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He had it in mind to ask his mother just that, amongst other questions, but discovered upon his return to Jermyn Street that Mi
The effect upon his own intentions was the same, though, and he was obliged to content himself with writing a brief note to Hal, informing him of his own proposed absence, the date of his return, and a firm statement that he expected to be apprised of any further discoveries apropos the document of interest—meaning the journal page.
He considered mentioning the possibility that the countess had received a similar page, but dismissed it. Hal had said he would speak with their mother about the page; if she had received another, she would presumably tell him. And Grey had every intention of speaking with the countess himself upon his return from Helwater.
He was putting down his quill when he recollected the matter of the O’Higginses, and with a sigh, took it up again, this time to write a brief note to Captain Wilmot, under whose authority the O’Higginses theoretically fell—though in fact, he was privately inclined to consider them more a force of nature than properly disciplined parts of a military engine.
“It’s stopped snowing, me lord!” Tom Byrd’s voice came faintly to him, and he glanced aside, to see his valet’s lower half protruding from the open window. A cold draft wound its way about his ankles like a ghostly cat, but the wind had died. Evidently the storm had passed.
He came to stand behind Tom, who pulled his head in, red-cheeked from the cold. Everything outside was still, pure and peaceful in a blanket of white. He scooped a bit of fresh snow from the windowsill with his finger and ate it, enjoying the granular feel of it on his tongue as it melted, and the faint taste of soot and metal that it seemed to carry. There was no more than an inch or two upon the sill, and the sky was now clear, a cold deep violet, full of stars.
“Sun in the morning, I’ll be bound,” Tom said with satisfaction. “The roads will be clear in no time!”
“The roads will be mud in no time, you mean,” Grey said, but smiled nonetheless. Despite the grim nature of their errand, he shared Tom’s lightening of the heart at thought of a journey. It had been a long winter indoors.
Finished with the packing, Tom had now picked up Grey’s discarded greatcoat, coat, and waistcoat, and was turning out the pockets in his usual methodical fashion, putting loose coins into Grey’s pocketbook, tossing crumpled handkerchiefs into a pile of dirty linen, setting aside loose buttons to be sewn on, and looking askance at various of the other items contained therein.
“It’s a pritchel,” Grey said helpfully, seeing Tom’s brows go up over a small pointed metal implement. “Or part of one. Thing for punching nail holes in a horseshoe.”
“’Course it is,” Tom said, laying the object aside with a glance at Grey. “Does whoever you lifted it from want it back, you reckon?”
“I shouldn’t think so; it’s broken.” A pritchel was normally about a foot long; the bit on his desk was only two or three inches, broken from the pointed end.
Grey frowned, trying to think where on earth he had acquired the fragment. It was true; he had a habit of stuffing things unconsciously into his pockets, as well as a habit of picking up small objects and turning them over in his fingers while talking to people. The result being that he not infrequently came home with the proceeds of inadvertent petty theft in his pockets, and was obliged to return the items via Tom.
Tom examined a small pebblelike object critically, sniffed it, and determining it to be a lump of sugar from the Balboa, thriftily ate it before picking another object out of a handful of squashed papers.
“Well, now, this ’un’s Lord Melton’s,” he said, holding up a Masonic ring. “Seen it on him. You been with him today?”
“No, yesterday.” Memory thus jogged, he came to look over Tom’s shoulder. “You’re right, it is Melton’s. I’ll send it round to his house by one of the footmen. Oh—and I’ll keep that. You can burn the rest.” He caught sight of the folded broadsheet he had taken from the coffeehouse, and retrieved it from the pile of paper scraps.
A faint smell of coffee wafted from the page as he unfolded it, and he experienced a vivid recollection of Percy Wainwright’s face, flushed from the heat of the coffee he was drinking. Dismissing the faint sense of warmth this brought him, he turned his attention to the article concerning Ffoulkes.
The gist of it was much what Hal had told him. Prominent barrister Melchior Ffoulkes, discovered dead in his study by his wife, thought to have perished by his own hand…assorted remarks by persons who had known deceased, general shock and consternation…coroner’s inquest to be held…but only vague allusions to what might have caused the man’s suicide, and no hint whatever of treason or sodomitical conspiracies, and no mention of Captain Michael Bates, let alone the other fellow Hal had mentioned—Otway? So far,Grey thought cynically, crumpling the newspaper into a ball and tossing it into the fire.
The thought, though, recalled to him what Mi
Well…what of it, if Bates were in fact not inclined to men? As he had said to Hal, sodomitical conspiracies were the common resort of any newspaper in need of news. People did love to read about depravity, and if the usual daily reports of arrests, trials, and pillorying for that vice began to pall…
“Will you need aught else, me lord?” Tom’s voice broke his train of thought, and he looked up to see his valet hovering, arms filled with dirty linen and heavy-eyed, obviously longing for his bed.
“Oh. No, Tom, I thank you. Oh! Perhaps one thing…” He picked up the volume of his father’s journal from his desk. “Will you put this on its shelf in the library as you go?”
“Certainly, me lord. Good night, me lord.” Tom dexterously shifted his load in order to free a hand for the book and went out. Grey closed the door behind him and stretched, suddenly overcome by a desire for his own bed. He bent to extinguish the candle, then stopped short.
Damn, he’d forgotten that he’d promised Mi
Send me word of your discoveries as well, if you will,he wrote, and added the direction for Helwater.
As he pressed the half-moon signet he wore on his right hand into the sealing wax, he noticed that Hal’s Masonic ring and the broken pritchel still lay on his desk. He picked up the ring and rolled it idly between his palms, trying to think if there were any further missives that might come between himself and bed.
A momentary urge to write to Percy Wainwright flickered in his brain—only a line, to express regret for his absence, a renewed desire to meet upon his return—but the church bells were tolling the hour of midnight, and his mind had grown so fatigued that he doubted his ability to put down even such a brief sentiment coherently.