nodded. “Small pickin’s, Colonel. The ponies ain’t poopin’ on my watch. The Quality has gone off to the grouse moors and ’ouse parties.”
Rye passed him two more coins. “The ponies will trample you if you don’t get some rest.” Rye put his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. “Louis will spell you while I call on my in-laws. How are things at home?”
The boy, whose somewhat humorous nom de guerre was Vulture, sported more than the usual number of bruises beneath his grime.
“Pa got slapped into the sponging ’ouse. Ma took the weans to her brother’s, and Uncle don’t like me much. I’m on me own for a time.” This recitation was made with the perfect indifference of a scout who’d seen the entire French host approaching, arms at the ready.
The boy wasn’t twelve years old, if that.
“You leave your barrow and shovel in the Coventry’s stables of a night and come around to my house to bed down and take your meals. If you don’t want to come inside, you can take the night watch in my stable. Louis will tell you we’re a man down, though don’t press him for details.”
Vulture peered up at Rye with the combination of banked hope and bravado that betrayed a child on his last prayer.
“I don’t care for baths, Colonel.”
“Then take night watch in the stable,”—where the boy would find adequate warmth and safety and an abundance of blankets—“but you will wash your hands before eating, or Mrs. Murphy will report you for breach of manners.”
A fortnight around the other boys, another two weeks of increasingly cold nights, and Vulture would submit to regular bathing. With any luck, he’d soon join the boys at their afternoon lessons, and they’d feel Benny’s impending absence less keenly.
Louis trotted up from the discreet distance he’d maintained on the trek from Rye’s house. “Vulture.”
“Fat Louie.”
They grinned at each other, clearly prepared to engage in a battle of insults, which would probably escalate to shoving, profanity, and fisticuffs, though Rye hadn’t the time to indulge their good spirits.
“Vulture is late for his nooning, Louis. You will please take over for him while I call on my in-laws. Vulture might well be biding with us for a time, in which case I will need another sentry to keep watch from this post. I leave you gentlemen to discuss suitable resources for that office.”
Vulture shot Louis a puzzled glance.
“He means you have to pick a lad to take over watching and sweeping for when you aren’t here,” Louis said. “A reliable lad with sharp eyes.”
“Get something to eat,” Rye said. “And I do mean food, Vulture, not just drink, or you’ll end up in the sponging house, or worse.”
The boy trotted off, while Louis surveyed the street. “His pa isn’t in the sponging house, Colonel. His uncle set the watch on his pa for cursing the king. Half the Cock and Hen heard him.”
And taverns, being full of the crown’s spies, were stupid places to express honest sentiments regarding the monarchy’s excesses.
“Vulture can bide with us for now. Please explain the rules to him, and he’ll need a name once he starts sleeping in the house.”
“Aye. His name’s Victor. He don’t use it much.”
“Doesn’t. Set a good example for him, Louis. I shouldn’t be long.”
Even if Rye spent only fifteen minutes in his sister’s household, the time would be long. He crossed the street and rapped the knocker stoutly anyway. To his eternal frustration, Jeanette’s husband opened the door—Sycamore Dorning’s grasp of protocol was sadly lacking—and Rye thus found himself behind enemy lines without allies.
A daunting if familiar place to be.
“Colonel, good day.” Dorning’s tone was anything but welcoming. “Jeanette is napping, and not even for you will I wake her. She will interrogate me regarding the purpose of your call, so prepare to endure my company, and do not think to blow retreat. We are family now, and Jeanette will expect us to act like it.”
He grabbed Rye by the sleeve and yanked him into the house.
Chapter Five
“Ann came around again?” The brigadier posed the question mildly over his luncheon soup, but then, his manner with Meli was invariably courteous.
“Ann makes her weekly call early enough in the day to not be seen,” Meli replied. “Does this bisque need salt?” Of course it did not. Ann’s recipes were, without exception, delicious. She quantified every ingredient, in so far as one could, and left no steps to the cook’s imagination.
“The soup is fine. My compliments