Страница 12 из 105
Grey shook his head.
“I am not fond of sugar, but I do like cream.”
“As do I.” Wainwright set down the tongs at once, and they smiled unexpectedly at finding that they shared this trifling preference—then smiled wider, finally laughing at the absurdity, for lack of anything sensible to say.
Grey picked up his coffee and spilled some into the saucer to cool, wondering quite what to say next. He was intensely curious to learn more of Percy Wainwright, but not sure how closely he might inquire without giving offense.
He had already learned a little from his mother: Percy Wainwright was the son of an impoverished clergyman who had died young, leaving the boy and his mother a small a
“I believe they were quite happy,” his mother had said, dispassionate. “But she died only a few months after the wedding—of the consumption, I believe.”
She had been looking thoughtfully into her looking glass as they talked, turning her head this way and that, eyes half-closing in quizzical evaluation.
“You are very beautiful, too, Mother,” he’d said, both amused and rather touched by what he took as this unusual evidence of doubt.
“Well, yes,” she said frankly, laying down the glass. “For my age, I am remarkably handsome. Though I do think the general values me more for my rude good health than for the fact that I have all my teeth and good skin. He has buried two sickly wives, and found it distressing.”
His mother, of course, had buried two husbands—but she didn’t mention that, and neither did he.
He asked the usual social questions now—did Wainwright go often to Lady Jonas’s salons? Grey had not yet had the pleasure. How did Mr. Wainwright find the company there, by comparison with other such gatherings?—meanwhile thinking that the late Lady Stanley must have been very beautiful indeed, judging by her son.
And I doubt extremely that I am the first man to have noticed that,he thought. Is there anyone…?
While he hesitated, Percy gave him a direct look and put the question that was in the forefront of his own mind.
“Do you go often? To Lavender House?”
He felt a slight easing, for the asking of the question answered it, so far as he was himself concerned; if Wainwright were in the habit of frequenting Lavender House, he would know that Grey was not.
“No,” he said, and smiled again. “I had not visited the place in many years, prior to the occasion when I met you there.”
“That was my first—and only—visit,” Percy confessed. He looked down into his dish of coffee. “A…friend sought to introduce me to the company, thinking that I might find some congeniality of persons there.”
“And did you?”
Percy Wainwright had long, dark lashes. These lifted slowly, giving Grey the benefit of those warm-sherry eyes, further warmed by a look of amusement.
“Oh, yes,” Percy said. “Did you?”
Grey felt blood rise in his face, and lifted his coffee to his mouth, so that the warmth of the liquid might disguise it.
“The pursuit of…congeniality was not my purpose,” he said carefully, lowering the cup. “I had gone there in order to question the proprietor about a private matter. Still,” he added, offhanded, “it would be a foolish man who disregards a pound discovered lying by his foot in the road, only because he was not looking for it.” He darted a look at Percy, who laughed in delight.
Suddenly, Grey felt a rush of exhilaration, and could not bear to remain indoors, sitting.
“Shall we go?”
Percy drank off his coffee in a gulp and rose, reaching for his cloak with one hand, even as he set down his cup with the other.
The walls of the Balboa were plastered with trivia for the edification of patrons—the entire series of Mr. Hogarth’s “Marriage а la Mode” etchings encircled the room, but were surrounded—and in some cases obscured—by thick flutterings of newspaper broadsheets, personal communiquйs, and Wantednotices, these advertising a need for everything from six to
Glancing casually at the new crop of postings as they made their way to the door, though, Grey’s eye caught a familiar name in the headline of a fresh broadsheet. DEATH DISCOVERED, read the large type.
He stopped short, the name Ffoulkesleaping out of the smaller newsprint at him.
“What?” Percy had perforce halted, too, and was looking curiously from Grey to the newspaper.
“Nothing. A name I recognized.” Grey’s elation dimmed a little, though he was too excited to be quelled completely. “Are you familiar with a barrister named Ffoulkes? Melchior Ffoulkes?” he asked Percy.
The latter looked blank and shook his head.
“I am afraid I know no one, much,” he said apologetically. “Should I have heard of Mr. Ffoulkes?”
“Not at all.” Grey would just as soon have dismissed Ffoulkes from his own mind, but felt obliged to see whether anything of what Hal had told him had made it into the public press. He tossed a silver ha’pe
Outside, the chisping had stopped, but the sky hung low and heavy, and there was a sense of stillness in the air, the earth awaiting more snow. Alone, away from the buzz of the coffeehouse, there was a sudden small sense of intimacy between them.
“I must apologize,” Percy said, as they turned toward Hyde Park.
“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.