Yes! Enjoy Chapter One, right here.
8 March 1876
Meetings at Lords were never like this.
Fundraiser committees weren’t like this.
The Ilex Rowing Club Annual General Meeting wasn’t like this.
Arley didn’t think there were any meetings in all of London quite like those held for Spencer and Co Travel.
‘Phineas and Lawrence. If we could please focus on the agenda.’ Lady Iris Dalton tapped at the list on the table before her. Her voice held her crisp, no-nonsense timbre, but Arley could feel her stamina waning. Or maybe that was just himself.
Further down the table, Phineas Babbage leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, a slightly smug grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Lawrence Hempel, sitting opposite, had half stood and leaned in as if about to give Phineas a well-deserved wallop.
‘He started it,’ Lawrence snapped, sounding as petulant as one of his many children.
Arley tried to shoot Phineas a look to say, must you, but Phineas determinedly avoided his glare.
‘You have five minutes. I have rehearsal,’ Odette Delaney, soprano, announced. Arley shot a look at the clock. The meeting was meant to have finished over half an hour ago.
He gritted his teeth, then forced his jaw to relax. Last summer, he’d become an investor in the travel company formed by Iris. She’d worked secretly with her adoptive father, Albert, at his trading company for years, even taking over when he became ill and his memory began to fade. But when her father’s decline had become known, the board of Abberton and Co had unceremoniously removed them both from the company. For Iris, her work was like air, and in a show of neighbourly comradery, the street had bound together to invest in Spencer and Co, her idea for a travel company providing bespoke and boutique tours for the middle classes. At the time, he had rather liked the idea, and Iris was more than competent enough to see it through. But he hadn’t envisaged regular meetings, and he hadn’t expected them to be so chaotic. Having to undertake the actual work, the affability of that afternoon had faded as quickly as the plate of biscuits that had been set before Iris’s husband Hamish.
‘Iris!’
Iris shuffled her papers and cleared her throat. ‘As I was saying, the current list of itineraries covers short samplers to appeal to couples, but we’d like to offer—’
‘Iris!’ Closer now, the voice of Albert Abberton bounced down the hall. Iris looked down, blinking fast.
‘Hamish, would you take over?’ She pushed back her chair and darted from the room. Hamish had been staring out the window. He shook himself to alertness and shuffled the papers in front of him.
‘As Iris was saying…’ His eyes skated the page. ‘Errrr…’
Arley internalised a frustrated breath. Hamish was many admirable things, but astute businessperson was not one of them. That moniker belonged to his wife, who had also taken the remaining shreds of calm with her when she left.
‘The park is looking fresh already.’ Phineas half turned to Odette. ‘Don’t you agree, Miss Delaney?’
‘No one is interested in your view of the park,’ Lawrence snapped.
‘I wasn’t speaking to you,’ Phineas drawled.
Young Elise Hartright, Iris’s assistant, tapped her fingers together. ‘We really must continue with the agenda.’
Lawrence’s daughter Rosanna toyed with a bracelet on her wrist.
‘Two minutes,’ Odette said, half standing. ‘Covent Garden does not wait.’
Chatter, barbs and excuses. All of them swirled around the room, each one echoing louder than the one before. The grey tom with the white tipped tail leapt onto the table and skidded across the polished wood. The teapot rattled, milk spilled and splashed onto the floor. Sugar cubes scattered, and everyone gathered up their papers to stop them from becoming soaked. The cat lapped at the milk.
There was only one thing for it. Arley inhaled, broadened his shoulders, and found the necessary tone, the one he had started working on when he turned 6 and had mastered by the time he was twelve. His duke tone.
‘Can we please focus on the task at hand?’ His voice cut the raucousness, and the settling silence formed into a bubble that surrounded him, always, in everything he did.
Never raise your voice, but don’t be meek. Never lower your gaze, but eschew condescension. Fill the space. Don’t impose. Always, always remember who you are.
Dukes led, they commanded, they directed. Even here, around the table where Iris had insisted all votes and opinions were of equal weight, being a duke inspired a special type of respect.
Odette pushed back her chair with a look at the clock. Arley frowned. She settled. No one was going anywhere until this was done.
‘Elise, the last item please?’ he said.
‘It’s an idea for a tour,’ Elise stammered. ‘We’re calling it a mini-grand tour.’
Phineas snuffled a laugh. ‘Do you hear the contradiction?’
‘It’s an excellent idea,’ Lawrence said.
‘You haven’t even heard what it is,’ Phineas snapped.
‘If you think it rubbish, it’s likely excellent.’
‘I never said—’
‘Gentleman!’ Iris, eyes weary, shoulders sagging, leaned against the door frame. Hamish pushed himself from the table and drew her against his side for just a little longer than was appropriate, before helping her settle into her seat at the head of the table. ‘It’s intended as a microcosm of the tour,’ Iris said, her words drawn. ‘A week in Paris, for the family who wishes to give a son or daughter a taste of the culture of the continent but cannot stretch to multiple locations or years of gallivanting around. A concert or two, rather than a year in Austria. A few famous paintings, rather than every masterpiece. Enough French to get by, over fluency. A taste of music, art, language, food… and whatever else you gents get up to when you go abroad to culture yourselves.’
It seemed unfair that she narrowed her gaze on him. Like everything he did, his tour had been very measured. How could it not have been, when he’d been accompanied by a minder and his itinerary had been packed with meetings with city officials?
‘I was hoping someone would travel to Paris and put together a list of places. When I was there last year, parts of the city were still rubble as buildings were destroyed during the war and the Siege. Construction was only just getting underway. But every newspaper report I read speaks of a city reborn. There are likely new sights. I want to know what they are so that we can stay ahead of our competitors.’
Phineas looked at Arley. Odette looked at him, too.
‘Perhaps someone with experience in what a grand tour is would be an excellent candidate. Then they could make comparisons to inform the advertising and even be a spokesperson for it. They could reassure potential clients that it’s a sensible investment in their child’s education,’ Iris continued.
Lawrence. Elise. Rosanna. Even the blasted cat, sat on the window ledge, seemed to shift his attention from the milk jug to Arley.
‘There is no time to co-ordinate such a trip,’ Arley said.
‘I’ve already planned it!’ Elise leapt from her seat and pushed a folder before him. ‘If you leave the day after tomorrow, you can get the train to Dover, then a steamer. You’ll connect at Calais…’
Arley looked at the ceiling as Elise ran through the itinerary. ‘The House returns in a little over a month. I need to prepare. I really cannot—’
‘Please, your grace,’ Iris said, her eyes damp with tears. ‘Phineas cannot obtain leave from the bank, and Lawrence and Rosanna will not leave Wilhelmina so close to her confinement.’
‘What about—’
‘Odette has rehearsals.’
‘And—’
‘Elise is far too young, and she keeps so much together. And before you suggest it,’ Iris continued, ‘I cannot go. Papa remembers less each day.’ All her assertion faded, and instead, was replaced with quiet grief. ‘He barely recognises Mr Rogers, and even sometimes forgets Gena, who has been with us the longest. I’m the only one who can keep him calm. If I go, and he forgets me, he’ll have no one. I would send Hamish, but I need him. I feel selfish, but I would crumble if he left. If I could split myself into multiple pieces, I would, but I am just one woman. Would you take this on? I know Spencer and Co is one of many interests you have, but it means so much to us.’
‘One problem. Paris is a little different when you’re a duke.’ He tried to keep his voice soft. He’d always liked Abberton. His deterioration was hard to witness, but harder still was its weight on Iris.
‘You could go incognito,’ Phineas drawled. ‘At least try not telling people you’re a duke all the time. Then you could experience the city like our clients might.’
Arley felt a sudden affinity with Lawrence, in that he could easily have leaned across the table and thumped Phineas. He didn’t tell people he was a duke all the time. He didn’t have to. They simply knew.
This is what happened from stepping out of his circle. From having associates.
‘I’ll give you one week,’ he said as he closed the folder.
‘I’ve booked two—’
‘One!’
‘Very well,’ Elise said as she took back the papers. ‘I’ll change all your tickets. How exciting. One day, I’d love to go to Paris!’
Arley stood, buttoning his coat. ‘It’s highly overrated.’
