Bone Idol (4 page)

Dawlish’s eyes narrowed and an expression Albert couldn’t quite define flashed across his face so quickly it might have been his imagination—a look of supercilious cunning that made his face quite ugly.

But then Wollaston-Franks was around the desk, clapping his father on the back and saying how pleased he was that the reverend was moving on, putting the past behind him, giving his protégé a chance to shine. And before Albert could really process anything that had happened—Dawlish’s look of low cunning, his father’s unexpected move of rapprochement towards Henry—the meeting was over and they were being ushered out of the office.

As Wollaston-Franks and his father walked ahead, deep in conversation, Albert found himself arrested by Dawlish’s hand on his sleeve. “A word of warning, Mr Boundry…

Albert… May I call you Albert?”

Albert looked at him questioningly. “Of warning, my Lord?”

“Mmmm. That fellow Elkington. Don’t trust him. He rides Sir Augustus’ coat-tails and he’s set to make his name off the backs of better and more scrupulous men. I am surprised that your father, after his recent experiences, appears to be taken in.”

Albert hesitated. He, too, was surprised by his father’s abrupt change of heart. But it was indelicate of Dawlish to allude to the flawed research paper, and there was something about the man he simply didn’t like. This poisonous whispering behind the others’ backs did nothing to endear him.

“Thank you, but I prefer to make my own judgements. And I think my father is acting gracefully. Mr Elkington did, after all, point out a genuine error that my father had overlooked. It suggests that he is not without talent. Perhaps the contributions of a man of greater youth and energy will be of benefit to my father.”

He wasn’t sure why he found himself defending Henry Elkington to this man. But then he wasn’t sure of anything when it came to Henry.

SS
Adriatic
, May 1876

The next time he saw Henry Elkington, he thought it was a dream.

He groaned and leaned his hot forehead against the cool iron railings. In spite of the brisk, salty wind, he felt feverish. In the wake of the ship the water was thrashed white by the relentless churning of the enormous screw, and if he had felt well enough to raise his head to regard the queasily oscillating prospect of the horizon, he would have seen the docks of Liverpool disappearing at more than fourteen knots an hour.

He was quite alone on the deck of the
Adriatic
. The other first class passengers were dining beneath the swaying chandeliers, trying to ignore the wine slopping out of glasses with the movement of the ship to stain expensive cuffs and waistcoats.

Albert gripped the ship’s railings more tightly and squeezed his eyes shut. His head ached abominably.

A wave of laughter and stuffy air billowed from behind him and was cut off abruptly as the doors to the state rooms swung open and then closed again. The sound echoed strangely in his poor head and, stepping back automatically to steady himself as he felt the world sway, everything about him rotating crazily around his head, he tumbled towards the heaving deck.

Around an enormous dining table, bolted to the floor but set with the finest silver and crystal, the men were bluff and jovial in their black and white evening dress. Their wives and daughters were by their sides, got up like peacocks in brightly coloured silks and brocades, heeled shoes and high, piled-up coiffeurs affected to make them appear fashionably tall.

Henry knew that the steam liner company had experimented with gas lamps on this very vessel, but the technology had proved a little ahead of itself, and so the room was lit by oil lamps and candlelight, flickering uncertainly off polished surfaces and making deep pools of shadow in the corners of the great room.

Arthur Boundry was expounding on a subject dear to his heart, and one that Henry could not help but feel uncomfortable about—betrayal by a fellow scientist.

“Of course, Marsh is a blackguard of the worst sort. He published that paper out of the purest spite, to discredit a man he knows to be a finer scientist than he. It was a mistake easily made. And, after all, the man has shown himself to have no integrity—why, I have heard that he has hired teams of thugs to take specimens from Professor Cope’s dig sites, even to destroy them with explosives if they cannot be stolen!”

Dawlish, sitting to his right, paused with his spoon suspended over a bowl of vichyssoise. His voice came out in a sort of sustained yawn, as though the effort of speaking exhausted him. He was obviously somewhat the worse for wear and his habitual drawl was exacerbated by a slight, drunken slur. He had managed to spill soup on his dinner jacket.

Henry had met him only briefly and on infrequent occasions, but he knew him well by reputation. He had reddish, curly hair and a distinct lack of chin. His clothes were ostentatiously expensive, even dandyish.

“From what I hear, they’re each as bad as the other. Neither one can call himself a gentleman.”

To Henry’s surprise, Dawlish’s wife, a pretty, mousy little thing, spoke up in a shy, musical voice. “I believe Professor Cope’s people have some odd sort of religious notions—”

But her husband cut her off almost at once. “How he squares that with the dinosaur business I can’t think—and Marsh positively reeks of new money. And they fight like cat and dog, from what I hear.”

Henry couldn’t help but notice that his eyes slid from the reverend to himself. And he saw the way Dawlish’s wife, Maude, curled in on herself. Her own parents had the distinct odour of trade about them, and it was common knowledge that her husband had married her for her money.

The reverend bristled. “God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. The greatest minds of our time have seen no reason to suppose that bone hunting is incompatible with a good and a Godly life.”

Dawlish cast him a speaking glance and his reply, when it came, was heavily laced with scepticism. “Quite so…Reverend.”

Mr Boundry, obviously flustered and made suddenly self-conscious by this remark, opened his mouth, closed it, and blinked rapidly behind his eyeglasses. He subsided into silence and concentrated on his soup.

Henry had been both flattered and relieved when Arthur had asked him to accompany him on the journey, yet somewhat baffled by his cold demeanour since they had boarded the ship.

But he had never liked bullies and did not intend to allow such behaviour to stand now, least of all from Dawlish, a man whose reputation spoke of scandal, impropriety and perhaps brutality. Certainly not of piety.

“‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth’?” he quoted. “Open up your Bible, Dawlish, and have a look at the Book of Job. If you have a copy.”

Dawlish looked both angry and contemptuous. “You’re a religious man, Elkington?”

“No,” Henry replied. “I don’t believe in God. But I do believe in courtesy.” Laying his spoon by his bowl on the once-pristine tablecloth, now marred by the many spills made inevitable by the heaving motion of the boat, he rose to his feet. There was a susurrus of conversation, some laughter, and Arthur was looking at him with a strange, thoughtful expression. Dawlish’s face had gone puce. Henry let himself quietly from the room, hoping to soothe his agitation with a turn about the deck.

As he allowed the door to swing closed behind him, he heard Dawlish say, in a low and confidential voice, “My dear Boundry, let me give you a word of warning…”

They were close enough to land that seagulls still followed the boat, swooping down low to the glassy green of the choppy waves and screaming in their peculiar, primordial voices. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that he was sailing on a prehistoric sea, with pterosaurs wheeling overhead in an orange sunset.

He thought of Professor Cope’s illustration of his ill-fated elasmosaurus doing battle with the two-legged, carnivorous Laelaps on the shore of some primaeval sea. He thought of Monsieur de la Beche’s illustration of plesiosaurus with its long neck and icthyosaurus with its dolphin-like snout, fish tail and enormous eyes, locked in mortal combat.

He imagined their forms, sleek and strange, whispering beneath the hull of the boat—

weird leviathans of the sea slipping silently like shadows below the ship.

Then, to his surprise, he realised he was not alone on the deck. A young man stood at the bows, clutching the guard rails, his head bowed. Henry could only suppose he was suffering from a
mal de mer
.

He realised with a shock, as he looked at the line of the man’s spine, at the mop of golden-brown curls, that it was Albert. He hesitated, unsure whether to engage him in conversation, offer his help, or leave him to suffer in privacy. Then Albert took an unsteady step back from the rail, half pivoted, and tumbled. Henry was fast.

Albert stirred, weakly at first, then more vigorously as he realised he was caught around the waist by a strong arm, his face pressed against a clean-smelling cotton shirt front.

Almost lifted from the deck, he moved his feet in a stumbling, dreamlike way as his rescuer guided him to a seat.

His eyes fluttered open and he found himself looking into a pair of concerned blue eyes that regarded him solemnly from only inches away. A bolt of pure, lustful awareness went straight to his cock and he jerked upright, narrowly avoiding breaking Henry’s nose with his brow, then clapped a hand over his mouth and moaned as the sudden movement caused a return of his nausea.

“Sit down, Albert,” said Henry in his quiet, authoritative way, and he reached up and took Albert’s hand in his own, pulling him down to sit so close beside him that Albert could feel the warmth of his thigh through their clothes.

Henry offered him a small metal flask, muttering in those same soothing tones, “Take a little brandy. You will find the sickness quite gone.” He smoothed a strand of damp hair tenderly from Albert’s face and held the mouth of the flask to his lips. Albert had his doubts—the smell of the brandy made his stomach roll—but Henry looked at him solemnly and nodded his encouragement, so he took a swallow.

His stomach again flipped unpleasantly but, to his surprise, his nausea subsided almost at once. He touched his tongue to his lower lip where the taste of the brandy clung, and tried to gather his wits.

Henry’s fingers held Albert’s around the brandy flask, and the contact seemed, somehow, unbearably intimate.

Albert gazed into Henry’s face. Those high cheekbones. The neatly trimmed moustache that saved the plump lower lip from femininity. His blue eyes were steady, and full of quiet www.total-e-bound.com

knowing. Albert felt sure Henry knew about the thick, heavy arousal he could feel in his trousers. Their lips were only inches apart.

Albert parted his lips, to speak…to sigh…to…

A cry of pure outrage sounded from behind him and they startled apart, unable, suddenly, to meet one another’s eyes.

His father’s face was crimson with rage and his fingers dug into his upper arm, hurting him. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Fraternising with the enemy?” He gave his son a little shake. “What’s your game, Elkington?” he roared, turning his attention to Henry without waiting for Albert to reply. “Turning my son against me now? Using my own flesh and blood against me, is it? Trying to get him on your side?”

He should have been comical—a small, myopic, rotund old man, storming and raging—but he wasn’t. Albert pried at the fingers on his arm, panicked by his father’s fury.

“Father! Please! Henry was helping me! I was indisposed—the motion of the boat…”

Henry spoke. “My side? I have no side. I assure you, sir, that I sought only to help. Your son seemed to me to be in some distress.”

The coolness in his words caused a silly pang of hurt and rejection in Albert’s heart.

Foolish, foolish.

His father’s gaze darted between them as though assessing the truth of their words, and his grip on Albert’s arm eased fractionally.

Albert, quite as capable as his father of passionate temper, shook himself free and grasped the old man’s elbow firmly. He was ashamed of his father’s outburst, and that hot, slow feeling in his gut was stoked into anger by Henry’s apparent indifference. “Come, Father. I think you have embarrassed yourself—and me—quite enough for one day.” He half led, half dragged his father in the direction of their cabin, casting an apologetic glance over his shoulder at Henry as he went.

Henry stood absolutely still and straight, watching them go. He didn’t move a muscle.

But his eyes locked with Albert’s, and it seemed to Albert that there was a message there.

Back in his cabin, Albert chewed on his bottom lip and puzzled over his father. He had seemed so unpredictable lately, so aggressive. He was hiding something—something to do with Henry and
Streptosaurus boundrii
. Something about the new find at the dig in Wyoming.

The thought of Henry made his heart twist miserably in his chest, and he didn’t know why.

When, later in the evening, his father came to his cabin, his mood had changed again.

He seemed brighter, almost jovial.

“Albert,” he said, perching himself on the edge of the bed. His gaze was steady and direct. “I fear I owe you an apology. Whomever else I might have reason to distrust, I know full well I can trust you. You have always been a dutiful son and my words were unwarranted—indeed, unforgiveable.

“But I do forgive you,” Albert said. “I only want to know what is making you so worried and so…so angry. Is it Mr Elkington? Is it because of his discrediting your research paper?”

Arthur’s gaze remained steady, but Albert noticed that his hand trembled just a fraction. “I had thought that inviting Mr Elkington on this voyage would show the world that I am a magnanimous man, that our apparent friendship would show the world that we are men of science, moving forward together in the pursuit of the truth. And I thought…I thought that if he was present for my grand discovery the world could not doubt its validity.”

Albert smiled gently. “And I believe you are right, Father.”

His father squeezed his eyes shut, and Albert was bewildered when he said, “But he’s
so
bright. So perceptive…” He opened his eyes again. “No, I have made a mistake. I should not have allowed him to come anywhere near my new find. It’s far too risky.”