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There was a great deal of flesh exposed, to be sure. It gleamed among the light and shadow, set off by the rich colors of the costumes—the scarlets, crimsons, and purples, greens and blues, the flaunting yellow of tropical birds. Here and there a woman—perhaps—who chose to dress in stark black and white by way of contrast. These came dramatic out of the shadows, seeming to emerge from the night itself. One gave him a languishing look as she passed, reached out a hand to him, and as he raised his own, involuntarily, took hold of it, drew one of his fingers into her mouth, and sucked hard.
She drew it slowly free, her teeth— herteeth? He could not tell—exquisite on his skin, then dropped his hand, flashed him a brilliant smile, and ran away, light-footed down the path. He stood a moment looking after her—or him—and then walked on.
He heard whoops of delight approaching, and stepped hastily aside in time to avoid being run down by a covey of girls, scantily clad and equipped with skates, these ingeniously mounted on tiny wheels, so that they whizzed down the path in a body, draperies flying, squealing with excitement. A clatter of applause made him glance aside; a series of spi
Music, smoke, food, wine, beer, rum punch, and spectacle—all combined to induce an atmosphere of indulgence, not to say license. The Pleasure Gardens were liberally equipped with dark spaces, alcoves, grottoes, and secluded benches; most of these were being fully employed by couples of all sorts.
He was aware—as most of the merrymakers were not—of the mollies among the crowd. Some dressed as women, others in their own male garb surmounted by outlandish masks, finding each other by glance and grimace, by whatever alchemy of flesh enabled body to seek body, freed by disguise of their usual constraints.
More than one gay blade glanced at him, and now and then one jostled him in passing, a hand brushing his arm, his back, lingering an instant on his hip, the touch a question. He smiled now and then, but walked on.
Feeling hungry, he turned in to a supper table, bought a box, and found a place on the nearby lawn to eat. As he finished a breast of roast fowl and tossed the bones under a bush, a man sat down beside him. Sat much closer than was usual.
He glanced warily at the man, but did not know him, and deliberately looked away, giving no hint of invitation.
“Lord John,” said the man, in a pleasant voice.
It gave him a shock, and he choked, a bit of chicken caught in his throat.
“Do I know you, sir?” he said, politely, when he had finished coughing.
“Oh, no,” said the gentleman—for he was a gentleman, by his voice. “Nor will you, I’m afraid. My loss, I am sure. I come merely as a messenger.” He smiled, a pleasant smile beneath the mask of a great horned owl.
“Indeed.” Grey wiped greasy fingers on his handkerchief. “On whose behalf are you come, then?”
“Oh, on behalf of England. I beg you will forgive the melodrama of that statement,” he said, deprecating. “It is true, though.”
“Is that so?” The man wore no weapon—these were firmly discouraged in Vauxhall, but the odd knife was common, now and then a pistol.
“Yes. And the message, Lord John, is that you will abandon any efforts to expose Mortimer Oswald.”
“Will I?” he said, maintaining a tone of skepticism, though his stomach had clenched hard with the words. “Are you from the navy, then?”
“No, nor from the army, either,” said the man, imperturbable. “I am employed by the Ministry of War, if that information is of use to you. I doubt it will be.”
Grey doubted it, too—but he didn’t doubt the man’s assertion. He felt a low, burning anger growing, but this was tinged with a certain sense of fatality. Somehow, he was not truly surprised.
“So you mean Oswald to escape payment for his crimes?” he asked. “His actions have meant the death of several men, the maiming of several more, and the endangerment—the ongoing endangerment, I might add—of hundreds. This means nothing to the government?”
The man turned to face him straight-on, the painted eyes of his owl mask huge and fierce, obliterating the puny humanity of the man’s own orbs.
“It will not serve the interests of the country for Oswald to be openly accused—let alone convicted—of corruption. Do you not realize the effect? Such accusations, such a trial, would cause widespread public anger and alarm, discrediting both the army and the navy, endangering relationships with our German allies, giving heart to our enemies…No, my lord. You will not pursue Oswald.”
“And if I do?”
“That would be most unwise,” the man said softly. His own eyes were closed; Grey could see the pale lids through the holes of his mask. Suddenly he opened them; they were dark in the flickering light; Grey could not tell the color.
“We will see that Mr. Oswald does no further harm, I assure you.”
“And it would suit the War Office’s purposes so much better to have a member of Parliament who can be quietly blackmailed to vote as you like, rather than one being hanged in effigy and hounded in the broadsheets?” He had a grip on his anger now, and his voice was steady.
The owl inclined his head gravely, without speaking, and the man gathered his feet under him, preparing to rise. Grey stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Do you know, I think I am not very wise?” he said conversationally.
The man became very still.
“Indeed?” he said, still polite, but noticeably less friendly.
“If I were to speak openly of what I know—to a journalist, perhaps? I have proof, you know, and witnesses; not enough for a trial by jury, perhaps, but more than adequate for a trial in the press. A Question in the House of Lords?”
“Your career means nothing to you?” A note of threat had entered the owl’s voice.
“No,” Grey said, and took a deep breath, ignoring the harsh stab of pain in his chest. “My honor means something, though.”
The man’s mouth drew in at the corners, lips pressed tight. It was a good mouth, Grey thought; full-lipped, but not crude. Would he know the man by his mouth alone, if he saw it again? He waited while the man thought, feeling oddly calm. He’d meant what he said, and had no regrets, whatever might come of it now. He thought they would not try to kill him; that would accomplish nothing. Ruin him, perhaps. He didn’t care.
At last the owl allowed his mouth to relax, and turned his head away.
“Oswald will resign quietly, for reasons of ill health. Your brother will be appointed to replace him for the remainder of his term. Will that satisfy you?”
Grey wondered for an instant whether Edgar might do the country more harm than Oswald. But England had survived stupidity in government for centuries; there were worse things. And if the War Office thought Grey as corrupt as themselves, what did that matter?
“Done,” he said, raising his voice a little, to be heard over the sound of violins from a strolling band of gypsies.
The owl rose silently and vanished into the throng. Grey didn’t try to see where he went. All he would have to do was to remove the mask and tuck it under his arm to become invisible.
“Who was that?” said a voice near his ear.
He turned with no sense of surprise—it was that sort of night, where the unreality of the surroundings lent all experience a dreamlike air—to find Neil the Cunt seated beside him on the frosty grass, blue eyes glowing through the feathered mask of a fighting cock.
“Bugger off, Mr. Stapleton,” he said mildly.
“Oh, now, Mary, let us not bicker.” Stapleton leaned back on the heels of his hands, legs flung oh-so-casually apart, the better to display his very considerable assets.
“You can tell me,” he coaxed. “He didn’t look as though he wished you well, you know. It might be useful to you to have a friend with your best interests at heart to watch your back.”