The journey to the kitchen was a substantial one but it gave him a chance to look at his house without the presence of the dozens of servants he employed, people who were always at hand during the daylight hours to see that he never went without. While Gareth appreciated efficient servants, he sometimes felt like a visitor in his own house.

He passed through the great hall into the corridor that housed the kitchen, laundry, servant quarters, and everything else that made the huge house run—usually for him alone. Which made him think of the woman and her son.

Mrs. Lombard and Oliver, he reminded himself. It was a bad habit of his to refer to people by labels, rather than their names: the woman, the brewer, the architect. Something about putting names to faces always struck him as intrusive and overly familiar. Just one more of his hundreds of quirks and foibles, like the wall sconces he kept burning all through the night, which made his bill for candles probably greater than that in St. James Palace. Of course Gareth probably had more money than the King and could actually pay his bills.

The candles burned everywhere, in every part of the house. Even those parts he rarely entered, and some—one part at least—which he would never enter: the cellars. It was a small price to pay in his opinion.

One candle burned in the vast kitchens and Gareth lighted two more branches to banish the shadows to the fringes of the big room. In no time he’d located a loaf of bread, a large wheel of the crumbly white cheese he liked so much, and a small pot of pickled beef. He set out his feast on the sturdy wooden table beside the banked fire and went to the cold room to fetch a bottle of ale.

Gareth munched his food and examined the massive, modern kitchen. It lacked the coziness of the cramped galley kitchen in his London townhouse, but there was something about kitchens that he liked; something that gave him comfort. Perhaps it was the proximity to food, and the knowledge he could eat as much as he wished. He had no need to go hungry ever again. Yet every time he came to feed he found himself oddly full, and had to force himself to take sustenance.

Declan knew of Gareth’s odd food habits, mainly because he had a few of his own.

“Those bastards fucked us up for good, Gare. Our only revenge is to live well.” Well, that had not been their only revenge, but Gareth knew what his friend meant.

For years Declan had lived up to his promise, but Gareth thought his debaucheries had developed an air of forced desperation lately. How much drink, food, wealth, and women could one man pursue? Gareth had noticed even Declan’s appetites had withered over the past few years. His friend also hounded him far less now, which Gareth was greatly relieved about. For years the Irishman had battered and nagged him about drinking and gambling and whoring.