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“Certainly not. He would have told Hal at once.”
“Then how did you induce him to…” He nodded at the leather case. To his surprise, his mother smiled.
“More blackmail,” she admitted. “Harry writes erotic verses—very elegant, really. I told him that if he didn’t do what I asked, I’d tell everyone in the regiment. It was all quite easy,” she said, with a certain degree of complacence. “It is possibleto deal with men. You just have to know how.”
Grey was so flabbergasted at the revelation of Harry Quarry’s identity as the Sub-Genius that he barely noticed where he was going, and in consequence had walked a good quarter mile before remembering that he had left a coach waiting in a side street near Morning Glory. He turned back, hurrying, trying to think where to start in pursuit of Bernard Adams.
He thought it very likely that his mother was right; Adams was bound for France. That being so, though—would he take ship from the nearest port? Grey could quite possibly catch him up, if that were the case; he had no more than an hour’s start, perhaps two. But what if he meant to travel overland, take ship from a more distant port, to confuse pursuit?
Was he expecting pursuit, though? He was presumably acting on the supposition that the duchess had proof of his actions, but it would take more than a day or two for her to make that proof—had it existed—known to anyone who might take action.
And if he did notexpect pursuit—but he had left his house abruptly, without pausing to pack any personal belongings. That argued precipitate flight…
Caught up in these musings, and half-ru
“Here’s hoping I find your honor well,” one of the O’Higgins brothers said politely. “The devil of a time ye’ve been about your business, and you’ll pardon my sayin’ so.”
Grey sank onto the squabs, wiping a sleeve across his sweating forehead.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waitin’ on yourself, to be sure.” He leaned out the window and called up to the coachman, “On, me boy. Where I told you, and be quick, now!”
“And where is that?” Grey was recovering his breath and his wits, and eyed O’Higgins warily.
“The regimental offices, to be sure,” the Irishman said. “That’s where he’ll be.”
“He?”
O’Higgins rolled his eyes.
“Bernard Adams. A poor excuse for an Irishman, and him a wicked apostate, too,” he added piously, crossing himself.
Grey relapsed against the cushions, realization dawning.
“You read Bates’s letter.”
“Well, we did, then,” O’Higgins agreed, without shame. “Proper shockin’, it was.”
“Not nearly as shocking as you think,” Grey said dryly, begi
“Oh, I follied your honor, when you left Adams’s house,” the Irishman said, airily. “My brother having gone after Mr. Adams, when heleft, just afore you. Don’t be fretting, sir, even if he’s gone before we get there, Rafe will stick to him like a bur.”
“But why has he—”
“Well, the money, to be sure,” Mick said, as though this were obvious. “He hid it in our fortune-teller’s cabinet. And he’s gone to your brother’s office for to get it back—not realizin’ that it’s gone.” The Irishman gri
Grey stared at him, barely noticing the tooth-rattling bump of the carriage over rough cobbles as they hurtled through the streets.
“You found it. The money.” Something else occurred to him. “Was there anything else there—papers?”
“Oh, there were some moldy bits of trash wedged beneath the clockwork, to be sure; we burnt them,” O’Higgins said comfortably. “As to having found any money, I couldn’t say as to that, sir. But I will say that, havin’ had the chance to think it over, Rafe and me decided that perhaps the army don’t suit us after all. We’ll be for going back to Ireland, once this business here is done.”
The coach rattled round another corner and pulled to a stop, horses blowing, at the corner of Cavendish Square. It was late in the day; the regimental offices would be deserted. Which was, of course, what Adams had waited for, Grey realized.
Tossing money up to the coachman, he turned toward the building, to see a slouching figure detach itself from a patch of evening shadow and come toward him.
“Is he inside, then?” Mick asked, and Rafe nodded.
“Just gone in, not five minutes ago.” He glanced at Grey, then up at the building’s facade.
“No need to call the guard, I think,” he said. “Should your honor care to deal with the matter man to man? We’ll see he don’t get out, Mick and me.” He lounged against the doorjamb, looking most unsoldierly, but thoroughly competent, with a hand on his shillelagh.
“I—yes,” Grey said abruptly. “Thank you.”
The door was unlocked; he went in and stopped, listening. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, and emptiness murmured in his ears.
All the doors in the ground-floor corridor were closed. Hal’s office was upstairs. Almost by reflex, Grey drew his sword, the whisper of metal against the scabbard cold in the silence.
He made no effort to mute his own footsteps. It didn’t matter if Adams heard him coming.
The corridor upstairs was empty, too, lit only by the fading light that came through the casement at the end. A sliver of light showed to the right, though; Hal’s door was open.
What ought he to feel? he wondered, as he walked along the hall, bootheels steady as a heartbeat on the floor. He had felt too much, for too long. Now he felt nothing, save the need to continue.
Adams had heard him; he was standing by the desk, his sallow face tense. It relaxed as he recognized Grey, and put out a hand to the desk, to steady himself.
“Oh, Lord John,” he said. “It’s you. I was just looking for—”
“I know what you were looking for,” Grey interrupted. “It doesn’t matter.”
Adams’s eyes turned wary on the instant.
“I fear you have mistaken me, sir,” he began, and Grey raised the point of his rapier and pressed it to the man’s chest.
“No, I haven’t.” His own voice came oddly to his ears, detached and calm. “You killed my father, and I know it.”
The man’s eyes went huge, but with panic, not surprise.
“What? You—but, but this is nonsense!” He backed away hastily, hands batting at the blade. “Really, sir, I must protest! Who would tell you such a—such a taradiddle?”
“My mother,” Grey said.
Adams went white, pushed the blade aside, and ran. Taken by surprise, Grey went after him, to see him ru
Grey followed, fast, and Adams whirled, jerking at the knob of the nearest door, which was locked. Adams’s face went tight as Grey approached, and he pressed himself back into the doorframe, hands against the wood.
“You can’t kill me!” he said, voice shrill with fear. “I’m not armed.”
“Neither was the cockroach I stamped on in my quarters last night.”
Adams stood his ground for an instant longer, but as Grey drew within lunging distance, his nerve broke and he dodged away, rushed back past Grey, ru