The Scottish Prisoner

He was looking for Siverly and therefore saw him at once, the major looking up with surprise from what looked like a pair of account books.

“Major Siverly—” he began, infusing his voice with warmth. But then he caught sight of the major’s companion, seated across the desk from Siverly, and the words stuck in his throat.

“What on earth—Bulstrode, what the devil are you at?” Siverly barked at the butler, who blinked, bewildered. “Haven’t I told you not to bring visitors in una

“I—I thought—” The hapless butler was stuttering, glancing wildly back and forth between Grey and Edward Twelvetrees, who was staring at Lord John with a look somewhere between astonishment and outrage.

“Oh, go away, you clot,” Siverly said irritably, getting up and shooing the butler off. “Colonel Grey! What a pleasant surprise. You must forgive the … er … unorthodox welcome.” He smiled, though with considerable reservation in his eyes. “Allow me to make you acquainted with Captain—”

“We’ve met.” Twelvetrees’s words were as clipped as bits of wire. He stood up slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Grey as he closed the ledger in front of him. Not before Grey had time to see that it contained a listing of what looked like fairly large sums.

And speaking of sums—there was an ironbound chest sitting on the desk, its lid open, more than half filled with a quantity of small wash-leather bags, each tied round with string. Under the bay window, the lid of a blanket chest stood open. A depression in the blankets showed where the ironbound chest had rested. Siverly’s eyes darted toward this, and his hand twitched, but he stayed it, evidently not wanting to draw attention to the chest by closing it.

“What are you doing here?” Twelvetrees asked coldly.

Grey took a deep breath. Nothing for it but charge straight in.

“I came to pay a call on Major Siverly,” he said mildly. “And you?”

Twelvetrees’s mouth pursed a little. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood, eh?”

“No, I came particularly to speak with the major about a matter of some importance. But of course I have no wish to intrude,” Grey said, with a brief bow to Siverly. “Perhaps I might come again at some more convenient occasion?”

Siverly was looking back and forth between Grey and Twelvetrees, plainly trying to fathom what was going on.

“No, no, do stay,” he said. “I must confess—a matter of importance, you said?” His face was not particularly mobile, but he wasn’t a good cardplayer, and wariness and calculation flickered over his slab-sided features.

“A private matter,” Grey said, smiling pleasantly at Twelvetrees, who was surveying him through narrowed eyes. “As I say, a more convenient—”

“I’m sure Captain Twelvetrees will excuse us for a few moments,” Siverly interrupted. “Edward?”

Christian names, is it?Grey thought. Well, well.

“Certainly.” Twelvetrees moved slowly toward the door, eyes like a pair of pistol barrels fixed on Grey.

“No, no,” Siverly said, gesturing him back to his seat. “You stay here, Edward; Bulstrode will bring some tea. Colonel Grey and I will just take a stroll down to the summerhouse and back.”

Grey bowed to Twelvetrees, keeping a charming smile on his face, and followed Siverly out of the library, feeling Twelvetrees’s eyes burning holes between his shoulder blades.

Hastily, he reviewed his strategy as he followed Siverly’s broad back across the freshly rolled lawn. At least he wasn’t going to have to carry out his inquisition in front of Twelvetrees, but he’d have to assume that anything he said might well be conveyed to “Edward.”

“What a beautiful property,” he said, as they rounded the corner of the house. It was true; the lawns spread a stately distance before and behind, and edging the back lawn were terraces of roses and other flowering bushes, with a walled garden to the left that was likely the kitchen garden; Grey saw what looked like espaliered fruit trees poking up above the plastered wall. In the distance, beyond the formal terraces, was a charming small white summerhouse, standing on the edge of an ornamental wood, and, beyond that, the stables.

“Thank you,” Siverly said, a note of pride in his voice. “I’ve been improving it, these last few years.” But he was not a man to be distracted by compliments. “You did say …?” He turned to Grey, one steel-gray eyebrow raised.

“Yes.” In for a pe

“Carruthers,” Siverly said, a mildly questioning tone in his voice—but it was plain from his face that the name was familiar to him.

“He had a deformed hand,” Grey said. He disliked reducing Charlie to such a description, but it was the quickest and surest way forward.

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Siverly’s broad, pockmarked brow lowered a bit. “But he’s dead. I’m sure I heard that he was dead. Measles, was it? Some sort of ague?”

“He is dead, I’m afraid.” Grey’s hand dipped into his coat, hoping he remembered which pocket he’d put the folded paper in. He pulled it out but held it in his hand, not offering it yet to Siverly.

“Do you know my brother, by chance?”

“Your brother?” Siverly now looked frankly puzzled, “The duke? Yes, of course. I know of him, I mean; we aren’t personally acquainted.”

“Yes. Well, he has come into possession of a rather curious set of documents, compiled by Captain Carruthers. Concerning you.”

“Concerning me? What the devil—” Siverly snatched the paper from Grey’s hand, anger flaring so suddenly in his eyes that Grey had an instant apprehension of how some of the incidents Charlie had described had come about. The violence in the man was simmering just below the skin; he saw only too well how Siverly had come so close to killing Jamie Fraser.

Siverly read the page quickly, crushed it in his hand, and threw it to the ground. A vein stood out on his temple, pulsing blue under his skin, which had gone an unpleasant purplish color.

“What balderdash is this?” he said, his voice thick with rage. “How dare you come bringing me such whinging, blithering—”

“Do you deny that there is any truth in Captain Carruthers’s account?” The page was one regarding the events leading to the mutiny in Canada. There were more damning pages—many of them—but Grey had thought to start with something clear-cut.

“I deny that Pardloe has any right to question me in the slightest particular! And as for you, sir—” Siverly loomed suddenly over Grey, fists clenched. “Damn you for an interfering, busy-bodying fool! Get out of my sight.”

Before Grey could move or speak, Siverly had whirled on his heel and stamped off, moving like an ox with its tail on fire.

Grey blinked, belatedly realized that he was holding his breath, and exhaled. The summerhouse was twenty feet away; he went and sat on the steps to collect himself.

“So much for gentle persuasion,” he said under his breath. Siverly had already reached the lawn and was forging up it to the house, making the occasional furious gesture en route.

Plainly an alternative plan would have to be put in train. But in the meantime, there was a good deal to think about. Edward Twelvetrees, for one. That ironbound chest, for another.

Grey had been in the army in one capacity or another since the age of sixteen. He knew what a paymaster’s books looked like—and, likewise, a paymaster’s chest. Clearly Twelvetrees and Siverly were involved in something together that involved the disbursement of funds—and fairly considerable funds—to a number of individuals.

Siverly had disappeared into the house. Grey continued to sit for a little, thinking, but could come to no firm conclusions. Obviously, Siverly wasn’t going to tell him anything about the paymaster’s chest. Perhaps it would be worth riding over to Brampton Court—that’s where the butler had said Twelvetrees was staying—and trying to inveigle information out of the other conspirator. At least he was reasonably sure that Twelvetrees wouldn’t try to kill him out of hand. Though it might be as well to bring his dagger.