The Golden Lord

T he five boys sat cross-legged in a tight circle on the attic floor, the lantern in their center shaded so that just enough light filtered through to show the cards clutched in their hands and the hoarded heaps of coins before each of them. It was late, very late, and long past the six o’clock lock-up for the night, but no one would dare consider leaving this game.

Brant, as usual, had made sure of that. Through the sheer power of his personality, he’d made being asked to these clandestine games the most desirable invitation in the entire school, and the staggeringly high stakes that could gobble up a term’s allowance in a single hand of cards only served to increase Brant’s own mystique.

But why shouldn’t it? Brant Claremont was the sixth Duke of Strachen, Marquess of Elwes, admired as much for his wit as for his daring on the cricket field. As an orphan, he had only a distant, disinterested guardian to answer to, and his two younger brothers had been sent so far away that there wasn’t even a hint of fraternal competition. To the other boys in his form, Brant’s life seemed as close to perfection as any mortal British male could wish for.

Only Brant himself knew otherwise. Still months shy of his sixteenth birthday, he already understood all too well the terrifying obligations that his wastrel father’s death two years before had thrust upon him, along with the dukedom and a string of mortgaged, decaying properties.

Not that any of that mattered here in the chill of this drafty attic. Now Brant smiled as he leaned forward, the lantern turning his fair hair as gold as the guineas heaped before his crossed legs. He was winning, winning deep, and he did not want his luck to turn just yet.

“Your play, Galsworthy,” he said, his voice deceptively languid. “Draw or show. Any time before Michaelmas will do.”

The others sniggered nervously while the Honorable Edmund Galsworthy scowled down at his hand. “I say, Claremont, that’s cutting it a little rough,” he grumbled. “Not all of us are so deuced quick with ciphering as you are.”

“That’s why we call him the Golden Lord, Galsworthy,” said another boy, obviously with a better hand of his own. “He can turn pasteboard cards direct into guineas if you let him. Your guineas.”

“’Tis luck, no more,” murmured Brant with a modest shrug, careful to mask his own excitement. It was luck, but it was also skill, coupled with the rare gift he had for recalling cards. He could sympathize with Galsworthy’s dilemma—sympathize more, really, than anyone here would guess—but not now, and not with so much at stake. Nearly every shilling Brant won was sent off against his father’s debts, while Galsworthy’s mother was some sort of tin-mine heiress. The poor oaf could afford to lose almost in equal proportion to how desperately Brant himself needed to win.

“But you do know the rules of this game, Galsworthy,” he said. “Laggards must forfeit, else the rest of us fall asleep.”

“I’m considering, not lagging,” snapped Galsworthy, his fingers leaving moist dimples in the edges of his cards as he studied the red and black figures one last time. Slowly he puffed out his cheeks and spread his hand on the floor for the others to see.

“There now, Claremont,” he announced. “That was worth the wait, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed,” drawled Brant. He kept his expression unchanged as he fanned his own cards out on the floor in front of him. “I’d say I’ve won again, Galsworthy, and I— What the devil is that?”

Abruptly the door flew open, scattering cards and panicking boys as two large men thundered into the attic. Brant scrambled to his feet, stuffing guineas into his pockets as Conway, his boardinghouse monitor, caught him roughly by the collar of his coat while Parker, his tutor, gathered up the cards and loose coins as evidence.

“I’ll give you all the devil you can handle, Claremont,” growled Conway, yanking Brant’s feet clear from the floor. “Least I will after Dr. Keel’s through with you.”

“Dr. Keel will have little interest in this,” protested Brant as Parker now seized his arm. “This—this was harmless amusement, a mere game among gentlemen!”

“That’s not what Dr. Keel believes,” warned Conway ominously. “Now walk, you cheating little weasel. Walk!”

Brant twisted, struggling vainly to free himself from the grasp of the two stronger, older men. He heard the tear of fabric, the sound of the sleeve of his superfine coat ripping away at the shoulder, and as he turned to look, one of the men cuffed his ear, hard enough to make him see bright flashes before his eyes.

“You—you have impinged my honor as a gentleman and—and as a lord, Conway!” he gasped, desperate not to show his growing fear as the monitor shoved him stumbling toward the dark attic staircase. Of course he’d felt Conway’s wrath many times before—at Harrow even dukes were flogged regularly in the Fourth Form rooms—but never before had the monitor singled him out away from the others like this. “You cannot—cannot treat me like this!”

“I can treat you a deal worse if I please, Claremont,” said Conway. Like most of the monitors, he was a hulk of a man, able to worry even a tall boy like Brant like a terrier with a rat. “And I would, too, if Dr. Keel didn’t want you in his rooms directly. Now walk.”

This time Brant did as he was told, forcing himself not to panic, to order his thoughts as they half dragged him down the stairs and across the empty courtyard. Dr. Keel was a sensible man; surely he could be made to see this for the foolishness it was. Card-playing after lock-up was hardly the most grievous sin that took place at the school, scarcely worth this sort of melodrama.

But what if this wasn’t about the card game at all? What if Dr. Keel or one of the tutors had finally discovered his blackest, most shameful secret? Was this the reason that Conway and Parker had stopped trying to hide their contempt for him? And what if this were only the first, stumbling step to his complete disgrace and ruin, and a cell in the madhouse where he’d always suspected he belonged?

The headmaster must have been waiting for them, for he answered the door to his study at once. To Brant’s surprise, he was still dressed as precisely as if it were first dawn, instead of near midnight, but then there were whispers that Dr. Keel never slept at all, nor needed to.

“Claremont,” he said grimly, studying Brant from beneath the stiff curls of his wig. “Enter, pray.”

For once Brant did as he was told and, with a final shove from Conway, he slowly went to stand in the center of the bare floor before the headmaster’s desk. His heart pounding, he raised his chin and squared his shoulders in the torn coat, prepared to meet whatever disaster came next. He’d only been in these rooms once before, on the day he’d first arrived at the school, but from Dr. Keel’s glower, he knew better than to expect the same welcoming hospitality this time.

“Claremont,” the headmaster repeated more ominously. “Given all the blessings that your birth has showered upon your head, I’d looked for more from you.”

Brant took a deep breath to steady his words and his nerves. Despite the chill in the room, he was already sweating, his legs itching to carry him from this room and to run as quickly as they could away from this mess.

“I am sorry, sir,” he began. “And you are right. At such an hour, so long after lock-up, I should have been either asleep or preparing tomorrow’s recitation, instead of allowing myself the indulgence of a mild amusement among friends—”

“Is that what you believe your time here at Harrow is to be, Claremont?” interrupted Dr. Keel incredulously, his brows bristling together with astonishment. “Your indulgence and amusement?”

“No, sir, not at all,” said Brant hastily, realizing he could not afford another such misstep. “I should hardly presume—”

“You should hardly presume.” The headmaster paused scornfully, as if struck silent with shock, and shook his head. “How can you venture such a statement, Claremont, when all you have done since you have arrived here is presume?”

“I am sorry, Dr. Keel,” said Brant again. “But if I could—”

“Could what, you sniveling little creature?” demanded Dr. Keel, his voice ringing with his scornful anger. “Is it the list of your iniquities that you wish to hear? Is that the kind of recitation that would please you most?”

“No, sir,” said Brant wretchedly. He tried to remind himself that he was a Claremont, a peer of the realm, while Keel was no more than a lowly public school headmaster, but the agonizing weight of his secret and the dread of its discovery smothered any self-defense. “No, sir, not at all.”

“But you will hear them, Claremont, because it pleases me,” insisted the headmaster, rapping his knuckles impatiently on the desk. “I have kept tallies of what Mr. Conway and the others have reported to me. Because of your rank and the position you shall hold in the world after leaving this school, I have looked away. Most wrongly, it now seems to me, considering how often you have been caught in your amusements after lock-up.”

Ah, thought Brant with bleak resignation, now would come every last misdemeanor that Conway had caught him doing, and that he’d already been duly punished for.

“You have been apprehended fighting with boys from other boardinghouses,” intoned Keen righteously, “swimming naked at night in the pond, gaming and gambling at every opportunity, and consorting intimately with the lowest sort of chits from the village tavern. Then there is the contempt you have repeatedly shown to this school and its scholars by your inferior work.”

In spite of his resolution to stand tall, Brant caught his breath, clasping his hands behind his back to hide their trembling. Here it was, the end at last.

“You have done well enough with your recitations,” continued the headmaster, “well enough to have kept you here by your tutor’s mercy. But from your first day, your written work has been an unfailing mockery of learning. Why, an African monkey with a pen in his paw could do better than these!”

He swept a sheaf of papers from the desk, brandishing it before Brant. “And now come these. What am I to do with you, Claremont? Have you any answers to share with me by way of enlightenment?”

Keel tossed the papers back onto the desk with disgust, and Brant closed his eyes against the awful proof of his shame. He didn’t have to see his examination papers to know what gibberish was scrawled across them or what that gibberish proved. He already knew.

He was no Golden Lord, but an imbecile duke, an idiot from his cradle. That was the truth. No matter how he tried, concentrating until his head ached with the effort, he could not make sense of the letters that others so effortlessly saw as words. No such troubles plagued him with numbers—certainly not at cards—and if a page were read aloud to him, like a nursery story, he’d comprehend and recall every line with ease. Throughout his life he’d contrived scores of little tricks and feints to hide his deficiency, and he’d done well enough to keep his secret, even here.

But to read and write like a gentleman was as impossible for him as flying through the clouds. Awake at night, he imagined that inside his skull his brain was a fraction the size of a normal man’s, woefully shriveled and defective.

And now, it seemed, the rest of the world was about to learn the truth, as well, and scorn and pity and mock him for the half-wit that he’d always been.

“Speak, Claremont,” ordered the headmaster, his voice booming through Brant’s private dread. “I await your suggestions for me.”

Slowly, Brant opened his eyes and met Keel’s gaze, determined to savor what might well be his last few moments as a rational gentleman. “I have no suggestions, sir.”

“None?” Scowling, Dr. Keel thrust out his lower lip and leaned toward Brant. “You surprise me, Claremont. You have taken these other boys sufficiently into your confidence to pick their pockets clean, and yet you have no notion of what I should write or say to their fathers?”

“Fathers, sir?” repeated Brant uncertainly, not following at first. What had the other boys to do with this?

“Yes, Claremont, their fathers,” said the headmaster furiously, once again reaching for the sheaf of papers. “I have had these six letters in the past three days. The accusations are all the same. Hundreds, even thousands of pounds lost to you whilst gaming!”

“’Tis luck,” said Brant slowly for the second time that evening, and what else could it be, to spare him in this marvelous, unexpected way? “Purest luck, sir.”