Jeb looked beyond awed. He took the coins Dalziel handed him, stared at them. “’Ere—this is way too much.”
“No,” Dalziel said. “Believe me, it’s not. If I had my way you’d get a medal.”
Jeb looked uncertain. “All I did was drive ’im here from Tothill. It ain’t even that far.”
“Nevertheless. You did your country a great service today. If I was you, I’d take the rest of the day off.”
“Aye.” Jeb shook his head, studying the largesse in his palm. “I might just do that.” He bobbed his head, started to turn away, then looked back, weaving to look past Dalziel and Gasthorpe at Ben. “Anytime you come back to the capital, nipper, you keep an eye out for Jeb.”
Ben beamed his huge, little-boy’s smile. “I will. Good-bye. And thank you!”
“Seems it’s me should be thanking you,” Jeb mumbled as he headed off down the path to the street where his mare stood patiently waiting.
Dalziel turned back to the group in the front hall.
Ben looked up at him, curious and intrigued. “I don’t know you.”
Dalziel smiled at Ben; Gervase blinked. It wasn’t the sort of smile he was accustomed to seeing on his ex-commander’s face. Boyishly charming wasn’t the half of
it.
“You don’t know me yet, but you will.” His gaze on Ben’s face, Dalziel waved to the stairs. “Let’s go up to the library and you can tell us all—all the gory details of your kidnap, confinement and escape.” Effortlessly, with no more than a look, he drew Ben to him and turned with him to the stairs. “Have you breakfasted yet?”
“No.” The thought of food brought Ben up short; he started to turn to Madeline.
“No matter. Gasthorpe—you’ve met the redoubtable Gasthorpe, haven’t you?”
Ben shot a shy grin at Gasthorpe, who had shut the door and was now waiting by the side of the hall for his orders.
“Gasthorpe,” Dalziel continued, with just a touch on Ben’s shoulder steering him up the stairs, “will bring sustenance suitable for your years. You can eat while you set your sister’s mind at rest.”
Ben glanced back at Madeline, but seeing her following in his wake with Gervase beside her, meeting her encouraging if misty-eyed smile, he grinned, looked ahead, and happily trooped up the stairs.
When they were all in the library, comfortable in armchairs set about the hearth, while Ben wolfed down the cheese and ham sandwich Gasthorpe had provided, Gervase caught Christian’s eye and saw his own bemusement reflected there. It was patently clear who had elected himself Ben’s interrogator.
For one moment, Gervase wondered if he should resent Dalziel’s claim, but he wanted Ben to look upon him as an unthreatening, always trustworthy friend, and acting as an interrogator, even in relatively mild fashion, wasn’t a good way to nurture such a connection. So he sat back and watched, quietly fascinated, as his ex-commander displayed a side of himself none of his ex-operatives had imagined he possessed.
Sitting opposite Ben, who was ensconced in the chair between Madeline’s and Gervase’s, Dalziel exuded the sort of blatant confidence guaranteed to fix a boy’s attention; the command that confidence concealed was subtle, yet still there, giving his performance a near-irresistible edge.
He waited with feigned patience until Ben had finished the sandwich and drained his glass of milk before commencing, with an easy, encouraging smile. “Now—let’s start from when you were sitting on the bench outside the inn in Helston. The man who approached you—what did he say?”
Wriggling forward in the chair, Ben dutifully replied, “He asked how to get to the London road. He said he had to meet a man with a carriage there, and was lost, and time was running out. He offered me a shilling to show him the quickest way.”
Ben colored and shot a glance at Madeline. “I know I shouldn’t have taken the money, but it wasn’t far, and it was daylight and people were about.”
Madeline reached out and touched his hand.
“Indeed,” Dalziel said, his tone even. “So you’ll know not to do it next time. So you showed this man to the London road, then he picked you up and slung you in the carriage.”
Ben nodded. “It was a big black traveling carriage—it had four horses.”
“And they tied you up and gagged you and whisked you off to London.”
“Yes.” Ben paused, then volunteered, “But they didn’t hurt me or anything, not even when I kicked their shins.”
Dalziel nodded. “They were under orders to keep you hale and whole.” He paused, then went on, “So they brought you to London, to some place in the slums.”
“Was that the slums?” Ben glanced at Gervase, who nodded. “It was awfully dirty.”