The Young Gentleman's Guide to Courtship

By A. Swindon.

Printed & Bound in London by J. Johnson & Sons

19 April, Late morning. — It's Father's idea that I go to the Sellings' for elevenses. I'm not exactly opposed to it, although there's probably other things I would much rather be doing. Yet Father insists, and so I go. After all, when I told him Solomon Selling had given me his approval on his family's behalf, he actually encouraged me — something I'm not used to.

It's my idea that we go out for a walk afterward. For one thing, I'm irritated by Cornelius's constant prattling about things he knows nothing about. My temples begin to throb when the younger relatives finish their tea and biscuits, and start a game of hide-and-go-seek around the dining room. And between the two Selling brothers and their wives, I don't know who's more boring.

But now, as we walk towards the Mall and St James's Park, with Wells skulking along behind us, I can feel my spirits lifting. It's no mystery why I'm glad he's here, and I intend to tell him so before it's too late.

"Oh, look." Marjorie points to a man wheeling a cart topped with a striped umbrella down the path just inside the park. "Kettle corn. Shall we get some?"

"Why not." I shrug. The only thing I'd eaten back at the Selling house was a cucumber sandwich and a slice of biscotti. Marjorie, who'd been seated next to me, hadn't touched a crumb of anything.

We continue down the Mall until we turn into the park at Marlborough Road. I'm reminded suddenly of Lily Kirkland as Marjorie tugs me towards the lake with our elbows linked. Even after her polite conversation with Wells I can tell she's put off by him — but perhaps that's because he won't stop glowering.

"I hope you don't mind my feeding the ducks while we're here," Marjorie says, finally letting go of me as we step onto the bridge.

"I'm certain they won't mind it," I answer, and that seems to appease her for the moment. I drop back to walk next to Wells. "Will you stop glaring at her?"

"I can't help it. She's not very endearing to me." He narrows his eyes.

"At least get rid of that scowl." I nod in Marjorie's direction. "It's making her nervous."

"Do you care for her?" he asks, with no warning.

"I'm sorry?" That question throws me for a moment.

"I mean do you care about her? Have any feelings?"

I take a deep breath. "If you mean romantic feelings..."

"Yes. That is what I mean."

I watch her, tossing the remnants of her kettle corn to the ducks. Besides our plans to see the continent under the pretence of courtship, I didn't see our future going further. I could never have Cornelius as a brother-in-law, especially if he manages to find someone as detestable as him.

"If you want my honest answer, no," I say. "I've got no intentions with her."

"Then what are you doing with her?" Wells presses. "Surely you're not still trying to please your father. After what we've found out."

I try not to let that comment get to me. Of course I'm trying to please him, although like Wells I don't know why I persist. Father clearly cares about nothing but himself and his own reputation. "They invited me. So I went."

"Do you just willingly go to anything you're invited to?" Wells sounds exasperated. I don't know why you do it, his subtext says.

"Sometimes it's unwillingly, but yes."

At that, just the ghost of a smile crosses Wells's face. "So you're not the rigorous follower of Society that I took you for."

I can clearly tell he's joking, so I just shrug. "What am I supposed to do?"

"You could just tell her," he says, all joking gone. His eyes shutter and go dark.

"How could I...? After what happened?"

"She needs the truth, Wilkes," he says. "If not for you, then for her. It's what she deserves."

"Wells, she hardly knows me, I couldn't tell her..." I suddenly trail off when I realise he's not talking about Marjorie anymore. "It would break her heart."

He seems to realise I've caught on. "She's strong. She'll survive."

"No, Wells." I turn to him. "She deserves love. Happiness. And someone who can give that to her."

One of his eyebrows arches. "Will it be you? Because I think plenty of other girls will be coming after you when the time comes."

As much as I don't like the thought of it, he's right. Debutantes would be throwing themselves in my way left and right, every one of them wanting to earn the Wilkes family favour. It's all a ridiculous game, anyway, and besides, if I had a choice, I wouldn't have anyone who was picked for me.

"After we've finished here, would you mind if I come round to yours?" I ask. I don't like the thought of breaking Naomi's heart, not now. "I want to tell her in person."

Wells nods slowly. "I think that could be arranged."

—

Later, afternoon. — As soon as I see her, I know I can't do it. She looks so happy to see me, and I don't want to ruin it. I would wait, but I know Wells would find out sooner or later. So I have to tell her something. Another thing I've been keeping back.

So once Wells disappears into the dining room, presumably to fetch something, I turn to Naomi. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright, and her hair escapes its pins all over the place.

"I need to tell you something," I say. "Is there somewhere more...private?"

"Yes...this way." She takes my hand, so naturally, and tugs me towards the back of the house. We step out the back door in the kitchen and into the back garden — although it's hardly a garden, because there's no flowers. It's simply empty dirt plots with overgrown gravel paths snaking through them.

"There's no easy way to say this, Naomi," I manage, because she's looking at me with an unfamiliar eagerness. It's a bit off-putting, for the news I'm about to give her. "When we're old enough, I'm going to court Marjorie Selling."

Her expression teeters, then tumbles straight into crestfallen. The colour leaves her cheeks, and a furrow appears in her brow.

"You're still...going forward with that?" she says in a small voice.

"I've...well...earned her father's favour. And we get on well together." Never mind that I don't feel anything beyond friendliness towards her, and that's all she will ever get.

"You get on well with me," she points out. "And yet I see you making no plans to court me."

"I wish it was that simple, Naomi, but..." I understand Wells's frustration with me. I know things about my father now that were unforgivable, and yet here I am still trying to please him.

"I understand, Langdon," she says softly, laying one hand on my arm. Her eyes are sad. "Her standing in society is far more suited to you than mine."

"If I'd had it my way, I'd have asked you, truly," I say quickly, as she turns away. "There are many traits you have that she never will."

She smiles, then gently kisses my cheek. "You are very kind to say so."

I don't get a chance to say anything further. The back door opens and Wells's head pokes out. "There you two are. I've been looking for you, Wilkes. There's something you ought to see."

I glance between him and Naomi. She nods and mouths Go at me, and I give her a small smile — which she returns — before I trot up the back steps to Wells.

"You told her?" Wells says, when he's shut the door behind us.

"Yes," I say, but wisely don't mention anything further. He knows she can take the news, but I don't have the heart to tell her I don't have feelings for her in that way.

"I think it's time we take another look at Trotter," says Wells, immediately scooping a book from the dining room table when we enter and handing it to me. "I've marked a page that I think might be of interest to you."

I open the book to the marked page and read it quickly, then again, slower. I shake my head. "Vampire babes? Like Giff?"

"Yes," says Wells, leaning the heels of his hands on the edge of the table. "The King's Bench Street vampire Family has confirmed that many of their babes have gone missing. As have many other vampire Families around London. I've reasons to believe this is why."

"What would Trotter have to gain from this?" It seems impossible, and yet somehow, completely plausible. "Is he helping Father?"

"It's likely," Wells says. "But there are too many holes to make firm conclusions, Wilkes. And the addition of the blood-binding only makes it more complicated."

"I don't understand...if Father wants me to be a vampire hunter, then...how is this helping?"

"Like I said, nothing's clear yet," Wells says, rubbing the back of his head. "Except one thing that we do know is that your father and Trotter need to be stopped. They're disrupting the entire system that makes hunters and creatures work."

"Father believes they're expendable," I say, leafing through the book. There's a section on werewolves, fae, spectres, even zombies. "He thinks he can skim from the pool and not change the level of the surface."

Wells raises an eyebrow. "Quite a metaphor there, Wilkes."

I shrug in response.

"Listen...I'm glad you were honest with Naomi. She pines after you, and every time I see it I wish she'd at least try not to. Even if feelings are feelings." He looks away, saying all of it to the wood of the table.

"I don't like Marjorie," I blurt. "Not in the way everyone thinks."

"I didn't think you did," Wells says. "But I also don't think you like Naomi in the way she thinks."

That statement throws me for a moment. "What?"

"How do you feel about women, Wilkes? Be honest." Wells's eyes flick up to me, his brow still low. "You certainly don't treat them like your mates do."

"That's because I don't think women are just things to look at," I say, with a noticeable edge in my voice. "They're people, with thoughts and emotions. And opinions."

"Yes, but do you see one becoming the object of your affection? Not because your father says so, but because of how you feel?"

I hesitate, because before now I'd never thought of it. "I don't know," I answer honestly.

"I thought the first time I had feelings for a boy, something was wrong with me," says Wells. "It felt off, but I couldn't make myself look at a girl the same way. I didn't understand it. Other boys my age did it so easily. Thoughtlessly."

I say nothing. It's not because I don't agree with him. It's because I do — I've had inklings of the same kinds of feelings. I see the way Isham and Seaton treat women, as if they're prey that needs to be caught. Being stuck in a boys' school must be extremely difficult. And I'd been under the impression I'd feel that way too, one day. That a girl was something to be caught and kept. I never did, though, and meeting Wells has shattered all of those notions.

"I'm not trying to force anything from you, Wilkes," he says. "I don't want you to feel the need to confess to something you're not ready to. I just want you to know...you're not alone, if you think you do have those feelings."

"Father wouldn't want me to," I say automatically. I remember his words — No son of mine will ever love another man — and know I could never tell him if it turns out to be true. I have to keep up the charade, of courting, of basking in the Sellings' attention, of wooing Marjorie, of intending to marry her. "I mean...I don't know, Wells, it's all so...it's confusing, I..."

"Wilkes, it's all right," he says. Then he's rounding the table and his hand's landing on my upper arm and I feel something like an electric shock shoot down my nerve endings. It surprises me but not too drastically, making me realise that my feelings are possibly not as tangled as I'm making them. "Don't pressure yourself to decide. If you don't know, you don't know. And you can't force it."

I look over at him. I notice the way the light turns his hair a golden-bronze and his eyes sea-foam green, traces the contours of his brow bone, cheekbone, and jawline. He looks like a Renaissance painting, a figure caught in a fresco.

"Wilkes," he says quietly. Then, after a moment: "Langdon."

I smile at the sound of my name coming from him. "Wells."

The corner of his mouth does something odd — like he wants to smile but won't allow it. "Don't rush into anything, that's all I'm saying. Because the time you take now is a lot more valuable than the guilt you'll have later."

"I'll remember that," I say, and I will. Perhaps I'll need some more serious thought after this.

Wells's hand squeezes, just barely, on my shoulder. Then he lets go, and I know he agrees.

—

20 April, morning. — Father comes to breakfast late the next morning, when I've nearly finished, with a proposal.

"Langdon, the Bromley Hunters' Guild is sending out a small group of hunters to investigate some incidents in Bath. I spoke to Augustus Selling, and he is willing to take you along."

That surprises me. "When would this be?"

"Over the first weekend of your half-term, which is perfect timing for you to be able to return to your studies once you're back in the city."

"Who else is going?" I ask. I know it won't be anyone I know or particularly like.

He lists the others — Cornelius Selling, his father, and a couple older hunters whose sons I've had classes with — and doesn't even notice he's lost my interest. Between Cornelius's punchable face and the rest of the men far older than me, I know I won't get much out of it unless I have some of my own help. This may be a good time to look further into Father's plans. After all, even though Father doesn't want me to know, I'm aware he decamps to Bath every chance he gets. I have a feeling he thinks that if he takes his machinations outside of London, he'll be less suspect. But considering what I know about him now, he's made himself the opposite.

"I'd have to start packing soon, wouldn't I?" I say, although the question's rhetorical. Father wants me out of the house for a few days, probably so he can hide evidence he doesn't want me finding by accident.

"I should think so," he says, his bushy brows knitting. "Their train leaves the day after tomorrow, and I expect you to be with them."

"Of course, Father," I say, although I have no intention of being alone.

—

Later. — After Father leaves I head straight for the Hudsons'. He doesn't have to know I've done this, and it's better this way in the long run. He might despise the Hudsons, but I've found them to be more valuable than all my fellow Institute students combined.

But when I ring their bell and the door opens, I don't expect to see a thin stooped man, dressed in a nightshirt with a robe flapping open over it. He has Wells's green eyes, jawline, and cheekbones, and I realise this must be their father Septimus, driven mad by ghost possession. He isn't an old man — even with his hunched shoulders I can see he must have been tall once — and with one look at his face I understand where Wells's shrewd, pinpointed focus comes from.

"Eh?" he says, squinting at me. "You the new delivery boy?"

"Mr Hudson, sir, my name's Langdon Wilkes, I'm—"

Before I can finish his hand shoots out and closes around my neck, and then he's slamming me into the doorjamb. His green eyes blaze, and his mouth is curled into a snarl.

"Wilkes," he hisses, and flecks of spit land on my face as he does. "You're not wanted here."

I can only rasp out a "Sorry" around his tight grip. In fact, I can hardly move, and the strength I feel in his hand surprises me dimly. He's not old, feeble, or weak—no question about it.

"Papa!" Naomi's voice comes from further inside, and then she's at his side. "Let go of him!"

"He's Wilkes's spawn, Juliette, look at him," growls Hudson. "I should throw him out."

"Papa, please." Naomi's brow furrows deeply, and she closes her hand around his wrist — the one attached to the hand currently crushing my windpipe. "Let go. Langdon is a friend."

"He will corrupt our children," Hudson protests. "Turn their hearts black inside."

"Let go," Naomi says firmly. She tugs at his hand and it loosens just slightly. "Now."

At that his fingers snap open and release me. I slump against the doorjamb and rub at my neck, and Naomi gives me an apologetic look over her shoulder as she guides him to the stairs.

"Just wait a moment here, Langdon," she says to me. To her father, she says, "Get back in bed, Papa. I'll have your elevenses up shortly."

"The baby, Juliette," says Hudson. "The baby is crying again."

"Please, Papa." I hear a pleading in her voice. "Just...wait upstairs, all right? I'll only be a moment."

He relents, after a minute of conflicted glances at me and at her, and shuffles up the stairs mumbling under his breath. Naomi turns back to me, a fresh pain in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Langdon," she says, worrying at her bottom lip. "Papa wasn't supposed to be out of bed."

"It's all right." I push myself off the doorjamb and inch inside, rubbing at my neck — although I try to make it appear that I'm only straightening my necktie. I don't want to make her feel worse.

"May I ask what brings you by? I'm afraid you've just missed Wells...he's gone so often now."

"That may be my doing," I say apologetically. "I got him into it."

"No, it's him too," she says. "He wanted to involve himself."

I nod but say nothing as she leads me back to the kitchen. It looks like she was in the middle of preparing her father's elevenses: a teapot, teacup, and a plate half-full of shortbread biscuits sits on a tray on the table.

"I wish you hadn't met Papa like that," she says, concentrating on filling the plate with more biscuits. "Ever since the ghost-madness, he hasn't been the same...he was so different before, you wouldn't have recognised him..."

"It's really all right, Naomi," I say, when her voice trails off. "I know how it affects him."

"Still..." She takes a deep breath and closes her hands into fists. "It's...I'm sorry you had to see it, I..."

"Juliette," I say, filling the silence again. "Was that your mother?"

Naomi's shoulders tense. "Yes. I've been told I look just like her."

"If you don't mind me asking...how long has it been? Since...?" I don't finish, letting the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

"Seventeen years," she says softly. "She died the day after I was born. I never knew her."

"Naomi..."

"Papa was touched by the ghost-madness when I was eight. Wells remembers him better, the way he used to be. And...it took a long time for him to...progress. He just had nightmares at first...waking ones...and then his memories started going too, year by year...he doesn't even know who I am anymore...thinks I'm Mama..."

I pull her close before her first sob comes out, and hold her tightly as she buries her face in my shoulder. I can't imagine living like this every day, knowing that your own father doesn't even recognise you. I know what it's like to live without a mother. But I can't possibly imagine what it must be like for Wells and Naomi, to have practically raised themselves.

"I'm sorry, Langdon," she says, after a few shuddering breaths. "I've never been able to tell anyone that before...I don't mean to push it all on you, I just...I don't have anyone..."

"You've got me now," I say, tightening my arms. "No matter what happens. You can tell me anything, Naomi. Promise. I'm not going to judge you."

"You mean...even after everything with Marjorie Selling and her family?" She pulls back, her hands flattening on my shoulders. Surprise mingles with relief in her eyes.

"That's to appease my father," I say. "He's told me to stay away from the both of you as well. But you see how that's turned out."

Finally Naomi smiles and a small watery laugh comes out. "You've gotten away with this double life so far."

I shrug. "Let's hope it continues, because I've come to ask something of you. Both of you."

The front door opens, then shuts. I release Naomi and she steps away from me, wiping quickly at her damp cheeks. By the time Wells appears in the kitchen doorway, I'm perching on the corner of the table and nibbling on a biscuit, and Naomi's busying herself with making more tea.

"Wilkes?" Surprise and another emotion I can't read darts across his face. "I wasn't expecting you to be coming by."

"He wants to ask us something, Wells," says Naomi.

"It sounds important," says Wells. Then his eyes flicker to me. "Is it?"

I shrug one shoulder. "Would I be here if it wasn't?"

"Fair point." Wells pulls at his cravat and I see him swallow hard.

"I'm going upstairs for a moment, to settle Papa in," Naomi says, breezing back over to the table to pick up the tray between us. "You two won't make any trouble, will you?"

"'Course not," says Wells.

I get up and follow Naomi as far as the door, and while she slips past her brother easily, I can't seem to do the same thing. For a minute we're mirror images of one another, sidestepping in the same direction. Then, with reddening ears, Wells moves aside, snapping his heels together.

"You first," he says.

I get two steps out into the narrow hallway before Wells's hand brushes against mine as he passes me. I feel it linger, and for the briefest moment his pinky finger hooks through mine. Then he lets go and he's gone.

It takes me a few seconds to gather my thoughts. Wells's touch definitely made my heartbeat skip, and I'd felt a strange warmth spread up from my fingers to my wrist when he'd touched my hand. His question from yesterday echoes in my head, and it all seems to make sense now. I could never make a woman the object of my affection because I already have one. And it's him.

—

We've managed to make a perfectly normal visit into a completely awkward one. Wells brings the freshly-made tea into the sitting room, where he tells me to make myself comfortable. Then he pours it, like he's done it numerous times before. He doesn't speak the entire time, and doesn't look at me either — a sure sign he picked up on the moment in the hallway too.

He pushes the teacup to me across the low round table between us, and as I lean forward to pick it up, our foreheads knock together. Not hard, but enough to startle both of us.

"Oh, sorry—"

"Oi, Wilkes, you've got a hard head." He rubs his.

I wink at him despite my embarrassment. "Or you're just the biggest chinless wonder I've ever met."

"Excuse me, I think I've got a bigger chin than you." Wells raises an eyebrow, and I see a glint of something like teasing in his eye.

"Perhaps in another universe," I say, right as I take a sip of my tea so I can't see his face in response.

"What is a wonder is how you managed to almost get strangled by my father," says Wells, and by the tone of his voice I can tell he's still taking jabs at me. "Father doesn't usually have that reaction to people he's never met."

"I should have known to not introduce myself as a Wilkes."

"Your first mistake," Wells says, employing the same manoeuvre and taking a swig of tea before I can answer.

Naomi comes back right then, and the awkwardness evaporates. When Wells sets his teacup down and crosses his long thin legs, one knee over the other, his face is serious.

"So what is it you wanted to ask us, Wilkes?" he asks, without a trace of emotion.

I tell them everything Father told me this morning, and I see Wells's lip twitch at the mention of Cornelius Selling. Naomi's face, on the other hand, stays as smooth and impassive as marble. And when I finish, with the pertinent question, they glance at one another for a moment or two. They seem to be communicating without words, just another hurdle I can't bypass.

"If we're going to be leaving the city that long, someone has to stay with Papa," Naomi says finally. "Wells can go. I can manage on my own."

"Naomi," Wells protests. "You're not of age. You can't be here alone."

"Papa's not a ghost, Wells. And it isn't as if I'm going out hunting by myself." She sets her jaw. "You go to Bath with Langdon. He could probably use you far more than me."

I'm about to say that isn't true, but now I realise how it would look. A young woman, not yet eighteen, travelling by herself without a chaperone of any kind, could start some very unpleasant rumours. Especially with a group of hunters. Some of them, like Cornelius Selling, were not gentlemen by any stretch of the imagination.

"All right," Wells says reluctantly. "But if anything happens, you and Father must get to safety immediately and send a telegram when you get there. Do you understand?"

"Of course I do," Naomi says, and I see her eyes harden. "I'm not a child, Wells."

Wells sighs and nods, a clear I know you're not gesture.

"We leave the day after tomorrow," I say once I've finished my tea. "I expect the other hunters will keep themselves occupied enough that I can slip away once I find anything out."

"Of course," Wells says, his expression enigmatic.

—

22 April, morning. — Sure enough, I see him on the platform when we arrive. He's dressed in such a nondescript manner—long brown overcoat, coarse wool suit, a black bowler that's had some wear—that I almost miss him. But just before I join the group of the hunters from the Institute, he catches my eye and nods just once. Two of his fingers touch the brim of his hat briefly.

"Oi, Wilkes." Cornelius Selling shoves his way into my line of sight, giving my shoulder a punch hard enough to deaden my arm. "Spiffing for you to join us."

"Chuffed," I answer, not in the mood to speak to him.

"My sister's taken a shine to you, you know," he says, not taking the hint. He grasps my shoulder and shakes it. His own hat, tall and shiny and new-looking, is perched at an angle on his perfectly pomaded hair. "Reckon you'll be the first suitor she accepts."

"Hopefully," I say. I wish I could be as uninhibited as Wells and stick one on him just for the satisfaction of doing it. But then, I suspect, I'd lose favour as fast as I'd gained it.

The train whistle blows, and so do the conductors' whistles, which hurries us all along. Once we've found seats in the first-class car — with my irritation flaring at being stuck with Cornelius all the way there — I see Father, who'd escorted me as far as the entrance to the station, standing behind the turnstile. He gives me a nod, his eyes a warning.

It takes about a half-hour for me to escape. Cornelius brags endlessly about his family's connections and accomplishments — as if everyone else here doesn't already know. The older men know how to tune him out, nodding and pretending to read their newspapers. I'm not so lucky, being forced to sit and suffer until I come up with an excuse.

"I'm just going to get a bite," I say, midway through another one of Cornelius's long-winded — and possibly mostly untrue — stories about one of his father's hunts. "Skipped breakfast this morning."

Cornelius starts to get up. "Maybe I'll come along. I'm peckish."

"I'll really only be gone for a few minutes," I say quickly. The whole thing could break down if he's there. "I'll be back before you know it."

He slumps down again, his attention already off me. And once he's on another story, I duck out of the compartment and down the narrow passageway to the end of the carriage. The space between the carriages is loud and precarious, and the slipstream blows my hair into my eyes.

I pass through the second of two first-class carriages, followed by three second-class. There's no compartments here, the passengers only separated by high walls between the long benches.

It's when I reach the first third-class car — where the majority of the passengers are by far — that I see Wells. He has a carpetbag by his feet, and his bowler is tipped down over his face to hide the top half. But he sits alone on a wooden bench, leaning back against the wooden slats. I nudge his foot as I take a seat across from him.

"Oh, it's you," he says, once he's snapped to attention and nearly slid off the bench.

"'Tis I," I say with a shrug, followed by a slight surge of embarrassment.

"You escaped your group long enough, I see," he says. "They're not missing you yet?"

"They think I went to the dining car," I say. I'd passed through it already, between the last first-class and first second-class carriages. "I only have a few minutes before they come looking for me."

"And wouldn't think to look for you here, I expect," he says, sitting forward with elbows on knees. "So you've got a plan as soon as we've arrived in Bath? Or do you need a few hours?"

"I'll have to stay with the Guild and Institute hunters as much as possible," I answer honestly. "Just so it doesn't look too suspicious."

"Right," Wells says, and I can't read his expression. It's the same one I saw pass across his face the other day. "I'll keep myself busy, then. Maybe get a head start on ferreting out your father's...activities while I'm at it."

"That's a brilliant plan, actually," I say, hoping I don't sound like a sycophant. "Maybe you'd be able to find out more than I could."

"Because you come with the last name Wilkes?" One of his eyebrows goes up, and his eyes glint like chips of jade. "I see how that could be an issue, I suppose."

"Word gets around fast, I guess." My gaze drifts out the window, just briefly. When I look back at Wells, his face is closer to mine, so much that I can see myself in his eyes. I see his hand come up and brush my hair aside, off my forehead. As he does, his fingers graze my skin and I feel myself shudder.

"Your hair needed fixing," he says, with a slight huskiness in his voice.

"Did it?" I swallow past the dryness in my throat. "It always does."

Wells sits up straighter and the spell breaks, just as a uniformed conductor comes through the carriage, punching tickets.

"You're in first-class, son, what are you doing back here?" he asks me, squinting at my ticket.

"I was...er..."

"I'm trying to convince him to purchase an insurance policy, sir," Wells says. "So far, he isn't biting."

"Maybe when we reach Andover," says the conductor. "Soliciting isn't allowed on this train."

Then he's gone. I look over at Wells in surprise. "Insurance policy?"

"It used to be my father's cover," Wells says, tugging at the lapels of his suit coat and then his cravat. "He says it keeps people from asking too many questions."

I nod. I suppose I've got a lot to learn from him if I want our partnership to be successful, and if I want to find anything out about Father.