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

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

Соавторы: Diana Gabaldon,Diana Gabaldon
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“For what?”

“For my unfortunate gaffe yesterday, in regard to your brother. The general hadtold me that I must not under any circumstance address him as ‘Your Grace,’ but he had not time to explain why—at the time.”

Grey snorted.

“Has he told you since?”

“Not in great detail.” Percy glanced at him, curious. “Only that there was a scandal of some sort, and that your brother in consequence has renounced his title.”

Grey sighed. Unavoidable, he’d known that. Still, he would have preferred to keep this first meeting for themselves, with no intrusions from either past or present.

“Not exactly,” he said. “But something like it.”

“Your father wasa duke, though?” Wainwright cast him a wary glance.

“He was. Duke of Pardloe.” The title felt strange on his tongue; he hadn’t spoken it in…fifteen years? More. So long. He felt an accustomed hollowness of the bone at thought of his father. But if there was to be anything between himself and Percy Wainwright…

“But your brother is notnow Duke of Pardloe?”

Despite himself, Grey smiled, albeit wryly.

“He is. But he will not use the title, nor have it used. Hence the occasional awkwardness.” He made a small gesture of apology. “My brother is a very stubborn man.”

Wainwright raised one brow, as though to suggest that he thought Melton might not be the only one in the Grey family to display such a trait.

“You need not tell me,” he said, though, touching Grey’s arm briefly. “I’m sure the matter is a painful one.”

“You will hear it sooner or later, and you have some right to know, as you are becoming allied with our family. My father shot himself,” Grey said abruptly. Percy blinked, shocked.

“Oh,” he said, low-voiced, and touched his arm again, very gently. “I am so sorry.”

“So am I.” Grey cleared his throat. “Cold, isn’t it?” He pulled on his gloves, and rubbed a hand beneath his nose. “It—you have heard of the Jacobites? And the South Sea Bubble?”

“I have, yes. But what have they to do with each other?” Percy asked, bewildered. Grey felt his lips twitch, not quite a smile.

“Nothing, so far as I know. But they had both to do with the—the scandal.”

Gerard Grey, Earl of Melton, had been a clever man. Of an ancient and honorable family, well educated, handsome, wealthy—and of a restless, curious turn of mind. He had also been a very fine soldier.

“My father came to the title as quite a young man, and was not content to potter about on the family estates. He had a good deal of money—my mother brought him more—and when the Old Pretender launched his first invasion in 1715, he raised a regiment, and went to fight for king and country.”

The Jacobites were ill-organized and badly equipped; the Old Pretender, James Stuart, had not even made it ashore to lead his troops, but had been left fuming impotently off the coast, stranded by bad weather. The invasion, such as it was, had been easily quashed. The dashing young earl, however, had distinguished himself at Sheriffmuir, emerging a hero.

German George, feeling uneasy on his new throne despite the victory, and wishing to demonstrate to the peers of his realm the advantages of supporting him in military terms, elevated Gerard Grey to the newly created dukedom of Pardloe.

“No money with it, mind, and only a scant village or two in terms of land, but it sounded well,” Grey said.

“What—whatever happened?” Percy asked, curiosity overcoming his impeccable manners.

“Well.” Grey took a deep breath, thinking where best to begin. He did not want to speak at once about his father, and so began from the other end of the affair.

“My mother’s mother was Scottish, you see. Not from the Highlands,” he added quickly. “From the Borders, which is quite a different thing.”

“Yes, they speak English there, do they not?” Wainwright nodded, a small frown of concentration between his brows.

“I expect that is a matter of opinion,” Grey said. It had taken him weeks to become sufficiently accustomed to the hideous accents of his Scottish cousins as to easily understand what they were saying.

“But at least they are not barbarians, such as the Highland Scots. Nor did the Borderers join in the Catholic Rising—most being strongly Protestant, and having no particular sympathy or common interest with either the Stuarts or the Highland clans.”

“I suppose, though, that many Englishmen do not make distinctions between one Scot and another?” Percy said, with some delicacy.

Grey gave a small grimace of acknowledgment.

“It did not help that one of my mother’s uncles and his sons didopenly support the Stuart cause. For the sake of profit,” he added, with slight distaste, “not religion.”

“Is that better or worse?” Percy asked, a half smile taking any sting from the words.

“Not much to choose,” Grey admitted. “And before the thing was finished, a good many more of my mother’s family were embroiled. If not actually known Jacobites, certainly tainted by the association.”

“I see.” Wainwright’s brows were high with interest. “You mentioned your father’s involvement with the South Sea Bubble. Do we assume that this had something to do with your profit-minded great-uncle?”

Grey glanced at him, surprised at the quickness of his mind.

“Yes,” he said. “Great-Uncle Nicodemus. Nicodemus Patricius Marcus Armstrong.”

Percy made a small, muffled noise.

“There is a reason why I was christened ‘John,’ and that my brothers have such relatively common names as Paul, Edgar, and Harold,” Grey said wryly. “The names on my mother’s side of the family…” He shook his head, and resumed his account.

“My father invested a substantial sum with a certain company—the South Sea—upon the urgings of Uncle Nick, after Sheriffmuir. Mind you, this was some years before the collapse; at the time, it seemed no more than a somewhat risky venture. And it appealed, I think, to my father’s sense of adventure, which was acute.” He couldn’t help a brief smile at thought of some of those adventures.

“It was a substantial sum, but by no means a significant part of my father’s property. He was therefore content to leave it, depending upon Uncle Nick to watch the business, whilst he devoted himself to other, more interesting ventures. But then the Jacobite threat—” He paused, glancing at Percy.

“How old are you, if you will pardon my asking?”

Percy blinked at that, but smiled.

“Twenty-six. Why?”

“Ah. You may be old enough, then, to recall the atmosphere of suspicion and hysteria regarding Jacobites during the ’45?”

Percy shook his head.

“No,” he said ruefully. “My father was a clergyman, who viewed the world and its affairs as nothing more than a threat to the souls of the godly. We heard little news, and would have taken no heed of political rumors in any case—the only king of any importance being the Lord, so far as my father was concerned. But that’s of no consequence,” he added hastily. “Go on, please.”

“I was going to say that that hysteria, great as it was, was no more than an echo of what happened earlier. Are you content to walk, by the way? We could easily take a carriage.” The weather had grown sharply colder, and a bone-cutting breeze swept through the alleyways. Percy was lightly dressed for the temperature, but he shook his head.

“No, I prefer to walk. It’s much easier to talk—if you wish to do that,” he added, a little shyly.

Grey wasn’t at all sure that he wished to do that—his offer of a carriage had been based as much on a sudden desire to abandon the conversation for the moment as on a desire to save Mr. Wainwright from a chilled liver. But he’d meant it; Wainwright had a right to know, and might better hear the details from him than from someone who held the late duke in less esteem.

“Well. You will know, I suppose, that raising, equipping, and maintaining a regiment is an expensive business. My father had money, as I said, but in order to expand the regiment when the Jacobite threat recurred in 1719, he sold his South Sea shares—quite against the advice of Great-Uncle Nicodemus, I might add.”

Within the previous five years, the price of South Sea shares had risen, from ten pounds to a hundred, then dizzyingly, from a hundred to a thousand within a year, driven up by rumor, greed—and not a little calculated chicanery on the part of the company’s directors. The duke sold his shares at this pinnacle.

“And a week—one week—later, the slide began.” It had taken most of a year for the full devastation of the great crash to become evident. Several great families had been ruined; many lesser folk all but obliterated. And the public outcry toward those seen to be responsible…

“I can imagine.” Percy glanced at him. He wore no hat, and the tips of his ears were red with cold. “But your father was notresponsible, was he?”

Grey shook his head.

“He was seen to profit immensely, while others went bankrupt,” he said simply. “Nothing else was needed to convict him in the popular mind.” And the House of Commons, that voice of the popular mind, had been vociferous in their denunciations.

“But he was a duke.” Grey watched the words purl out, his breath like smoke. “He could not be tried, save by his peers. And the House of Lords declined to proceed.” Not from any sense of justice—many noble families had suffered in the crash and were quite as irrationally bloodthirsty as the commoners. But the Duke of Pardloe chose his friends carefully, and the ravenings of the mob moved on to easier prey.

“Such things leave a mark, though. Enemies were made, enmities lingered. And it was the more unfortunate that my father should have been a good friend of Francis Atterbury’s. The Bishop of Rochester,” he added, seeing Percy’s puzzled look. “Convicted of being the focus of a Jacobite plot to exploit public feeling about the South Sea Bubble by staging a Stuart invasion and dethroning the king, in ’22. Banished, though, not executed.”

Their path had led them to Hyde Park, for the most direct way to Lady Jonas’s house lay straight across it. They were now well within the park, and Grey gestured to the wide spaces all around them, empty and desolate.

“When word got out of the plot in ’22, His Majesty in panic ordered ten thousand troops to London, to safeguard the city. They were quartered here—in the park. My father told me of it; he said the smoke of their fires was thicker than the morning fog, and the stench was indescribable. Convenient, though; the family house stands on the edge of the park—just beyond those trees.” He gestured toward it, with a brief smile at the memory, then went on.

“My father merely played chess with the bishop; he had no Jacobite leanings whatever. But again—”

“The popular mind.” Percy nodded. “ Andyour mother’s family. So he was perceived as a Jacobite sympathizer? The notion being that he had somehow engineered the crash in order to facilitate the invasion—though it never happened?”

Grey nodded, a sense of hollowness growing beneath his breastbone. He had never told the story to anyone before, and was both surprised and disturbed that the words came so easily to him. He was coming now to the most difficult part of the history, though, and so hesitated.

“There was another Jacobite scare, a decade later—this one no more, really, than talk. Lord Cornbury it was, who was the instigator. No one would have noticed, really, save he was the Earl of Clarendon’s heir. And it came to nothing in the end; Cornbury was not even imprisoned—merely left off meddling in politics.” He smiled again, though without humor.

Percy’s lower teeth were fixed in his upper lip. He shook his head slowly.

“Don’t tell me. Cornbury was also an intimate of your father’s?”

“Ah—no. My mother.” He gave Percy a wry glance. “Or rather, Cornbury had been a close friend to her first husband. Thus Cornbury is my eldest half brother’s godfather. Not a close connexion, by any means—but it wasa connexion, and it didn’t help when the rumors about another Stuart Rising began in 1740.”

He took a breath and released it slowly, watching the steam of it.

“There were…other Jacobite influences. My mother’s family, as you say. And then—one of my father’s nearest friends was exposed as a Jacobite plotter, and arrested. The man was taken to the Tower and questioned closely—I do not know whether that is a euphemism for torture; it was not said—but under the pressure of such questioning, he revealed a number of names. Persons, it was claimed, who were involved in a direct plot to assassinate the king and his family.”

Speaking these words now, from the far side of Culloden, the idea seemed preposterous. He thought it had perhaps seemed equally ludicrous to his parents—at first.

“He—this Jacobite plotter—incriminated your father?”

Grey nodded, somewhat comforted to see that Percy looked both aghast and incredulous at this.

“Yes. There was no direct evidence—or at least none was ever produced. But the matter did not come to trial. A warrant was issued for my father’s arrest. He…died—the night before it was to be executed.”

“Oh, dear God,” Percy said, very quietly. He did not touch Grey again, but drew closer, walking slowly, so that their shoulders nearly brushed.

“Of course,” Percy said after a moment, “your father’s death was taken as an admission of guilt?” He put the question delicately, but remembered bitterness filled Grey’s throat with the taste of bile.

“It was. A Bill of Attainder was brought against my father’s title, but did not pass.” He smiled wryly.

“My father had many enemies, but just as many friends. And a much better instinct in choosing godfathers for his sons than my mother’s first husband. Hal’s godfather was Robert Walpole.”

“What, the prime minister?” Percy looked gratifyingly agog.

“Well, he wasn’t at the time of Hal’s birth, of course. And when the scandal broke, twenty-some years later, Walpole was very near his own death—but still an immensely powerful man.

“And,” Grey added judiciously, “whatever his personal feelings in the matter, it wouldn’t have done Walpole’s own reputation any good to have his godson’s father publicly denounced as a traitor. Not at such a delicate point in his own affairs.

“So,” he concluded, “the Bill of Attainder was quashed. My father had not, after all, been proved a traitor. There was sufficient public—and private—outcry, though, that Hal declared he would not bear a tainted title, and has ever since refused to use it. He did wish to renounce it completely, but could not by law.”

He gave a short laugh.

“So. A very long story, I am afraid—but we do arrive at the end, never fear.”

Within two or three years of the duke’s death, Charles Edward Stuart had begun to make a nuisance of himself, and Jacobite hysteria had once more swept the country, rising to a peak upon the Bonnie Prince’s arrival in the Highlands.

“Whereupon Hal promptly raised the standard of our father’s old regiment, spent a fortune in reconstituting it, and marched off to the Highlands in the service of the king. The king was in no position to refuse such service, any more than his father had been when my father did the same thing thirty years before.”

He said nothing of the immensity of Hal’s effort. At the time, he had been barely fifteen and ignorant, not only of the true dimensions of the scandal, but of his brother’s response to it. Only now, looking back, could he appreciate the tremendous energy and almost maniacal single-mindedness that had enabled Hal to do what he’d done.

Melton, grimly intent upon restoring the family’s lost honor, had met the Highlanders—and defeat—with Cope at Prestonpans. Went on to hold his own in the less decisive battle at Falkirk—and then at Culloden…

Grey’s voice dried in his throat, and he paused, mouth working to find a little saliva.

“A famous victory!” Percy said, his voice respectful. “I read of that, at least, in the newspapers.”

“I hope you never see one like it,” Grey said shortly. He curled his left hand into a fist, feeling Hector’s sapphire ring press against the leather of his glove. Hector had died at Culloden. But he did not mean to speak of Hector.

Percy glanced at him, surprised by his tone, but did not reply. Grey breathed deeply, the air cold and heavy in his chest. They had been walking slowly, but had come through the park and were now within sight of Lady Jonas’s house; he could see guests coming in ones and twos, being welcomed at the door by the butler.

With unspoken consent, they stopped, a little way down the street. Wainwright turned to face him, his eyes still warm, but serious.

“Your mother does not style herself Duchess?” he asked, and Grey shook his head.

“My brother became head of the family at my father’s death; she would do nothing that might seem to undermine his authority. She uses the title Dowager Countess of Melton.”

“I see.” Wainwright studied Grey with open curiosity. “And yet you have continued to call yourself…”

“Lord John. Yes, I have.”

The corner of Wainwright’s mouth tucked back.

“I see that your brother is not alone in being stubborn.”

“It runs in the family,” Grey replied. “Shall we go in?”

Chapter 5

Genius and Sub-Genius

Grey noted at once that Percy was not entirely comfortable.

His color was high, and while he handed his cloak to the butler with aplomb, he looked quickly round the drawing room to which they were taken, as though searching for acquaintance, then glanced back at Grey uncertainly. His face brightened, though, as he spotted their hostess, and he hastened forward, Grey in his wake.

He bowed to Lady Jonas, and introduced Grey to her; she greeted them kindly, but with that air of distraction that attends a hostess in search of more-distinguished guests. They kissed her hand in turn and retired to the drinks table.

“You don’t do this often, do you?” Grey murmured to Percy.

“Does it show?” Wainwright cast him a glance of half-comic alarm, and he laughed.

“Not at all,” he assured Percy. “It is only that no one save Lady Jonas has spoken to you since we entered. How do you come to know her?”

Wainwright shrugged a little, looking embarrassed.

“She stepped on my foot at a ball. At Sir Richard Joffrey’s house—the general had taken me there to meet Colonel Quarry. But Lady Jonas apologized most gracefully, asked my name—she knew the general, of course—and ended by inviting me to her salon, with any friend I might choose to bring. She said”—Percy blushed, avoiding Grey’s eye—“that beautiful boys were always welcome.”

“I have found that generally to be the case in society,” Grey said, tactfully ignoring both the blush and the implied compliment. “Regardless of sex.” He nodded at the Honorable Helene Rowbotham, whose swanlike neck and doelike eyes were exciting their usual admiration near the window where she had placed herself so as to take best advantage of the pale winter sun.

“On the other hand,” he said lightly, “a party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments—desirable, but dispensable.”

“Indeed,” Percy said dryly. “And in which camp do you place yourself here? Beautiful and dull, or homely and clever?”

“Oh,” Grey said lightly, and touched Percy’s wrist, “I’ll be wherever you are…Brother.”

The blush, which had receded, surged back full force. Wainwright had no chance to reply, though, before Grey perceived Lady Beverley drifting toward them, an intentness in her eye at sight of Percy.

“Light-frigate off the starboard bow,” he said under his breath. Percy frowned in bewilderment, but then saw the direction of his glance.

“Really? She looks most respectable,” Percy murmured, he having evidently spent enough time with General Stanley in military circles as to have acquired familiarity with such terms as “light-frigate” for a woman of easy virtue.

“Don’t go into an alcove with her,” Grey murmured back, already nodding and smiling at the approaching lady. “She’ll have her hand in your breeches before you can say—Lady Beverley! Your servant, madam—may I present you my new stepbrother, Percival Wainwright?”

Seeing the hint of hesitation in Percy’s eye, he grasped Lady Beverley’s trailing hand and kissed it, thus signaling to Percy that, yes, she wasmarried, reputation notwithstanding, then gracefully relinquished the appendage to Wainwright for the bestowal of his own homage.

“Mr. Wainwright.” Lady Beverley gave him a look of approval, then turned the force of her not inconsiderable charm on Grey. “We are obliged to you, Lord John! Monstrous kind of you, to bring such an ornament to decorate our dull society. Do come and have a glass of punch with me, Mr. Wainwright, and tell me what you think of Mr. Garrick’s new role—you will have seen it, I’m sure. For myself…”

Before either man could draw breath to answer, she had got Percy’s hand firmly trapped between her elbow and her yellow silk bodice, and was towing him purposefully toward the refreshment table, still talking.

Wainwright cast Grey a wide-eyed look, and Grey sketched a small salute in return, suppressing a smile. At least Wainwright had been warned. And if he took care to keep Lady Beverley out in the public view, she would be good company. Already she had drawn him into the circle around the guest of honor, which she cleft like the Red Sea, and was introducing him to the French philosopher.

He relaxed a bit, seeing that Percy seemed able to hold his own, and deliberately turned his back, not to embarrass his new relation with undue scrutiny.

“Lord John!” A clear voice hailed him, and he looked round to find his friend Lucinda, Lady Joffrey, smiling at him, a small leather-bound book in one hand. “How do you do, my dear?”

“Excellently well, I thank you.” He made to kiss her hand, but she laughed and drew him in, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek instead.

“I crave a favor, if you please,” she whispered in his ear, and came down on her heels, looking up at him, expectant of his consent.

“You know I can deny you nothing,” he said, smiling. She reminded him always of a partridge, small, neat, and slightly plump, with a kind, soft eye. “What is your desire, Lady Joffrey? A cup of punch? Sardines on toast? Or had you in mind something more in the way of apes, ivory, and peacocks?”

“It may well be pearls before swine,” she said, dimpling, and handed him the book. “But the fact of the matter is that I have a…relation…who has written some verses—negligible, I am sure, but perhaps not without a certain charm. I thought to present them to Monsieur Diderot…” She cast a glance toward the window where the distinguished man of letters held court, then turned back, a faint blush mantling her cheeks.

“But I find my nerve fails me.”

Grey gave her a look of patent disbelief. Small and demure she might be in appearance; by temperament she had the guile of a serpent and the tenacity of a sticking plaster.

“Really,” she insisted, both dimple and blush growing deeper. She glanced round to be sure they were not overheard, and leaning close, whispered, “Have you by chance heard of a novel entitled Les Bijoux Indiscrets?”

“I have, Lady Joffrey,” he said, with mock severity, “and I am shocked to the core of my being to discover that a woman of your character should be acquainted with such a scandalous volume. Have you read it?” he inquired, dropping the pose.

“La, everyone’s read it,” she said, relaxing into comfortable scorn. “Your mother sent it to me last year.”

“Indeed.” He was not surprised; his mother would read anything, and maintained friendships with several similarly indiscriminate ladies, who kept up a constant exchange of books—most of which would have shocked their husbands, had those worthy gentlemen ever bothered to inquire about their wives’ pastimes.

“Have you read it?” she asked.

He shook his head. Les Bijoux Indiscretswas an erotic novel, written some years before by M. Diderot for Madeleine le Puisieux, his mistress at the time. It had been published in Holland, and for a time, there had been a mania in England for smuggled copies. He’d seen the book, of course, but had done no more than flip through an illustrated copy, looking for the pictures—which were indifferently executed. Perhaps the text was better.

“Prude,” she said.

“Quite. Am I to infer that these…verses…share something of the sentiments of that particular volume?” He weighed the book in his hand. It was both small and slender, befitting poetry.

“I believe they were inspired by certain of the events depicted therein,” Lady Joffrey said, circumspect. “The, um, author of the verses wished to present them to Monsieur Diderot as an acknowledgment of the inspiration, I believe—a tribute, if you will.”

He raised a brow at her, and opened the cover. Certain Verses Upon the Subject of—

“Jesus,” he said, involuntarily, and shut the book. He immediately opened it again, cautiously, as though afraid it might spit at him.

By an Admirer of the Works of that Urgent Genius, Monsieur Denis Diderot, who in Humility stiles himself “Sub-Genius.”

“You didn’t write them yourself, did you?” he asked, glancing up. Lady Joffrey’s mouth fell open, and he smiled. “No, of course not. My apologies.”

He thumbed slowly through the book, pausing to read here and there. The verses were actually quite competent, he thought—even good, in spots. Though the material…

“Yes,” he said, closing the book and clearing his throat. “I see why you might hesitate to present this personally—he isa Frenchman, though I believe he’s said to be quite faithful to his present mistress. I suppose you hadn’t looked at the contents before coming here?”

She shook her head, making the pheasant’s feathers she wore in her powdered hair sweep across her shoulder.

“No. He—the relation I spoke of—had brought it to me early in the week, but I’d had no chance to look at it. I read it in the carriage on the way—and then, of course, was at a loss what to do, until most fortunately I saw you.” She looked over her shoulder at the group by the window, then back at Grey. “I did promise to deliver it. Will you? Please?”

“I don’t know why your husband does not beat you regularly,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Or at least keep you locked up safely at home. Has he the slightest idea…?”

“Sir Richard is a most accomplished diplomat,” she replied with complacence. “He has a great facility for not knowing things that it is expedient not to know.”

“I daresay,” Grey replied dryly. “Speaking of knowing—do I know your relation?”

“Why, I am sure I could not say, I have so many,” she answered blandly. “But speaking of relations—I hear that you are to acquire a new brother? I am told that he is amazing handsome to look at.”

Hearing Percival Wainwright referred to as his brother gave him a slightly odd feeling, as though he might in fact be contemplating incest. He ignored this, though, and nodded toward the table.

“You may judge of that for yourself; there he stands.”

Wainwright had moved away from the throng around the philosopher, and was now surrounded, Grey was pleased to see, by a small group of his own, both men and women, all seeming much amused by his conversation—particularly Lady Beverley, who hung upon both his words and his arm. Wainwright was telling some story, his face alight, and even across the room, Grey felt the warmth of his presence. As though he sensed their scrutiny, Percy glanced suddenly in their direction, and shot Grey a smile of such delight in his surroundings that Grey smiled back, delighted in turn to see him manage so well.

Lucinda Joffrey emitted a hum of approval.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “And quite good style, too. Did you dress him?” she inquired.

No, but I should like very much to undress him. He cleared his throat.

“No, he has excellent taste of his own.”

“And the money to support it?”

He was not offended. A man’s means were generally of more interest than his face, and everyone would be wondering the same thing of a newcomer—though not everyone would ask so bluntly. Lucinda, though, didhave a great many relations, of whom at least half were female, and felt it her moral duty to help her sisters and cousins to good marriages.

“Unfortunately not. His father—you collect he is the general’s stepson?—was a minister of some kind. Family poor as church mice, I gather. The general has settled a small sum upon him, but he has no property.”

Lucinda hummed again, but with less approval.

“Looking for a rich wife, then, is he?” she said, with a degree of resignation. She came from an old and estimable family, but one without wealth.

“Early days for that, surely.” Grey thought he had spoken lightly, but she gave him a sharp look.

“Ho,” she said. “Does he fancy himself in love with someone unsuitable?”

Grey felt as though she had pushed him suddenly in the chest. He had forgotten just how acute she was. Sir Richard Joffrey was indeed a good diplomat—but no little degree of his success was the result of his wife’s social connexions and her ability to ferret out things that it wasexpedient to know.

“If so, he has not told me,” Grey said, achieving, he thought, a good simulation of indifference. “Have you met the great man yourself? Will I present you?”

“Oh, Monsieur Diderot?” Lucinda turned to eye the guest of honor speculatively. “I did meet him, some years ago in Paris. A very witty man, though I think I should not care to be married to him.”

“Because he keeps a mistress?”

She looked surprised, then waved her fan in dismissal.

“Oh, no. The difficulty with witty people is that they feel compelled to exhibit their wit all the time—which is most tedious over the breakfast table. Sir Richard,” she said with satisfaction, “is not witty at all.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t do in a diplomat,” Grey agreed. “Will I fetch you some refreshment?”

Lady Joffrey assenting, he made his way through the crowd, the book she had given him still in hand. The room buzzed with conversation and the excitement of a successful salon, but a freak of sound brought him Diderot’s voice clearly—nasal, like all Frenchmen, but rich and pleasant. He seemed to be speaking of his wife.