Текст книги "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade"

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

Соавторы: Diana Gabaldon,Diana Gabaldon
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Grey shrugged.

“I can find out. Do you wish me to broach the matter of commission with Wainwright directly, or shall you open negotiations with the general?”

Hal drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment, then made up his mind.

“Ask him directly. If he is to be a member of both the family and the regiment, I think we must treat him as such from the beginning. And he is much nearer to you in age. I think he is somewhat afraid of me.” Hal’s brows knitted briefly in puzzlement, and Grey smiled. His brother liked to think himself modest and inoffensive, and affected not to know that while his troops idolized him, they were also terrified of him.

“I’ll talk to him, then.”

Grey made to rise, but Hal waved him back, still frowning.

“Wait. There is—another matter.”

Grey looked sharply at his brother, hearing the note of strain in Hal’s voice. Distracted by thoughts of Percy Wainwright, he hadn’t really looked at Hal; now he saw the tightness around his brother’s mouth and eyes. Trouble, then.

“What is it?”

Hal grimaced, but before he could reply, footsteps came down the corridor, and someone knocked diffidently at the jamb of the open door. Grey turned to see a young hussar, his face flushed from the cold wind outside.

“My lord? A message, sir, from the ministry. I was told to wait upon an answer,” he added awkwardly.

Hal turned a dark countenance on the messenger, but then beckoned impatiently and snatched the message.

“Wait downstairs,” he said, waving the hussar away. He broke the seal and read the note quickly, muttered something blasphemous under his breath, and seized a quill to scribble a reply at the bottom of the page.

Grey rocked back in his chair, waiting. He glanced round the office, wondering what could have happened since yesterday. Hal had shown no signs of worry during their luncheon with the general and Percy.

He could not have said what drew his eye to the scrap of paper. Hal’s office resembled nothing so much as the den of some large beast of untidy habit, and while both Hal and his elderly clerk, Mr. Beasley, could lay their hands on anything wanted within an instant, no one else could find so much as a pin in the general chaos.

The paper itself lay among a quantity of others scattered on the desk, distinguished only by a ragged edge, as though it had been torn from a book. Grey picked it up, glanced at it casually, then stiffened, eyes glued to the page.

“Do let my papers alone, John,” Hal said, finishing his reply with a viciously scrawled signature. “You’ll muddle everything. What’s that you have?” He tossed his quill on the desk and snatched the paper impatiently from Grey. He made to put it back on the desk, then caught sight of the words and froze.

“It is,is it not?” Grey asked, feeling queer. “Father’s writing?” It was a rhetorical question; he had recognized both the hand and the style of writing at once. Hal hadn’t heard in any case; the blood had drained from his face, and he was reading the journal page—for that is what it clearly was—as though it were notice of his own execution.

“He burnt it,” Hal whispered, and swallowed. “She said he’d burnt it.”

“Who?” Grey asked, startled. “Mother?”

Hal glanced up at him sharply, but ignored his question.

“Where did this come from?” he demanded, barely waiting for Grey’s shrug before shouting, “Mr. Beasley! I want you!”

Mr. Beasley, promptly emergent from his own pristine sanctuary, denied any knowledge of the sheet of paper and confessed complete ignorance of its means of arrival in Hal’s office. He was, though, able to supply the helpful information that the paper had definitely not been upon the desk earlier in the day.

“How on earth would you know?” Grey inquired, giving the desk and its contents a disparaging look. Two beady-eyed stares turned upon him. They’d know. Grey coughed.

“Yes. In that case…” He trailed off. He had been about to inquire who had come into the office during the day, but realized at once the difficulty of the question. Dozens of people visited the office every day: clerks, sutlers, officers, royal messengers, gunnery sergeants, weaponers…. He’d come in once and found a man with a dancing bear on a chain and a monkey on his shoulder, come to collect payment for performing at a jollification for the troops in honor of the queen’s birthday.

Still, surely some effort should be made.

“How long had you been here before I came in?” he asked. Hal rubbed a hand over his face.

“I came in just before you. Otherwise, I should have seen it at once.”

“Ought we call in the door guard, and the men in the building?” Grey suggested. “Query each of them as to anyone who might have entered the office whilst it was unoccupied?”

Hal’s lips compressed. He’d got control of himself; Grey could see his mind working again, and rapidly.

“No,” he said, and consciously relaxed his shoulders. “No, it’s not important.” He crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball, and threw it with apparent casualness into the fire. “That will be all, Mr. Beasley.”

Mr. Beasley bowed and went out. The paper glowed and burst into flame. Grey’s hands clenched involuntarily, wanting to seize it from destruction, but it was already gone, ink stark for an instant on the charring paper before it fell to ash. The unexpected sense of loss made him speak more sharply than his wont.

“Why did you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Hal glanced at the door, to be sure that Beasley was out of earshot, then took the poker and thrust it into the fire, stirring it so that sparks flew up the chimney like a swarm of fiery bees, making sure no trace of the paper remained. “Forget it.”

“I am not inclined to forget it. What did you mean, ‘He burnt it’?”

Hal put the poker back in its stand with a careful precision.

“That was not a suggestion,” he said softly. “It was an order—Major.”

Grey’s jaw tightened.

“I do not choose to obey you—sir.”

Hal turned, startled.

“What the hell do you mean, you bloody don’t chooseto—”

“I mean I won’t,” Grey snapped, “and you frigging well know it. What do you propose to do about it? Clap me in irons? Have me locked up for a week on bread and water?”

“Don’t bloody tempt me.” Hal glared at him, but it was clear to both of them that he had given in. Partly.

“Keep your voice down, at least.” Hal went to the door, looked out into the hallway, but didn’t shut it. That was interesting, Grey thought. Did Hal suppose that Mr. Beasley might creep up to listen outside the door, if it were closed?

“Yes, it was a page from one of the journals,” Hal said, very quietly. “The last one.”

Grey nodded briefly; the date on the page had been two weeks prior to the date of their father’s death. The duke had been a meticulous diarist; there was a small bookcase in the library in Jermyn Street, filled with row upon row of his journals, kept over more than thirty years. Grey was familiar with them, and grateful to his father for having kept them; they had enabled him to know at least a little of his father as a man, once he reached his own manhood. The last journal in the bookshelf ended three months prior to the duke’s death; there must have been another, but Grey had never seen it.

“Mother told you Father had burnt it? Did she say why?”

“No, she didn’t,” Hal said briefly. “I didn’t inquire, under the circumstances.”

Hal was still watching the open door. Grey couldn’t tell whether he was merely on the alert, or avoiding meeting Grey’s eyes. Hal was a good liar when he needed to be, but Grey knew his brother extremely well—and Hal knew him. He took a deep breath, ordering his thoughts. The smell of burnt paper was sharp in his nose.

“Clearly it wasn’t burnt,” Grey said slowly. “So we must assume, first, that it was stolen, and then that whoever took it has kept it until now. Who, and why? And why does he—whoever he is—inform you now that he has it? And why did Mother—”

“Damned if I know.” Hal did look at him then, and Grey’s anger faded as he saw that his brother was indeed telling the truth. He saw something else that disquieted him extremely—his brother was afraid.

“It is a threat of some sort?” he asked, lowering his voice still further. There had been nothing on the page he had read to suggest such a thing; it had been part of an account of a meeting his father had had with a longtime friend and their discussion of astronomy, quite innocuous. Therefore, the page had plainly been meant only to inform Hal of the existence of the journal itself—and whatever else it might contain.

“God knows,” Hal said. “What the devil could it—well.” He rubbed a knuckle hard across his lips, and glanced at Grey. “ Don’tspeak to Mother about it. I’ll do it,” he added, seeing Grey about to protest.

The sound of boots and voices along the passage prevented further conversation. Captain Wilmot, with his sergeant and a company clerk. Hal reached out and quietly closed the door; they waited in silence as the noise died away.

“Do you know a man named Melchior Ffoulkes?” Hal asked abruptly.

“No,” Grey replied, wondering whether this had to do with the matter at hand, or was a change of subject. “I am reasonably sure I’d recall him, if I did.”

That provoked the ghost of a smile from Hal.

“Yes, you would. Or a private soldier named Harrison Otway? From the Eleventh Foot.”

“What a ridiculous name. No, who is he?”

“Captain Michael Bates?”

“Well, I’ve heard of him, at least. Horse Guards, is he not? Flash cove, as Tom Byrd puts it. What, may I ask, is the purpose of this catechism? Do sit down, Hal.” He sat himself, and after a moment’s hesitation, Hal slowly followed suit.

“Have you ever met Captain Bates?”

Grey was becoming annoyed, but answered flippantly.

“Not to remember, certainly. I couldn’t swear that I’ve never shared a bed with him in an inn, of course—”

Hal’s hand gripped his forearm, so hard that he gasped.

“Don’t,” Hal said, very softly. “Don’t make jokes.”

Grey stared into his brother’s eyes, seeing the lines of his face cut deep. The journal page had shocked him, but he had already been disturbed.

“Let go,” Grey said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

Hal slowly withdrew his hand.

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

“Who are these men? Have they anything to do with—” He glanced at the fireplace, but Hal shook his head.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so—but it’s possible.” The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway, and Hal stopped speaking abruptly. The footsteps were distinctive, the sound of a heavy man with a decided limp. Ewart Symington, the second regimental colonel, Harry Quarry’s opposite number.

Hal grimaced and John nodded understanding. Neither one of them desired to speak with Symington at the moment. They stood silent, waiting. Sure enough, the steps came to a halt, and a fist thundered on the panels of the door. Symington was as brutal of manner as of appearance, resembling nothing so much as a dyspeptic boar.

Another thunderous assault on the door, a moment’s pause, and Symington uttered a muffled oath and limped off.

“He’ll be back,” Hal said, under his breath, and took his cloak from its peg by the door. “Come with me to White’s; we’ll talk on the way.”

Grey thrust his arms into his greatcoat and a moment later they had escaped into the street, Hal having instructed Mr. Beasley to tell Colonel Symington that Lord Melton had gone to Bath.

“Bath?” Grey asked, as they exited. “At this time of year?” It was no more than half-past three, yet twilight was louring. The pavement was dark with wet and the air thick with the scent of oncoming snow.

Hal waved off his waiting carriage, and turned the corner.

“Anywhere closer, and he’d follow me there. Say what you will of the man, he’s damned persistent.” That was said with grudging respect; persistence was Symington’s chief military virtue, and not a mean one. In more social situations, it was somewhat trying.

“What does he want?”

Grey asked only for the sake of delaying discussion, and was not surprised to receive only a moody shrug from Hal. His brother appeared no more eager to resume their conversation than he was, and they walked for half a mile or so in silence, each alone with his thoughts.

Grey’s own thoughts were a jumble, veering from anticipation and curiosity at the thought of Percy Wainwright to concern at his brother’s obvious agitation. Over all of it, though, was the image of the page he had held so briefly in his hands.

He forced all other thought from his mind, concentrating on remembering, committing the words he had read to memory. He still felt the shock of Hal’s throwing the paper into the fire, and could not bear the thought that those words of his father’s, pedestrian as they might be, should be lost to him. The duke’s journals were no secret, and yet he had read them secretly, abstracting one at a time and smuggling each volume to his room, returning them to their shelf, careful that no one should see.

He could not have said why it seemed important to keep this postmortem relationship with his father private. Only that it had been.

He had more or less succeeded in fixing at least the substance of the vanished page in memory, when Hal finally hunched his shoulders and spoke abruptly.

“There has been talk. Regarding conspiracies.”

“When is there not? Which particular conspiracy concerns you?”

“Not me, so much.” Hal settled his hat more firmly, bending his head into the wind. “And it has not yet blown up into open scandal, but it almost certainly will—and soon.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Grey observed caustically. “There hasn’t been a decent scandal since Christmas. Who does this one involve?”

“A sodomite conspiracy to undermine the government by assassination of selected ministers.”

Grey felt a tightening of the belly, but replied casually. It was not the first time he had heard of such a notion; sodomitical associations and conspiracies were a standby of street criers and Fleet Street hacks whenever news became too slow.

“And why does this concern you?”

Hal fixed his eyes on the slimy cobbles.

“Us. It is a thing that was said. Of—of Father.” The word struck Grey in the pit of the stomach, like a pebble from a sling. He was not sure he had ever heard Hal use the word “Father” any time in the last fifteen years.

“That he was a sodomite?” Grey said, incredulous. Hal drew a deep breath, but seemed to relax a bit.

“No. Not in so many words. Nor was it—thank God—a popular rumor. Only random accusations at the time of his death, made by members of the Society—such accusations were common, thrown at almost every man of any visibility connected with the South Sea Bubble. The scandal was blamed on ‘companies of sodomites’—though God knows it was blamed on every other group, interest, or person anyone could think of, as well. But the Society was prominent at the time, and sodomitical conspiracies were their particular obsession.”

“The Society?” Grey said blankly. “Which Society is this?”

“I forgot. You would not have been old enough to hear much at the time—”

“Damned little, in Aberdeen.” Grey made no attempt to keep an edge of bitterness from his voice, and his brother glanced sharply at him.

“Which is precisely why you were sent there,” Hal said, his voice level. “In any case, it is the Society for the Reformation of Manners to which I refer; you haveheard of them?”

“I have, yes.” Angry and unsettled, Grey was making no effort to hide his feelings, and let distaste and contempt show in his voice. “Prigs and puritans, who will not acknowledge their own base urges, but find delight—and release, no doubt—in accusations of corruption, in blackening the characters of innocent men. They are—”

Hal put a restraining hand on his arm again—no more than a touch, this time—to keep him from speaking further, as two chairmen went by at the trot, their heads wreathed in white smoke from their panting breath.

The cold and twilight kept many folk indoors, but there were those whose livelihoods compelled them to the streets, and as they approached St. James Street, there began to be more of them. A balladeer, chestnut sellers, apple-women crying the virtues of their wizened fruit. Grey saw his brother scrutinize each person they passed, as though he suspected them of something.

“Captain Michael Bates is thought to be deeply involved,” Hal said at last. “The general told me of the matter after you and Wainwright had left yesterday; Bates’s father is General Ezekial Bates—long retired, but an intimate of General Stanley’s.”

“Ah,” Grey said. “I see.” He felt unsettled still, vaguely alarmed, pointlessly angry—but this intelligence relieved his mind a little. At least now he knew why the matter had come to Hal’s attention. “And the other men you mentioned—Otway and Ffoulkes?”

“Otway is a private soldier in the Eleventh Infantry, a nobody. Ffoulkes is a reasonably well-known solicitor in Lincoln’s Inn.”

“How are these men connected?”

“Through Bates.”

Captain Bates and Ffoulkes had met, according to General Stanley, when Ffoulkes had handled a minor matter of business for the captain’s family. Otway had evidently met Bates in a tavern near Temple Stairs, formed an unwholesome connexion with him, and then later been introduced to Ffoulkes, though the general did not know the circumstances.

“Indeed,” said Grey, thinking of the bog-houses near Lincoln’s Inn, a spot much patronized by both lawyers and mollies. “This…association is what they refer to as a ‘company of sodomites’? It seems lacking in both membership and organizing principles, I think.”

Hal snorted a little; his breath purled white in the winter air.

“Oh, there’s more. Our friend Ffoulkes, it seems, has a French wife. Who in turn has two brothers. One of these brothers is a notorious pederast—notorious even by French standards—while the other is a colonel in the French army.”

Grey grunted in surprise.

“And is there any evidence of—I suppose it must be treason?”

“It is. And there is. The War Office got wind of something, and has been quietly pursuing the matter for some months. Bates—he was General Stanley’s chief aide-de-camp for some time before joining the Horse Guards, by the way—”

“Christ.”

“Precisely. He apparently had been passing secret materials to Otway, who in turn delivered these to Ffoulkes in the course of their assignations. And from there, of course…”

Grey drew the evening air deep into his lungs. The last of his defensive anger chilled, leaving him cold. It wasa personal matter—but not directly personal. Hal’s concern was for the general, of course—and for their family, lest the old rumors be resurrected in light of fresh scandal, stimulated by their mother’s new marriage.

“What has been done?” he asked. “I have heard nothing of it in the streets, read nothing in the periodicals.”

Hal’s shoulders hunched a little; they were passing a gate where torches burned, and Grey saw his brother’s shadow, foreshortened and shrunk, the image of an old man.

“It has been kept as quiet as possible. Bates and Otway were both arrested yesterday, though.”

“And Ffoulkes?”

Hal’s head lifted, and he blew out a long white breath.

“Ffoulkes shot himself this morning.”

Grey walked on, mechanically, no longer feeling chill or cobble.

“May God have mercy on his soul,” he said at last.

“And ours,” Hal said, without humor.

Hal could not or would not say more, and they walked the rest of the way in silence. Disturbed in mind though he was, Grey was jerked out of his thoughts as they turned into St. James Street.

Candlelight streamed welcomingly through the windows of White’s, illuminating what appeared to be the body of a man lying on the pavement by the door. As they approached the building, Grey saw a head pop out of the club’s open door, survey the body, then pop back in, only to be succeeded by a different head, which repeated this procedure.

“Do you know him?” Grey asked his brother, as they came up to the body. “Is he a member?” Grey was of course a member of White’s, as well, but seldom patronized the club, finding the cozy shabbiness and excellent food of the Beefsteak more appealing.

Hal squinted at the body, and shook his head.

“No one I know.”

The body lay prone, legs sprawled apart beneath a greatcoat of decent quality. The man’s hat was also a good one; it had fallen off and rolled against the wall, resting on edge there like a tipsy beggar.

“Is he dead, do you think?”

The man’s wig had slipped askew, half covering his face. It had begun to snow lightly, and between the flickering light and the swirling flakes, it was impossible to perceive whether he was breathing.

“Let me look; perhaps—” Hal stooped to touch the man, but was prevented by a shout from the doorway.

“Don’t touch him! Not yet!” An excited young man issued from the club and seized Hal’s arm. “We haven’t put it in the book yet!”

“What, the betting book?” Hal demanded.

“Yes—Rogers says he’s dead, and I say he’s not. Two guineas on it! Will you join the wager with me, Melton?”

“He’s dead as a doornail, Melton!” came a shout from the open door, presumably from Rogers. “Whitbread and Gallagher are with me!”

“He ain’t, I say!” The young man slapped his palm on the doorjamb. “You lot couldn’t tell a corpse from a tailor’s ham!”

“Hoy!” Grey caught a glimmer of movement from the corner of his eye and whirled round, hand on his sword—but not in time to grab the ragged boy who had darted in to snatch the body’s hat. A hoot of triumph drifted back through the thickening snow.

“Call the Watch, for God’s sake. We can’t let him lie here, dead or not,” Hal said impatiently. “He’ll be picked clean.”

Grey obligingly belted down the street to the Fount of Wisdom, where he found two members of the Watch fortifying themselves against the weather. Reluctantly gulping their mulled cider, they huddled themselves grumbling into coats and hats and came back with him to White’s, where he found his brother standing guard over the body, leaning on his sword.

“About time,” Hal said, sheathing it. “They’re here!” he shouted, turning toward the open door, where Mr. Holmes, the club’s steward, hovered in anticipation.

Holmes promptly vanished, and the call of, “The book is closed, gentlemen!” rang through the house.

In moments, the body was surrounded by a crowd of eager bettors, who poured out into the snow, still arguing amongst themselves.

“What do you say?” Grey muttered to Hal. He sniffed the air, but was unable to detect any telltale scent of death, above the waft of smoke, coffee, and food drifting from the club. “Ten to one he’s alive,” he said, on impulse.

“You know I never bet on anything but cards,” Hal muttered back. Still, he held his position at the front of the group, curious as any of the bettors, as one of the Watchmen gingerly lifted the wig away from the man’s face.

There was a moment’s silence as the face was revealed, gray and slack as potter’s clay, eyes closed. The Watchman bent close, cupping the fallen jaw, then jerked upright.

“He’s alive! I felt his breath on me ’and!”

The group exploded into voice and action then, several men hastening to lift the victim and carry him inside, others calling out for hot coffee, a doctor, brandy, had the man a pocketbook, papers? Where was the doctor, for God’s sake?

A tall, gray-haired man came out of the cardroom glaring at the interruption.

“Who wants a doctor?”

“Oh, there you are, Longstreet. Your patient, sir.” Hal greeted the doctor, whom he evidently knew, and gestured toward the man in the greatcoat, who had been laid out on a settee and was being tenderly ministered to by the same men who had been wagering on his demise moments earlier.

Doctor Longstreet grimaced, shed his coat, and began to roll up his sleeves.

“All right. I’ll see. You lot, get out of it. Holmes—fetch me a bowl from the kitchen, if you would be so good.” He pulled a collapsible fleam from his pocket and flicked it open with a practiced air.

Mr. Holmes hesitated.

“You aren’t going to do anything…messy, are you? We’ve only just had that settee reupholstered.”

Longstreet gave the steward a humorless grin.

“I’m going to bleed him, yes—but I’ll endeavor not to stain your damask. Bowl!”

Grey, being nearest and not given to squeamishness, helped to lift the man—who was both tall and stout—and remove his outer clothes. The man’s eyelids flickered for a moment, and his lips moved, but he relapsed back into unconsciousness, not stirring even when Longstreet took hold of his bared arm and cut into the flesh below the elbow.

Blood pattered into the bowl, and one of the onlookers went quickly outside, whence the sound of vomiting was heard through the still-open door. Mr. Holmes cast a look of despair at the blood spattering the carpet, and went out to render aid.

“I don’t suppose you carry ammoniac salts on your person, do you?” Longstreet asked Grey, frowning at the unconscious man. “I hoped the flow of blood might revive him, but…”

“My brother does. A moment.” Hal had disappeared into the cardroom with most of the other members, who had ceased to be interested in the subject of their wager, now that it was won or lost. Grey went in and returned almost at once with Hal’s enameled snuffbox, which, when opened, proved to contain not snuff but a small corked vial containing sal volatile.

Dr. Longstreet accepted this with a nod of thanks, pulled the cork, and passed the bottle closely beneath the man’s nostrils.

“Why does your brother—Melton isyour brother, I perceive? The resemblance is marked—why does he carry salts?”

“I believe his wife is subject to fits of fainting,” Grey said casually. In fact, Hal himself now and then suffered odd spells of dizziness. Having fainted once on the parade ground on a hot day, he had resolved never to appear at such a disadvantage again, and had taken to carrying salts—though to the best of Grey’s knowledge, his brother had never actually resorted to them. He was reasonably sure that Hal would prefer this precaution not to be public knowledge, however.

“Ah!” The doctor made a sound of satisfaction; the patient’s face had suddenly convulsed.

Matters thereafter were so intent as to allow no further conversation. With continued application of salts, cloths wrung out in warm water and applied to the limbs, and—as returning consciousness allowed—judicious infusions of brandy, the gentleman was gradually returned to a state of consciousness, though he remained unable to speak, and merely frowned in a puzzled way when spoken to.

“I believe he has suffered an apoplexy,” Longstreet remarked, surveying his patient with interest. “Common in subjects of a choleric disposition. Observe the burst small vessels in the cheeks—and most particularly the nose.”

“Indeed.” Grey peered at the man. “Will he recover his powers of speech, do you suppose?”

Longstreet shrugged, but appeared in good humor. The man had survived, after all. What more could be asked of a doctor?

“With good nursing, it’s possible. Do we know who he is?”

Grey had gone through the pockets of the man’s greatcoat and discovered among the contents an open letter, addressed to a Dr. Henryk van Humperdinck, at 44 Great Ormond Street.

The gentleman gave some signs of response when addressed by this name, and so a message was sent to Great Ormond Street, and the patient carried off to one of the bedrooms upstairs, under the direction of the long-suffering Mr. Holmes, until his connexions should be located and informed.

“Did you have any money on him?” the doctor asked jovially, wiping his hands on a towel. “I hope I have not beggared you by saving his life. Or your brother, for that matter.”

“No,” Grey assured him. “I should have won, had I been in time to place a bet. And my brother is not a betting man.”

“No?” Longstreet sounded surprised.

“No. He wagers at whist, but only, he says, because he has faith in his skill, not his luck.”

Longstreet gave him a queer look.

“Not a betting man?” he repeated, and laughed in cynic fashion. Seeing Grey’s look of incomprehension, his own face changed, and he pursed his lips, as though considering whether to say something.

“You’ve never seen it?” he said at last, looking sideways at Grey beneath gray brows. “Truly?”

Receiving no reply, he strode across the room and picked up the betting book, which had been left on a side table, following Mr. Holmes’s careful record of the settling of the wager on Dr. Humperdinck’s state of animation.

Longstreet flipped back through the pages, long-fingered and swift, finally discovering what he wanted with a small grunt of satisfaction.

“Here.” He handed the book to Grey, pointing out an entry that stood alone at the head of a page, otherwise blank, save the signatures of witnesses to the wager in the margin.

The Earl of Melton states that the Duke of Pardloe was not a traitor. He stakes twenty thousand pounds on the truth of this. All comers welcome.

Below this was Hal’s formal signature, big and black. Grey felt as though he had suddenly forgot how to breathe.

On the opposite page were three entries, the first written in small, evenly controlled letters, as though in deliberate contrast to the passion of Hal’s wager:

Done. Nathaniel Twelvetrees, Captain, 32nd Foot

Below this were two more names, carelessly scrawled.

Accepted. Arthur Wilbraham, MP

Accepted. George Longstreet

Grey worked his tongue in an effort to regain enough saliva to speak, and mechanically noted the date of the wager. 8 July, 1741. A month after his father’s death. There was no indication that the wager had ever been settled.

“You really didn’t know?” Longstreet was regarding him with something like sympathy, mixed with curiosity.

“No,” Grey said, achieving speech. With some effort, he closed the book and set it down. “George Longstreet. You?”

Doctor Longstreet shook his head.

“My cousin. I witnessed the wager, though.” The doctor’s mouth, long and mobile, quirked at one side. “It was a memorable night. Your brother came very close to calling Twelvetrees out and was dissuaded only by Colonel Quarry—he was only a lieutenant at the time, of course—who pointed out that he could not honorably risk leaving his mother and younger brother defenseless, were he killed. You must have been no more than a child at the time?”