A gleam of grudging approval came through the Earl of Hunterbury’s glasses. Little prompting was needed; the People’s Budget wasn’t far from anyone’s mind at the moment. Ross’s notepad came out to receive a stream of complaint about that frothing socialist Lloyd George and his grasping, unreasonable piece of legislation.
“I’m sure Hawthorn would have you believe Lloyd George cares about the welfare of the British people,” Hunterbury finished sourly. “Stuff and nonsense. He wants to gut us.”
“Do you think the Lords will vote to reject, my lord?” asked Ross. “As you haven’t the power to amend it.”
“Be a piece of damned foolishness not to,” said Hunterbury.
“In which case Asquith has all but promised to take aim at the Lords’ legislative power, if he wins re-election, and that gutting would be done with a rusty fork,” said Jack. “Better to swallow a few taxes now, surely?”
Hunterbury harrumphed. Lord Morton roused himself to say, rather meanly, “No need to spill your sour grapes here, Hawthorn, just because you haven’t a seat yourself and you don’t like the way your father’s voting.” He looked at Ross. “I hope you plan to speak to Cheetham. We’ve a committee meeting later this morning. I’m sure he’s in the building.”
The pause was like missing a step: short, but jarring to the stomach.
“What a good suggestion, my lord,” said Ross.
“Indeed,” said Jack.
Eyebrows rose when he took Ross by the arm and marched him to the other side of the lobby, but nobody expected good manners from Baron Hawthorn.
“Oi,” snapped Ross. He pulled his arm away more showily than he needed to. No doubt Jack could soon add the charge of manhandling the press to his reputation. “Why didn’t you suggest this in the first place? A direct statement from the Earl of Cheetham. Just what I need.”
Jack unclenched his jaw. “No.”
“Quid pro quo.”
“I did not agree to a personal tour of my family tree.”
“Not much of a tree. Barely a branch.” Ross’s smile appeared like a tiger from behind grass. “Any good journalist knows that when someone’s up in arms like this, it’s time to keep pushing for the story. What is it? More than political disagreement. Bad blood? Perhaps he’s not your father at all?”
Jack’s mixture of invigorating irritation and amusement tipped over into real anger. He wanted to put his hand at Ross’s jaw and force up his chin, wanted to dig his fingers in and cause a bruise, and be damned to the fact that they were in public.
“A century ago I’d have called you out for that.”
“We’re a civilised society now.” Ross set his shoulders. “I’m not haggling, my lord. There’s my price. One more introduction and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I agreed to burden myself with you for the day, not to inflict you upon my relations,” Jack snapped, but forestalled the next comment with an impatient wave of his hand. “Very well.”
Ross was right about one thing. Arguing further would only convince him that there was a story to be sniffed out.
Jack had never visited his father’s office in Westminster. He had to collar a House messenger to ask directions, which did nothing to erase the growing curiosity on Ross’s face as they made their way to the fourth floor of the palace.
“Less gold twiddle up here,” Ross murmured, when they were in the right corridor and Jack was counting numbers on doors. “Is it for show, when Lloyd George comes to visit? Pretend that the peerage is crippled by taxation already, and can’t even afford one tiny little tapestry for their office wall?”
Jack’s enjoyment of this hostile East End criminal’s company was certainly coming to an end. He rapped on the door before his urge to hesitate could win out.
“Now what?” came an impatient call from inside.
“Ah,” said Ross. “This would be this good breeding I hear so much about. Can definitely see where you get it from.”
The sooner this happened the sooner it would be over. Jack opened the door and stepped right into the path of the Earl of Cheetham’s glower. Having it delivered from behind a desk was like being hurled back in time. An eight-year-old version of Jack quailed and longed to sidle behind Elsie, whose fault it probably was that they’d deserved the look in the first place.
The thirty-four-year-old version simply cleared his throat. “Sir.”
“Hawthorn.” Cheetham was standing. His hand, holding a sheaf of papers, fell to his side. “Thought you were—never mind. Has something happened?” The lines of his face deepened in worry. “Your mother?”
“No, no. Nothing of the sort,” Jack assured him. He felt too large for this tiny, overwarm office. His father, not a small man either, looked even broader in shirtsleeves. A wig and robe hung on a stand in the corner.
The last time Jack had seen his father had been three weeks ago at the house in Belgravia. The atmosphere had been one of a door gingerly cracked open, through which two men—both of whom no longer knew what manner of person the other was—might begin an awkward conversation.
The time before that had been nearly seven years ago, when the Earl of Cheetham went to his knees at his son’s hospital bedside and outright pleaded with him not to return to the war and risk depriving the countess of her one remaining child.
“Who’s this, then?” His father nodded at Ross, who’d closed the office door behind him.
This time Jack told the truth: that he owed Ross a favour. His father would understand that overcoming both Jack’s personal feelings and his politics.
The introductions hooked a how-d’you-do out of Cheetham, and a my lord from Ross that was twice as sincere as any he’d slid in Jack’s direction. Cheetham checked the clock on his desk and agreed he had time to sit down with the Post.
“I’ll go for a walk,” said Jack. “I’m hoping to have a word with some people myself.”
If he stayed in the room while his father explained in fervent Tory detail the reasons why the People’s Budget was an outrage, then he would argue back. And no matter how much help Alan Ross the perturbator might yet prove to be in the hunt for Lady Enid’s knife, he had not earned a front-row seat to a debate between Jack and the father he’d only just started talking to again.
“People you’ll try to convince to vote against their own interests, no doubt.” Cheetham snorted. “Come back and collect your journalist in”—another glance at the clock—“a quarter of an hour.”
Ross shot a look at Jack that might have had alarm in it somewhere. Jack resisted the urge to inform Ross that his father only slaughtered peasants on Tuesdays.
“Ah. Hawthorn.”
Jack turned.
“Polly’s at the Hall for the rest of the summer. I know she’d appreciate a visit from her only son.”
Trapping him in front of company. His father was a politician, after all.
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Jack said, and escaped.
* * *
The Earl of Cheetham’s politics were exactly what Alan would have expected. He could have written the quotes himself.