A Star Shall Fall

At least it seemed a miracle, to the outside observer. Galen knew why the fellow had become a footman in the St. Clair household, and why he stayed: Lune had sent him, after the passing of his previous master, the late Prince. Though not himself a faerie, Edward Thorne was the natural son of one of Lune’s knights by a mortal woman, and as such was a perfect go-between for the two worlds.

It also meant Edward, unlike Galen’s father, did not assume Galen had spent his night carousing in a Haymarket brothel. “Late night at court?” he asked, only a little too briskly, whisking the peruke from his master’s head.

Galen leaned forward in the chair to let Edward slide the tightly fitted coat from his shoulders. “I only wish it were,” he said. “No, for once Father’s assumptions will be something like right: I spent my night drinking, and haven’t slept.”

His eyes were closed, but he heard the brief silence as Edward paused, before laying his coat aside and fetching a fresh shirt. “You don’t sound as if you enjoyed yourself.”

“I didn’t.” The strength he took from Lune’s confidence had vanished like the morning dew after he left her presence. He’d sought inspiration in brandy, and not found it.

A cool glass pressed into his hand. Galen sniffed, eyes still closed. Water, carrying a dose of Dr. Taunton’s Fortifying Drops. He drank the mixture down, sighed, and addressed himself to the washbasin, which Edward had just filled. It had the salutary effect of waking him, though the chill splash made his headache worse.

“He had his electrical treatment last night,” Edward warned, helping Galen into another shirt. “But it doesn’t seem to have taken well. It’s been a devil of a morning already.”

To that, there seemed no suitable response other than a groan.

But delaying would not help anything except the progress of his hangover, and so a short while later, with fresh clothes and wig alike to give him a semblance of dignity, Galen descended the stairs to his father’s study, to beard the lion in his book-lined den.

Charles St. Clair had none of the appearance of a lion, being fat and gouty, with a sombre black bagwig and a coat of brick red. He was in his most comfortable chair when Galen entered, with one shoeless foot propped up in front of him—a sure sign that his leg pained him. At the sound of the door, he did not look up from the ledger balanced on his other knee, but made Galen wait in silence for several long minutes, before finally clapping the ledger shut and fixing his son with a gimlet eye.

“When you are married,” St. Clair said, biting off each word, “then you may keep the hours you please, and your wife will suffer the consequences—but while you still live under my roof, boy, you will behave like a civilised man. I won’t have you creeping in the servants’ entrance after cockcrow, after wasting your night in God knows what debauchery.”

There was nothing Galen could say to this. He could hardly tell his father it was a faerie court, not a brothel, that occupied his hours, and no other response had done much good. Galen had tried them all. So he simply waited, head bowed, for his father to move past the opening pleasantries and into the reason for this summons.

St. Clair snorted in disgust. “Can’t even speak up for yourself, just stand there like a spineless worm. I pity the woman saddled with you: she’ll find herself with a wife, not a husband.”

Marriage. Unease churned the medicine and lingering spirits in Galen’s stomach. He should have guessed this might be his father’s purpose. They scarcely talked, save on a small number of unwelcome topics. “I should not want to make myself a burden on any woman,” he ventured to say, “until I was sure I could be worthy of her.”

“Too bad for her, whoever she is.” St. Clair creaked his way to his feet, grunting as his stockinged toes touched the floor, and went to his desk, where he dropped the ledger with a thud. “You will find yourself a wife, boy, and you will do it soon.”

Galen flinched. That was even blunter than usual. “Sir—I cannot simply go through London, weighing women for their dowries, and make my offer when I find a purse heavy enough.”

“Why not? The St. Clair name is a good one, even if its finances are somewhat more tattered. London throngs with rich men eager to marry their daughters into a better family. Your youth will hardly signify—some might consider it a selling point.” St. Clair snorted again. “I dare say you can even find a pretty one, if you look hard enough.”

The words came out before he could stop them. “And affection?”

His father didn’t say anything; the silence was enough. Less than it could have been, in fact; the last time Galen had said anything of the sort, he’d been clouted over the ear for it. But he was not foolish enough to mistake the silence for any kind of softening on his father’s part.