Lord Elliston, I had discovered over the course of three separate social occasions, was a man whose enthusiasm for the agricultural potential of the eastern counties showed no signs of diminishing with repetition, and who had apparently concluded that the opening of the winter ball was an entirely appropriate occasion to revisit the subject.
"The yield differential," he said, steering us through the first figures with the mechanical confidence of a man who learned his steps decades ago and has never had cause to doubt them, "between the eastern and southern fields was rather remarkable this year. Remarkable."
"One imagines so," I said.
"The drainage improvements made all the difference." He beamed. "All the difference."
"How very gratifying," I said, with the expression I had developed specifically for conversations that required sustained warmth without sustained attention. Lord Elliston had proved an excellent occasion for its use.
"I was saying to Cavendish only last week—"
"Indeed," I said. "And what was Cavendish's view?"
Lord Elliston's expression brightened considerably, which was my cue that I had opened a subject of some depth and would not be closing it for some time.
"His view," Lord Elliston said, "was rather similar to Lord Pemberton's, which is to say, he was enthusiastic in principle and somewhat vague on the particulars, which in my experience is the position of a man who has not yet examined the drainage question with the seriousness it deserves."
"Quite," I said, with what I trusted was an expression of a woman attending carefully to the drainage question and finding it all it deserved.
I was not, I should note, entirely without guilt about this. Lord Elliston was a perfectly agreeable man. He simply had, by some quirk of temperament and circumstance, a passion for the drainage of the eastern counties and limited capacity to communicate it in a manner that kept his interlocutors genuinely present for the duration.
I was conducting, in parallel with this conversation, a rather more interesting one with the room at large, which I had developed the habit of reading with the same attention one applies to correspondence — selectively, quickly, with an eye for the things that require response and the things that can wait.
Damian had been reinstated three days prior.
The conversation that produced his reinstatement had been brief — briefer than the situation perhaps warranted, which was a choice we had made jointly and without discussion, in the manner of two people who have had rather a great deal said already and have agreed, without saying so, to allow the said things to settle before adding to them.
He had thanked me for restoring the position. I had told him it was worth restoring. He had said he intended to be worth the reinstatement. I had told him I expected nothing less.
Neither of us had mentioned a Tuesday evening in a working room off the east corridor.
This was correct. It was appropriate. It was also, I should be honest, rather difficult to sustain for three consecutive days without the discipline wearing somewhat thin at the edges.
We had been conducting ourselves with the professional precision of two people who have a clear recent understanding and are applying it conscientiously. This was the right approach.
Moderate success remained the operative description.
He was across the room when I located him — positioned near the east wall with the characteristic economy of a man who has assessed a space and chosen the point from which the most is visible. He was observing Lord Ashby's conversation with the Hessian ambassador with the specific focused interest of a man who has identified something that warrants identification.
I noted his posture. The economy of it — the absence of anything unnecessary, every degree of attention directed toward a single objective. I noted the set of his jaw, the particular angle of his head.
The way, when he listened to something that mattered, his whole frame became very slightly more still than usual, as though the body understood that this was not the moment for unnecessary motion.
I had been cataloguing these things, I realised, for rather longer than I had previously acknowledged to myself.
I was, I noted further, noting a great deal, and doing so with the specific thoroughness of a woman who has told herself she is simply being observant and is becoming increasingly unconvinced by her own account.
"The eastern field," Lord Elliston said, "has historically underperformed relative to—"
"Quite so," I said.
"The eastern field," Lord Elliston said, "has historically underperformed relative to its—"
"Quite so," I said, which was the response that required the least participation on my part and was therefore rather more frequently useful than its apparent simplicity suggested. "The eastern field presents remarkable opportunities."
Lord Elliston appeared delighted by this.
I returned my attention to the eastern wall, where Damian was still watching the Hessian ambassador, and Lord Ashby had taken out a small notebook, which was, I thought, either a sign of genuine interest or a sign of something rather more concerning, and I was not entirely certain which.
The dance concluded. Lord Elliston thanked me with the genuine warmth of a man whose dance partner has exceeded all expectations by appearing to find drainage of interest.
I excused myself and was navigating the periphery of the room when Damian appeared at my elbow with the characteristic efficiency of a man who has assessed the geography of the space and identified the optimal approach vector.
"The Hessian ambassador," he said, without preamble, "has been asking questions he has no business asking."
I glanced toward where Lord Ashby was now standing alone, the notebook returned to his pocket. "What variety of questions?"
"The variety pertaining to the crown's position on certain eastern trade routes and the likelihood of particular regulatory changes. Questions one might ask if one were gathering intelligence on behalf of a party with a commercial interest in the answer."
"Or," I said, "a political one."
"Or," he agreed.
I considered this for a moment. "Then I shall answer them," I said, "in a manner he has no business understanding."
Damian looked at me. Something shifted at the corner of his mouth — not the preliminary motion of a smile, not this time, but the thing itself, brief and entirely unguarded, the variety that appeared when a man had forgotten, for a moment, to be anything other than pleased.
"You are going to be rather good at this," he said.
"Rather good is a modest ambition," I said. "One ought to aim considerably higher."
"It is a starting point," he said. "Most things of consequence begin there, and then improve with practice."
"Are you suggesting I require practice?"
"I am suggesting," he said, with the specific quality of composure of a man making a point he has been waiting some time to make, "that you are already rather formidable, and that formidable things generally become more so over time, and that the people in this room have not yet entirely understood what they are dealing with. They will."
I regarded him with the mild interest of a woman receiving a compliment that is simultaneously rather more than a compliment. "That," I said, "was unusually direct."
"You have mentioned before that you find it refreshing," he said, with complete innocence.
"I find it," I said, "various things simultaneously."
He looked at me for a moment — that specific quality of attention, focused and unhurried — and then returned his gaze to the room in the manner of a man who has made his observation and is now applying himself to the next one.
I looked at the room also. The Hessian ambassador had located Lord Fenwick, which was either innocuous or interesting, and I was inclined to assume interesting.
I was, I reflected, rather glad to have him back.
I did not say this. But I thought it with a conviction that was rather more thorough than I had expected, and considerably more than I was presently equipped to do anything particularly useful about.