“Come,” he called when someone tapped on the door.
Mawgan stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and stood with his arms hanging at his sides and his gaze fixed on the carpet two feet in front of him.
“You were the late Viscount Barclay’s batman for almost two years, Mawgan?” Percy said.
“Yes, my lord.”
“You did not like the life of a fisherman?” Percy asked.
“I did not mind it,” Mawgan said.
“How did it come about, then? Did Barclay not have a valet?” He surely would have been the obvious choice for the position of batman. He might have been elderly, of course, but it was unlikely when Barclay himself had been a very young man.
“He died, my lord.”
“The valet?”
“He drowned,” Mawgan explained. “He was on a day off and wanted to go out fishing in my father’s boat. He fell in. He couldn’t swim. I jumped in and tried to save him, but he fought me in his panic and we went under the boat and I got knocked on the head. Someone pulled me out, but I didn’t come round for two whole days after. He didn’t make it, poor bugger—begging your pardon, my lord.”
Percy stared at him. Mawgan had not changed posture at all. He was still staring at the carpet.
“Your appointment was in the nature of being a reward, then, for trying to save the valet’s life?” he asked. “You are the great-nephew of Mr. Ratchett, I believe?”
“I think he put in a word for me, my lord,” Mawgan said, “after Bains would not let his boy go. But his lordship called at our house to see me after I came around, and I asked myself.”
“You saw him and the viscountess being captured by a French scouting party?” Percy asked.
“I did, my lord,” Mawgan said. “There were nothing I could do to stop it. There were six of them, and I did not even have my musket with me. It would have been suicide if I had tried. I thought the best thing to do was get back to the regiment as fast as I could and fetch help. But it was a long way and I got lost in the hills in the night. It took me more than a day.”
“You assumed, did you,” Percy asked, “that they had both been killed?”
“They was obviously not French,” Mawgan said, “and his lordship was not in uniform and had nothing on him to prove he was an officer. I thought they were for sure both dead. I would have stayed on in the Peninsula if I had believed there was any hope. But I was not even allowed to go with the party that went looking for them. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, that was, but I wanted to go all the same. It would have been something to do. It is worst of all to have nothing to do.”
And yet, Percy thought, his head gardener seemed to be making a career of doing just that. “And so you came home,” he said.
“I wish I had stayed, my lord,” Mawgan assured him. “I felt that bad when I knew her ladyship was still alive and had been released and brought home all out of her mind like. I might have been some comfort to her, a familiar face.”
... all out of her mind like.
Imogen!
“Thank you,” Percy said briskly. “I wish I had known Viscount Barclay. He was a distant cousin of mine and a brave man. A hero. You were privileged to know and serve him.”
“I was, my lord,” the man agreed.
“What do you know about this smuggling business?” Percy asked.
“Oh, I don’t know nothing,” Mawgan assured him. “And it would not surprise me, my lord, if there isn’t nothing to know. I think someone must of been spinning yarns at you to make you think there is smuggling going on here. Once upon a time maybe, but not now. I know most of the servants don’t tell me nothing because I am head gardener, but I would have caught some whisperings. I haven’t heard nothing.”
Percy knew a great deal about double negatives. Some of his knowledge had entered his person via the cane of one of his tutors across his backside, though most of it had entered through the front door of his brain. I don’t know nothing was probably the exact truth. But short of applying hot needles to Mawgan’s fingernails, there was no more information to be gathered, he understood. He had just wanted to be quite clear on the matter. He sighed aloud.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said. “However, it is as well that everyone here understand just where I stand. You will keep your ear to the ground, Mawgan? And let me know if you hear anything? You have been a loyal servant, I can see.”
“I certainly will, my lord,” Mawgan said, “though I don’t expect there will be nothing to tell. These are good people here. My great-uncle has always said so and I have seen so for myself.”
“Thank you,” Percy said. “I will not keep you from your busy duties any longer.”
Mawgan backed out without once looking up.
Percy was feeling cold even though he stood with his back to the fire. Barclay had received two threatening letters before he went to the Peninsula. His valet, who would surely have accompanied him as his batman, had died accidentally in a boating accident. Bains, who had pleaded to go in his place, had been deemed by his father to be too young, though fourteen was really not very young for a boy. Mawgan had been appointed through a combination of heroism in a losing cause and the influence of Ratchett, who was his mother’s uncle. Mawgan had been conveniently out of the way—without his musket—when the French scouting party took Barclay and Imogen. Then he got lost on the way back for help. When he came home here, he was given the post of head gardener.