Victory, rest, and then the Covenant to support him in his old age. Sir Grenville smiled as he walked into the house, looking with satisfaction at the great marble staircase. He was a rich man now, as he had been since the Covenant’s founding, yet he still needed the Covenant’s money. The income was so huge, so unimaginably large, that no amount of English land could replace it with rents. Two seals had given him the safety of the Covenant, and though he must share the monies with Ebenezer, he would, as he ever had, make sure that Ebenezer never knew the full income. He looked at Colonel Fuller. “Is the family gone?”

“No, Sir Grenville. I don’t think they expected you this soon.”

Sir Grenville chuckled. He hauled on the marble banisters, pulling his grotesque body up the stairs. His cherubically curled white hair was tipped backward so he could look at the plasterwork. “Italian, Colonel!”

“Sir Grenville?”

“Italian work, the plaster. Very fine, very fine!”

“Yes, sir.” Colonel Fuller would happily have let his men destroy the plasterwork with their firearms, but Sir Grenville had given him careful orders.

Sir Grenville Cony paused on the landing halfway up the stairs. He was in an excellent mood. He glanced down to where his secretary and his personal guard followed. “I should marry, John! Lazen Castle needs a mistress, yes?” He laughed.

John Morse, who knew his master’s views on women better than most, stopped in surprise. “Marry?”

“That worries you, eh?” Sir Grenville laughed. “There’s an unmarried daughter to the house, isn’t there, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir. Caroline.”

“Do you think she’d have me?” Sir Grenville barked with laughter. His men had never seen him in such high spirits. “Never mind! Never mind! Who needs a penniless wife?”

The men on the staircase laughed.

Sir Grenville waved upward, “On, on! Veni, vidi, vici!”

Colonel Fuller who, more than Sir Grenville, had come, seen, and conquered Lazen Castle, went ahead of his patron and opened the long gallery door.

“Sir Grenville?”

“Ah! The gallery. I have heard so much of it.” He walked in. “Who are you?”

Lady Margaret, sewing in a window seat, frowned at the interruption. “Cony?”

Sir Grenville chuckled. “You recognize me. The price of fame. I suppose you are Lady Margaret Lazender? Is it not customary to rise when the master of the house enters a room?”

Lady Margaret, who had seen the frog-like face of Sir Grenville in the garden, and who had made herself sit calmly in the window with her work, did not reply. She put a careful stitch into the laurel wreath she was embroidering about the crown that decorated the curtain square.

“Sir Grenville?” The Earl of Fleet, waiting further down the room, came forward.

“My Lord! I am surprised to find you here.”

“This is my wife’s childhood home, Sir Grenville.”

“Of course! Of course!” Sir Grenville peered up at the plasterwork. “Oh, very good! Most excellent.” He turned suddenly back to Fleet. “My Lord! You must be overjoyed with the news from the north? A most excellent providence of God?”