hornblower did little better at describing the usual set up of sails for a frigate tacking against a strong aft wind. Justinian had scarcely weighed anchor in the scant two months Horatio had been aboard her, never mind carrying her full sail. So he stumbled over the names, let alone knowing which were right for the purpose. Even John—a man who studied law!—murmuring a correction, "royal, not t'gallant," wasn't enough to avoid bolloxing the listing entirely.
How Horatio wished he'd drunk less on the night in Portsmouth when Archie was describing their new ship's rigging. But any hope that Kennedy would come to his rescue was dashed when he looked over to observe his supposed best friend staring determinedly off in the distance. Not meeting his eyes, nor any ones. After several pleading looks went unanswered, Horatio realized that Kennedy's right hand and his sister's left might be joined in under-the-table conference, accounting for the boy's glazed expression, if not the lack of aid. Either a silent prompting or Anne's native kindness eventually induced her to distract her father with an anecdote from their day, allowing Horatio to at least choke down some of his roast and potatoes in relative peace.
They sat leaden in his gut once the captain veered back on course and began quizzing him on the process of dead reckoning. Though Horatio managed a passable explanation, the captain felt it needed to be supplemented by a few insightful tips. If he were not so uncomfortable with the process and aware of Archie's abandonment, Hornblower might have been gratified to add to his store of naval knowledge, and to have been taken notice of by a man of eminence. Hungry, worn from a day full of new sights, sounds, thoughts, and more people than he'd even seen collected together in his life, and now bewilderingly subjected to a rigorous testing for which he was totally inadequate, Horatio was reduced to trying not to cry into his cooling soup.
Luckily, by the time the earl switched to conversing in a roughly accented French, to which Horatio was only able to haltingly reply, his lady wife felt obliged to intervene. In a more schooled version of the same language, she reproved her husband, "This is not a board examination, Archibald, and Monsieur Hornblower is not your midshipman up for commission." This gentle rebuke, much to Horatio's surprise, provoked a loud bray of laughter, and a pounding on the table.
"Quite right, my dear, quite right," said the earl in the King's English. "And good thing, for he is not yet ready. Needs his two years at sea, though, so he still has some time to learn what's missing. Spend some hours in my library, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower," he half-bellowed, still chortling, "I've a fine set of models there, so you can learn your spankers from your drivers, just ask my boy, he knows that much at least. You seem to have a good head for the classics already. Don't suppose you'll stay on and tutor Alexander in maths? Wouldn't want him to embarrass himself with the Indefatigable's navigation master. Never make lieutenant if he can't master planar trigonometry!" This was aimed quite acidly down the table, at a flushed Archie staring back with surprise. "I can offer a good stipend if you can do anything with him, Mr. Hornblower."
Horatio almost dropped his spoon, and stared as well, no doubt like a fool, at the earl for some seconds while he calculated an answer. Much as any added coin, and the approval of Captain Kennedy might be useful, Hornblower did not relish putting himself between his friend and the earl further, particularly in a way that invited comparison. Besides, Horatio was not at all certain Kennedy had so much as that to learn, out of the influence of Simpson and Justinian. And his sinful attraction to Kennedy, pressing on him as heavy as ever, made the necessity of his refusing absolute. The sooner parted, the better for them both. And yet, when he glanced across at Archie, he surprised a pleading in two sets of eyes, blue and gray, and had to look away again to find his determination. "I am sorry, your lordship, for your most kind offer, but… my father is expecting me, and I must start my journey to Kent on Monday, latest." That was still too many days away for comfort.
"Och! Well, no matter. No point preparing for exams just yet, Alexander, when you can't even get your certificate from Captain Keene!" Every word of that sentence was bitten out a little sharper and louder than the one before. Horatio was confused by the meaning but everyone else at the table was clearly startled, and turned almost as one to Archie with varying expressions of dismay and concern.
In the face of familial disappointment, Archie rose abruptly. "As you say, father. No point in fretting over parabolas and tangents, now. Besides which, Mr. Hornblower and myself are expected tonight at my club. We can walk, no need to order the carriage…." Kennedy was halted in a half-bow toward the countess by the earl's vociferous denial.
"Your club? No! Rabble of useless fops with nothing in their head but actresses and wasting their father's money. I'll have you done with it. Sit!" The earl made a peremptory gesture that forced the son unwillingly back into the velvet padded chair.
The mulish set to Archie's jaw and reddening face frightened Horatio, not knowing whether his friend was about to start a row or burst into tears. John Kennedy forestalled either form of outburst with the calm suggestion that both boys accompany John to Brook's, "Nothing objectionable there, father, and it would be good to introduce Midshipman Hornblower to London society. After all, he'll be a lieutenant someday, and likely much more. I'll keep them out of trouble," the man added gently, with a small smile. "If we can have the carriage?"
The earl looked to object until the countess fixed her husband with a glare from across the table, after which the captain gave way with an irritated wave. "Full of Whigs," was grunted as well. Not withstanding the scorn in this declaration, Lord Archibald's permission was assumed, apparently, for John stood up from the table then, beckoning at Horatio. He hesitated until Archie rose again as well, and making their bows to lord and lady and Miss Kennedy, all soon found themselves gathered below in the hall.
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