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The scent of smoke cut through the air, acrid and heartening with its promise of heat. Surprised, he looked for the source, and made out a faint glow in the gathering dark. There were few people in the park—most of the poor who scraped a living begging or stealing near the park had gone to shelter in alleyways and night cellars, crowding into filthy boozing kens or garrets if they had a pe
He altered his path enough to investigate, and found the glow came from a clay firepot burning in the lee of a crude lean-to, propped against a tree. The lean-to was deserted—was, in fact, too small to shelter anything larger than a dog. He had no more than an instant to think this odd, when instinct made him turn and look behind.
There were two of them, one with a club, the other unarmed.
Stocky shapes, black and ragged, hunched under split burlap sacks that covered heads and shoulders, hiding their faces.
“Stand and deliver!” said a hoarse Irish voice.
“Else we squash yer head in like a rotten turnip!” said another just like it.
He hadn’t worn a sword to the salon. He did have his accustomed dagger, though, worn beneath his waistcoat.
“Bugger off,” he said briefly, unbuttoning his coat and producing this. He made small circles with the blade, the metal gleaming dull in what little light there was.
A dagger was not the weapon of choice when facing someone armed with a club, but it was what he had. He backed slowly, jabbing the blade at them, hoping to acquire enough distance to turn and run before they charged him.
To his surprise, they seemed turned to stone at his words.
“It’s him, so ’tis!” one of them hissed to the other. “The major!”
“O’Higgins?” he said, straightening in disbelief. “O’Higgins!” he bellowed. But they had fled, uttering Irish blasphemies that floated back to him through the snow.
He replaced the dagger and rebuttoned his greatcoat, fumbling a bit, his fingers shaking a little from the shock of the encounter.
The bloody O’Higgins brothers. Grossly misnamed by their pious mother for a pair of archangels, their baptismal names of Raphael and Michael shortened for common use to Rafe and Mick. Not twins, but so similar in appearance that they often masqueraded as each other in order to escape trouble. And worked in concert to get into it.
He was morally sure they were deserters from the Irish Brigade, but the recruiting sergeant had given them their shillings and their uniforms before Grey had set eyes on them. They weren’t the worst of soldiers, though given to more alarming varieties of free enterprise than most.
He squinted through the gloom in the direction they had taken. Sure enough, Hyde Park barracks lay that way, though he couldn’t see the buildings through the trees, dark as it was by now. At a guess, the O’Higginses had come to dice and drink with friends quartered there—or to attend some social event such as a cockfight—and realizing a sudden need for cash, had improvised in their usual slipshod but imaginative ma
Shaking his head, he kicked the firepot over and scattered the glowing coals, which hissed red and died in the snow. He’d deal with the O’Higginses in the morning.
By the time he reached the Serpentine road, he was thickly plastered with snow, his blood had chilled appreciably, and he was begi
The royal swan-keepers had removed the swans for the winter, and the lake was frozen, but not so hard that he would trust his weight to it. Covered with snow, soft patches would be invisible, and all he needed now was to crash through the ice and be submerged in freezing water and decaying duckweed. Sighing, he turned left to make his way round the lake.
Well, perhaps he would remember to ask Hal whether the man’s identity and fate had been determined, once the other matter was settled. And while he was asking…the events of the afternoon had almost made him forget his mother’s odd behavior at breakfast. In the shock of learning of Geneva’s death, he had not at once thought of co
Had Hal spoken to her already, then? If he had come to Jermyn Street, he had done so very surreptitiously, either late the night before or very early in the morning. No. Not late, or Grey, stewing by his window, would have seen him. And not early; his mother had been in her wrapper at breakfast, blinking and yawning as was her morning habit, clearly fresh from her bed.
Another thought struck him; perhaps his mother had also received a page from his father’s missing journal? Perhaps in the morning post? He slowed a little, boots begi
The thought of another page filled him with simultaneous alarm and excitement. It would account for his mother’s sudden agitation, and her violent reaction to the mention of his Jacobite prisoner. And if such a thing hadarrived this morning, Hal likely didn’t know about it yet.
A surge of blood burnt his frozen cheeks. He brushed away the flakes that clung melting to his lashes, and strode through the deepening snow with renewed determination.
He was the more startled and discomfited to be greeted at the door by Hal’s butler with the news that his brother had gone to Bath.
“He really has,” his sister-in-law assured him, appearing behind the butler. She dimpled at his upraised eyebrow, and flung out a hand to indicate the hall behind her. “Search the house, if you like.”
“What the devil has he gone to Bath for?” Grey demanded irritably. “In thisweather?”
“He didn’t tell me,” Mi
“No, I thank you. I must—”
“You must come in and take supper,” she said firmly. “Your nephews miss their uncle John. And your stomach is grumbling; I can hear it from here.”
It was, and he surrendered his wet outer garments to the butler with more gratitude than he cared to show.
Supper was delayed for a bit, though, in favor of a visit to the nursery. Six-year-old Benjamin and five-year-old Adam were so raucously pleased to see their uncle that three-year-old Henry was roused from sleep and shrieked to join the fun. Half an hour of playing knights and dragon—Grey was allowed to be the dragon, which let him roar and breathe fire, but compelled him to die ignominiously on the hearthrug, stabbed through the heart with a ruler—left him in much better temper, but monstrously hungry.
“You are an angel, Minerva,” he said, closing his eyes in order better to appreciate the savory steam rising from the slice of fish pie set in front of him.
“You won’t think so if you call me Minerva again,” she told him, taking her own slice. “I’ve a nice Rhenish to go with that—or will you rather like a French wine?”
Grey’s mouth was full of fish pie, but he did his best to indicate with his eyebrows that he would be pleased to drink whatever she chose. She laughed, and sent the butler to bring both.
Obviously accustomed to men’s needs, she didn’t trouble him with conversation until he had finished the fish pie, a plate of cold ham with pickled onions and gherkins, some excellent cheese, and a large helping of treacle pudding, followed by coffee.