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Grey did not go home immediately, in spite of the presence there of Percy Wainwright. Instead, he crossed the courtyard and went upstairs to see if Harry Quarry was in his own office.
He was, leaning back in his chair, and apparently asleep, a half-dried quill stuck to a blotted page in a copybook on the desk before him.
“Practicing your penmanship, Harry?” Grey said, in a normal tone of voice. Quarry opened one bleary eye, reached out a hand, and flipped the book closed, the quill still inside it.
“Don’t bellow, there’s a good chap,” Quarry said, pressing both hands against his temples, apparently in hope of keeping the contents of his head from escaping.
“Late night, was it?” Grey pulled up a stool and leaned on the desk, eyeing his friend.
“I believe I’ve eaten something that disagreed with me,” Quarry said with dignity, and stifled a belch by way of illustration.
“Really? What was her name?”
Quarry burst into a violent coughing fit that left his wig askew and his face empurpled.
“You hound,” he said hoarsely, tenderly patting his chest. “What the devil d’you want, anyway?”
Grey rocked back a little on the stool.
“Since you ask—Harry, do you happen to know how one Nathaniel Twelvetrees died?”
Quarry’s eyes flew open. He drew breath, and coughed some more. Grey waited patiently. Quarry frowned, pursed his lips, sighed—and gave up.
“Died following a duel with your brother. Not a secret; a good many people know.”
“You were there?” Grey asked, picking up something in Quarry’s voice. Harry grimaced.
“I was Melton’s second. Twelvetrees shot first, mind. Nicked Melton in the thigh, but he didn’t fall. Staggered a bit, to be sure, but managed his aim and got Twelvetrees through the upper arm. Honor satisfied all round, should have been the end of it and no one the wiser. Only Twelvetrees’s wound turned septic and he died.” Harry shrugged. “Bad luck. Still, Twelvetrees insisted on his deathbed that it was a private affair, and it stayed that way. They’re an honorable family. Cold as death,” he added fairly, “but honorable.”
“I don’t suppose I need ask what was the cause of the duel.” Grey rubbed a hand over his face, feeling suddenly tired. He needed a shave.
“No, I don’t suppose you do. I heard you’d seen the betting book at White’s.”
“Who told you that?”
“Oh, twenty or thirty people, so far.” Harry adjusted his wig, eyeing Grey. “Melton wasn’t one of them.”
“No, I don’t suppose he would be.” Grey made no attempt to disguise the edge in his voice. “Why did he challenge Twelvetrees? Obviously the duel happened after the wager was made. Dr. Longstreet told me Hal had wanted to fight Twelvetrees and the rest to begin with, but cooler heads prevailed—that would be you, perhaps, Harry?”
Quarry’s heavy brows went up.
“How do you know he challenged Twelvetrees, and not t’other way around?” Harry asked.
Grey shrugged. The choice of weapon had to have been Twelvetrees’s; Hal would always fight with a sword, if he could.
“Why did he do it after all? What did Twelvetrees do?”
“That,” Quarry said definitely, “is not my secret to tell. Ask your brother, if you want to know.”
Grey made a rude noise.
“I couldn’t get the name of his tailor out of him with a corkscrew in his present mood. Tell me this, then—did he tell you about the page from my father’s journal?”
Quarry’s eyes opened wide, startled and bloodshot.
“About what?”
“Oh, he didn’t.” Grey felt obscurely pleased at that. At least he wasn’t the only one excluded from Hal’s confidence. He stood up and shook his coat into order.
“All right, then. I’m going home. You know Percy Wainwright’s bought in?”
“God have mercy on his soul,” Quarry said, but the jest was automatic. He reached across and gripped Grey’s arm.
“John,” he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle, “leave it. Your father’s long dead.”
“Thank you, Harry,” Grey said, and meant it. He detached his arm from Quarry’s grip, patting his friend’s hand. “But I’m not,” he whispered, and went out.
He left his horse in the barracks stable and walked to Jermyn Street, managing by the exercise both to work out the kinks of riding and to ease his mind a little. If Hal thought he could be brushed off like an a
At least he would have the upper hand in Germany, he thought. He was himself just as pleased by the change of orders; he liked many things about Germany—beer among them—and had numerous friends among the Prussians and their allies. And as Percy Wainwright didspeak German, as well…The thought of Wainwright quite restored his good humor, and he swung whistling down the street and in at his mother’s gate.
He found Percy Wainwright with Olivia, a sempstress, the sempstress’s assistant, and Olivia’s maid, all in a state of hilarity over the fitting of Percy’s suit, which did not appear to be going well.
His first sight, in fact, was of Percy’s bum, clad in linen drawers and exposed to view as Percy bent to touch his toes, indicating a tendency of the so-far sleeveless and skirtless coat to pull across the back.
“You see?” Percy was saying. The women, seeing Grey in the doorway, burst into laughter.
“Well, yes, I do,” Grey said, endeavoring not to laugh himself, but failing, as Percy shot upright and whirled round, wide-eyed. Grey bowed, hand on heart. “Your servant, sir.”
“I fear you take me at a disadvantage, sir,” Percy said with mock dignity, whipping a pair of half-finished cream silk breeches off the settee and wrapping his loins in them.
If we were alone, I certainly would,Grey thought, and allowed some hint of this to show in his smile. Percy caught the hint; a higher color rose in his cheeks, already flushed. He held Grey’s eyes for a fraction of a second, his own alight with speculation—and acceptance—before joining in the general laughter.
“Joh
He felt his own face grow warm at the notion of publicly disrobing—even partially—in the presence of Percy Wainwright, but the latter was gri
Grey turned his back hastily, thrusting an arm randomly through what he hoped was the proper hole of the coat the sempstress held for him. The fabric was a heavy silk velvet of a midnight blue, and it was still warm from Percy’s body. He bit the inside of his cheek, and tasted blood.
The sempstress, herself flushed and laughing, but still attentive to business, was circling him with a bit of chalk and a calculating eye, making him raise and lower his arms, move to and fro. Breaking out in a dew of sweat, he bent over at her order, remembering too late that he’d worn the stained doeskin breeches for riding.
Further outbreaks of hilarity, this time at his expense, but he didn’t mind. He had a momentary qualm when the sempstress knelt at his feet to pin a waist seam, but she merely flushed a little more and cast her eyes modestly down, her shy smile making it evident that she considered it a personal compliment; she was a handsome young woman, and likely had had such before.