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Something small and cold slid wormlike through his entrails.
Olivia had lost interest in the Scottish prisoner, and was happily outlining her plans for the suit he would wear for the wedding.
“Yellow velvet, I think,” she said, squinting consideringly at him over the tea cozy. “It will be lovely against Aunt Be
“I have, and yes, he is dark,” Grey said, his i
“Well,” Olivia said, recovering first, “if you domean to go up to the Lake District, I suppose you’d best go quickly, in order to be back in good time for the wedding. Whether it is yellow or not, you willhave a new suit, and the fittings…”
Grey was no longer attending, though. Christ, he wouldhave to go at once, if he meant to go at all. The funeral and Isobel Dunsany’s need quite aside, the wedding was in late February; were he to delay, he would have no chance to go and return before the regiment set sail for France in March.
For the first time, his anticipation at the prospect of visiting Helwater was tinged with slight dismay. Percy Wainwright…but after all, there was no hurry in that quarter, was there? Particularly not if Wainwright should indeed join the regiment. And he was meant to meet the man this afternoon; he would be able to explain. Perhaps even to…
A movement in the doorway drew his eye, and he glanced up to see his mother standing there, hand braced against the jamb.
“Go if you must,” she said abruptly. “But for God’s sake, John, be careful.”
Then she turned and was gone again. Thoroughly unsettled, he picked up his cup, found the tea had gone cold, and drank it just the same.
Chapter 4
Chisping
It was chisping, that ambiguous sort of precipitation, half snow, not quite drizzle. Misshapen flakes fell slow and scattered, spiraled through gray air and brushed his face, tiny cold touches so fleeting as not even to leave a sense of wetness in their wake. Dry tears, he thought. Appropriate to his sense of distant mourning.
He paused at the edge of Haymarket, waiting his chance to dodge through the traffic of cabs, carriages, horses, and handcarts. It was a long walk; he might have ridden, called for a chair, or taken his mother’s carriage, but he had felt restless, wanting air and movement and the proximity of people with whom he need not talk. Needing time to prepare, before he met Percy Wainwright again.
He was shocked, of course. He had known Geneva since her birth. A lovely girl, with great charm of ma
He still remembered the occasion when she had gone riding with him, challenged him to a race, and when he declined, had calmly unpi
As though still challenged by the memory, he plunged into the street and dashed across the cobbles, ducking under the startled nose of a hurtling cab horse, and arrived at the other side, heart pounding and the cabbie’s curses ringing in his ears.
He turned down St. Martin’s Lane, feeling the blood thrum in his ears and fingers, with that half-shameful sense of pleasure in being alive that was sometimes the response to news of death, or the sight of it.
He could not yet think of her as dead. Perhaps he would not until he reached Helwater, and found himself amongst her family, walking through the places that had known her. He tried to envision her, but found that her face had faded from his memory, though he kept a strong sense of her form, lithe in a brown habit, chestnut-haired and quick as a fox.
Quite suddenly, he wondered whether he could recall Percy Wainwright’s face. He had spent all of a two-hour luncheon the day before yesterday in gazing at it, but was suddenly unsure. And much of the second hour in imagining the form that lay beneath the neat blue suit; he was more sure of that,and his heart sped up in anticipation.
What he saw in his mind’s eye, though, was another face, another form, vivid as flame among the damp greens and grays of the fells. He sawit, the long, suspicious nose, the narrowed eyes hostile as a leopard’s, as though the man himself stood before him, and the pleasant thrum of his blood changed at once to something deeper and more visceral.
He realized now that the vision had sprung up in him at once, the moment his mother had spoken the words, “Geneva Dunsany is dead”—though he had instinctively been suppressing it. Geneva Dunsany meant Helwater. And Helwater meant not only his memories of Geneva, nor the griefs of her parents and sister. It meant Jamie Fraser.
“God damn it,” he said to the vision, under his breath. “Not now.Go away!”
And walked on to his engagement, heedless of the chisping snow, his heated blood in ferment.
They had agreed to meet beforehand, and go together to Lady Jonas’s salon. Not sure either of Wainwright’s means or his style, Grey had chosen the Balboa, a modest coffeehouse chiefly patronized by sea traders and brokers.
The place was always cheerful and bustling, with men huddled intently in small groups, plotting strategy, wrangling over contracts, absorbed in the details of business in a fragrant, invigorating atmosphere of roasting coffee. Now and then a clerk or ’prentice rushed in in panic to fetch out one of the patrons to deal with some emergency of business—but in the postluncheon lull, most of the merchants had returned to their offices and warehouses; it would be possible at least to have a conversation.
Grey was punctual by habit and arrived just as his pocket watch chimed three, but Percy Wainwright was already there, seated at a table near the back.
He did recognize the man; indeed, his putative stepbrother’s face seemed to spring smiling out of the dimness, vivid as though he sat by a candle flame, and the disquieting wraith of Jamie Fraser disappeared at once from Grey’s mind.
“You are very prompt,” he remarked, waving Wainwright back onto his stool and taking one opposite. “I hope you did not have too far to come?”
“Oh, no; I have rooms quite near—in Audley Street.” Wainwright nodded, indicating the direction, though his eyes stayed fixed on Grey, friendly, but intensely curious.
Grey was equally curious, but took care not to seem to examine his companion too closely. He ordered coffee for himself, and took the opportunity of Wainwright’s speaking to the waiter to look, covertly. Good style, an elegant but quiet cut, the cloth a little worn, but originally of good quality. Linen very fine, and immaculate—as were the long, knob-jointed fingers that took up the sugar tongs, Wainwright’s dark brows lifting in inquiry.