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Sir George and Hal went off into an intense discussion of the problems of recruitment and supply, leaving Grey and Percy Wainwright once more to their own devices.
“Lord John?” Wainwright spoke low-voiced, brows raised. “It isLord John?”
“Lord John,” Grey agreed, with a brief sigh.
“But—” Percy glanced again at Hal, who had put down his fork and was drawing up a complicated pattern of troop movements upon the linen tablecloth, using the silver pencil he always kept to hand. The steward was observing this, looking rather bleak.
Is he not a duke, then?“Lord John” was the proper address for the younger son of a duke, while the younger son of an earl would be simply “the Honorable John Grey.” But if Grey’s father had been a duke, then…
“Yes,” Grey said, casting his own eyes up toward the ceiling in token of helplessness.
Apparently, Sir George had not had time to brief his stepson on the matter, beyond warning him not to address Hal as “Your Grace”—the proper address for a duke.
Grey made a slight gesture, not quite a shrug, indicating that he would explain the intricacies of the situation later. The simple fact of the matter, he reflected, was that he was quite as stubborn as his brother. The thought gave him an obscure feeling of pleasure.
“So you think of purchasing a commission in the Forty-sixth?” Grey asked, using his bread to soak up the juices on his plate.
“Perhaps. If that should be agreeable to…all parties,” Wainwright said, glancing at his stepfather and Hal, then back at Grey.
And would it be agreeable to you?
“I should think it an ideal arrangement,” Grey replied. He smiled at Wainwright, a slow smile. “We should be brothers-in-arms, then, as well as brothers by marriage.” He picked up his wineglass in toast to the idea, then took a sip of wine, which he rolled round his mouth, enjoying the feeling of Percy’s eyes fixed on his face.
Percy drank, too, and licked his lips. They were soft and full, stained red with wine.
“Lord John—tell me, please, how did you find our Prussian allies? Was it an artillery regiment with which you were placed, or foot? I confess, I am not so familiar as I should be with arrangements on the eastern front.”
Sir George’s question pulled Grey’s attention momentarily away from Percy, and the conversation became general again. Hal was relaxing by degrees, though Grey could see that he was still a long way from succumbing entirely to Sir George’s charm.
You are a suspicious bastard, you know,he said with a glance at his brother after one particularly probing question.
Yes, and a good thing, too,Hal’s dark look at him replied, before turning to Percy Wainwright with a courteous renewal of Grey’s invitation to visit the regimental quarters.
By the time the pudding arrived, though, cordial relations appeared to have been established on all fronts. Sir George had replied satisfactorily to all Hal’s questions, seeming quite untroubled by the intrusive nature of some of them. In fact, Grey had the feeling that Sir George was privately rather amused by his brother, though taking great care to ensure that Hal was not aware of it.
Meanwhile, he and Percy Wainwright had discovered a mutual enthusiasm for horse-racing, the theater, and French novelists—a discussion of this last subject causing his brother to mutter, “Oh, God!” beneath his breath and order a fresh round of brandy.
Snow had begun to fall outside; in a momentary lull in the conversation, Grey heard the whisper of it against the window, though the heavy drapes were closed against the winter’s chill, and candles lit the room. A pleasant shiver ran down his back at the sound.
“Do you find the room cold, Lord John?” Wainwright asked, noticing.
He did not; there was an excellent fire, roaring away in the hearth and constantly kept up by the ministrations of the Beefsteak’s servants. Beyond that, a plentitude of hot food, wine, and brandy ensured sufficient warmth. Even now, the steward was bringing in cups of mulled wine, and a Caribbean hint of ci
“No,” he replied, taking his cup from the proffered tray. “But there is nothing so pleasant as being inside, warm and well-fed, when the elements are hostile without. Do you not agree?”
“Oh, yes.” Wainwright’s eyelids had gone heavy, and he leaned back in his chair, his clear skin flushed in the candlelight. “Most…pleasant.” Long fingers touched his neckcloth briefly, as though finding it a little tight.
Awareness floated warm in the air between them, heady as the scents of ci
Percy’s long dark lashes rested for a moment on his cheek, and then swept up, so that his eyes met Grey’s.
“Perhaps you would be interested to come with me to Lady Jonas’s salon—Diderot will be there. Saturday afternoon, if you are at liberty?”
So, shall we be lovers, then?
“Oh, yes,” said Grey, and touched the linen napkin to his mouth. His pulse throbbed in his fingertips. “I think so.”
Well,he thought, I don’t suppose it’s really incest,and pushed his chair back to arise.
Tom Byrd, Grey’s valet, was rubbing at the gold lace on Grey’s dress uniform with a lump of bread to brighten it, and listening with a lively interest to Grey’s account of the luncheon with General Stanley and his stepson.
“So the general means to make his home here, me lord?” Grey could see Tom calculating what this change might mean to his own world; the general would doubtless bring some of his own servants, including a valet or orderly. “Will the son come, too, this Mr. Wainwright?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.” In fact, the notion had not occurred to Grey, and he took a moment to examine it. Wainwright had said he had his own rooms, somewhere in Westminster. Having seen the cordial relations that appeared to exist between Sir George and his stepson, though, he had assumed that this state of things was either to do with the cramped nature of the general’s present lodgings—or with Wainwright’s desire for privacy.
“I don’t know. Perhaps he would.” It was an unsettling thought, though not necessarily unpleasant. Grey smiled at Tom, and pulled his banyan close for warmth; despite the fire, the room was cold. “I shouldn’t think he will bring a valet with him if he does come, though.”
“Ho,” Byrd said thoughtfully. “Would you want me to do for him as well, me lord? I wouldn’t mind,” he added quickly. “Is he a dandy, though, would you say?”
There was such a hopeful tone to this last question that Grey laughed.
“Very kind of you, Tom. He dresses decently, but is no macaroni. I believe he means to take up a commission, though. Nothing but more uniforms for you, I’m afraid.”
Byrd made no audible reply to this, but his glance at Grey’s boots, standing caked with mud, straw, and manure by the hearth, was eloquent. He shook his head, squinted at the coat he was holding, decided it would do, and stood up, brushing bread crumbs into the fire.
“Very good, me lord,” he said, resigned. “You’ll look decent for the wedding, though, if I die for it. Come to that, if we’re a-going back to France in March, you’d best be calling on your tailor this week.”
“Oh? All right. Make me a list, then, of what’s needed. Smallclothes, certainly.” Both of them grimaced, in joint memory of what passed for drawers on the Continent.
“Yes, me lord.” Tom bent to shovel embers into the warming pan. “And a pair of doeskin breeches.”
“Don’t I have a pair?” Grey asked, surprised.
“You do,” Byrd said, straightening, “and Lord only knows what you sat on whilst wearing ’em.” He gave Grey a disapproving look; Tom was eighteen, and round-faced as a pie, but his disapproving looks would have done credit to an old gaffer of eighty.