"Where is Pruett?" he said.
"Pruett?"
"He packed my shirts. He was at my lodgings. When?"
His father's face settled into the look Edmund had dreaded all his life, the look that meant the matter was already decided in some room he had not been allowed into.
"At four," Sir Josiah said, "as soon as your hackney turned the corner. Mrs. Dacey let him up. She's known him for years. He brought down a shirt or two for your journey." He paused. "And the oilskin parcel under the fender. He's careful, Pruett. He knew where to look. He watched you fit that board back in March through the window opposite. He didn't like it, Ned. He told me he felt like a housebreaker. But he did it."
Edmund heard the words land one after another, like stones dropped down a well.
"It's done," said his father gently. "Do you understand me? It's done. The ledger's gone. By now it's in the fire at Blackheath, or it will be by noon, and the contract will be sealed, and four hundred and six men will have work for five years. Nothing you can do this morning will change any of that. So here is what I ask. Stay in the carriage. Go to Dover. Not with a hole in you, God be thanked, but go. Go to France. Take the year. Hate me in Paris at your leisure, and come home when you're ready, and I'll still be here."
For a long moment Edmund did not move. It would have been very easy. That was the horror of it. The leather was soft, the brick was warm, and his shirts were folded. The road to Dover was white and dry in June. His father was looking at him with naked, unhappy love, and Edmund understood all at once that his father had never in his life expected to be refused anything he had paid for this dearly.
Edmund opened the door.
"No," he said.
"Ned—"
"No." He stepped down into the wet grass. The light outside was very bright after the dimness of the carriage, and he had to narrow his eyes against it. "I'm sorry, sir. I think I'm truly sorry. I believe every word you've told me. I believe you wept. I believe you salted that first pork with your own hands. And I believe four hundred and six men will suffer for what I'm going to do, and that some of them will hate me for it, and they'll be right." He held the door open and looked back in at his father's grey face. "But ninety-one men weren't arithmetic. Not to their wives. I've met their wives."