“Ki—I mean, former Marquess of Kingston.”
The soldier rapped on the door then lifted an enormous ring of old keys from his belt and unlocked a padlock. He pushed the door open. “Former Marquess of Kingston to see the former Duke of Avebury.” He looked at King. “You have half an hour.”
King didn’t want even five minutes, but he forced himself to enter the chamber and not to shudder when the soldier closed the door with a clang. Like the rest of the structure, the room was made of stone, white stone that had been bricked at one point. The bricks still covered the upper part of the walls. Lower down, the brick had crumbled away, and the stone was raw and uneven, a mixture of red, white, and yellowed material.
His father stood at the window, a small, rectangular window cut into a deep recess with an arch above. He could have seen the Tower grounds if he’d stood inside the recess and looked down, but he stood just outside, hands clasped behind his back, face to the light, until he turned and gazed at King.
King stared back at him. It was impossible to look at his father and not feel as though he were looking at himself in twenty-five years. They had the same wavy brown hair, the same green eyes. They were even the same height and build. The only differences between them were the lines carved in the duke’s face and the shrewdness in his eyes. King knew he could look skeptical and even jaded, but he’d never been shrewd or cunning. Perhaps that was why his father was confined to the cell and he was not.
“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” the duke said.
“I didn’t think I’d come,” King answered.
“Why have you come? To chastise me for ruining your life? To scold me for my crimes?”
King shook his head. “I imagine you’ve had enough time alone to revisit your choices and wish you’d made others. Nothing I say will change what’s been done.” He looked about the chamber. “Not bad for a prison cell. Have they handed down the punishment yet?”
“Execution,” the duke said. “I suppose they won’t tell me until the night before. But”—he gestured to a chair as he moved to another and took a seat—“I am not the first person to await my execution within these walls.”
King took the other seat, noting it was rather comfortable for a prisoner’s chair. The room was sparsely furnished with only these chairs, a table, and a bed. But the furnishings were of good quality.
“Sir Thomas More was held here. Princess Elizabeth was held here as well. She wasn’t executed, obviously, but she must have spent many a long night wondering if that would be her fate.”
“What about her mother?”
The duke shook his head. “I’m told she was held in the Queen’s House, which is the neighboring structure, just there.” He folded his hands. “But you haven’t come for a history lesson.”
“No. I was never much of a student.”
“You never made much of an effort. You were too busy trying to find ways to be expelled from every institution—trying to garner my attention, I suppose.” King looked up sharply. The duke let out a breath. “Oh, I knew what you were about, even before you were old enough to realize why you did what you did.”
King swallowed the question that rose in his mind and forced himself to sit silently.
“You don’t have to ask it for me to know what you’re thinking.” His father leaned back. “Why didn’t I give you that attention then? Do you want the truth?”
King had come to say goodbye, but he supposed that he wanted to know why his father had done what he’d done before it was too late to ask. He made a gesture of affirmation.
“The truth is I thought you were better off away from me. Was I a traitor even then? Maybe not the first few years you were at school, but yes. I have been a traitor for a long time, George. It’s lucrative, but even more than the money, I liked the power that having knowledge the French wanted and forcing them to pay me to attain it gave me. I liked the thrill of deception and the fear of discovery. You wanted a father. I didn’t want to play that role.” The duke waved an arm. “I could sit here and say that I kept you away to protect you from being implicated in my crimes.”
King realized he was gripping the arms of the chair, and forced himself to release them.
“But I didn’t think I’d ever be caught. I just hadn’t any interest in children. That would have been your mother’s realm, but she died. I suppose I might have remarried, but why when I had an heir to my title?” The duke shrugged. “And now I have no title.”
“And I will have no father. But then, I suppose I never did.”
“Now is when I am supposed to say I regret my actions. I wish I’d spent more time with you, loved you as a father should. Do you want me to say that?”
“No.” King rose. “I’ve heard all I need to. I thought I should tell you goodbye before it was too late. I didn’t want to regret not seeing you.” He smiled ruefully. “Somehow you managed to make me regret making the effort.”
He turned to go.
“George.”
King knew he should keep walking. He didn’t want to hear whatever else his father might say. But his legs ceased moving, and he stood, back to his father, waiting.
“I do have one piece of advice for you.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Fatherly advice? This ought to be good.”
