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Grey observed Harry Quarry standing a yard away, gleaming eyes fixed upon the elderly justice in a ma
“John,” Everett said softly, smiling.
“Mr. Everett.” Grey inclined his head politely. Nothing squelched, Everett continued to smile. He was a handsome devil, and he knew it.
“You are in good looks, John. Exile agrees with you, it seems.” The long mouth widened, curling at the corner.
“Indeed. I must take pains to go away more often, then.” His heart was beating faster. Everett’s perfume was his accustomed musk and myrrh; the scent of it conjured tumbled linens, and the touch of hard and knowing hands.
A hoarse voice near his shoulder provided welcome distraction.
“Lord John? Your servant, sir.”
Grey turned to find the gentleman in rose velvet bowing to him, a look of spurious cordiality fixed upon saturnine features.
“Mr. Bubb-Dodington, I collect. I am obliged, sir.” He bowed in turn, and allowed himself to be separated from Everett, who stood looking after them, a faint smile upon his lips.
So conscious was he of Everett’s eyes burning holes in his back that he scarce attended to Bubb-Dodington’s overtures, replying automatically to the man’s courtesies and inquiries. It was not until the rasping voice mentioned the word “Medmenham” that he was jerked into attention, to realize that he had just received a most interesting invitation.
“…would find us a most congenial assembly, I am sure,” Bubb-Dodington was saying, leaning toward Grey with that same attitude of fawning attention he had noted earlier.
“You feel I would be in sympathy with the interests of your society?” Grey contrived to infuse a faint tone of boredom, looking away from the man. Just over Bubb-Dodington’s shoulder, he was conscious of the figure of Sir Francis Dashwood, dark and bulky. Dashwood’s deep-set eyes rested upon them, even as he carried on a conversation, and a ripple of apprehension raised the hairs on the back of Grey’s neck.
“I am flattered, but I scarcely think…” he began, turning away.
“Oh, do not think you would be quite strange!” Bubb-Dodington interrupted, beaming with oily deprecation. “You are acquainted with Mr. Everett, I think? He will make one of our number.”
“Indeed.” Grey’s mouth had gone dry. “I see. Well, you must allow me to consult…” Muttering excuses, he escaped, finding refuge a moment later in the company of Harry Quarry and his sister-in-law, sharing cups of brandy punch at the nearby buffet.
“It galls me,” Harry was saying, “that such petty time-servers and flaunting jackanapes make my kin to be the equal of the he-strumpets and buggerantoes that infest the Arcade. I’ve known Bob Gerald from a lad, and I will swear my life upon his honor!” Quarry’s large hand clenched upon his glass as he glowered at Mr. Justice Margrave’s back.
“Have a care, Harry, my dear.” Lucinda placed a hand on his sleeve. “Those are my good crystal cups. If you must crush something, let it be the hazelnuts.”
“I shall let it be that fellow’s windpipe, and he does not cease to air his idiocy,” said Quarry. He scowled horridly, but suffered himself to be turned away, still talking. “What can Richard be thinking of, to entertain such scum? Dashwood, I mean, and now this…”
Grey started, and felt a chill down his spine. Quarry’s blunt features bore no trace of resemblance to his dead cousin-by-marriage, and yet—his face contorted with fury, eyes bulging slightly as he spoke…Grey closed his eyes tightly, summoning the vision.
He left Quarry and Lady Lucinda abruptly, without excuse, and made his way hastily to the large gilded mirror that hung above a sideboard in the dining room.
Leaning over the skeletal remains of a roasted pheasant, he stared at his mouth—painstakingly forming the shapes he had seen on Robert Gerald’s mouth—and now again on Harry Quarry’s, hearing in his mind as he made them the sound of Robert Gerald’s effortful—but unvoiced—last word.
“Dashwood.”
Quarry had followed him, brows drawn down in puzzlement.
“What the devil, Grey? Why are you making faces in the mirror? Are you ill?”
“No,” said Grey, though in fact he felt very ill. He stared at his own image in the mirror, as though it were some ghastly specter.
Another face appeared, and dark eyes met his own in the mirror. The two reflections were close in size and form, both possessed of a tidy muscularity and a fineness of feature that had led more than one observer to remark in company that they could be twins—one light, one dark.
“You will come to Medmenham, won’t you?” The murmured words were warm in his ear, George’s body so close that he could feel the pressure of hip and thigh. Everett’s hand touched his, lightly.
“I should…particularly desire it.”
Part III
Christened in Blood
Medmenham Abbey
West Wycombe
It was not until the third night at Medmenham that anything untoward occurred. To that point—despite Quarry’s loudly expressed doubts beforehand—it had been a house party much like any other in Lord John’s experience, though with more talk of politics and less of hunting than was customary.
In spite of the talk and entertainment, though, there was an odd air of secrecy about the house. Whether it was some attitude on the part of the servants, or something unseen but sensed among the guests, Grey could not tell, but it was real; it floated on the air of the Abbey like smoke on water.
The only other oddity was the lack of women. While females of good family from the countryside near West Wycombe were invited to dine, all of the houseguests were male. The thought occurred to Grey that from outward appearance, it might almost be one of those sodomitical societies so decried in the London broadsheets. In appearance only, though; there was no hint of such behavior. Even George Everett gave no hint of any sentiment save the amiability of renewed friendship.
No, it was not that kind of behavior that had given Sir Francis and his restored abbey the name of scandal. Exactly what didlie behind the whispers of notoriety was yet a mystery.
Grey knew one thing: Dashwood was not Gerald’s murderer, at least not directly. Discreet inquiry had established Sir Francis’s whereabouts, and shown him far from Forby Street at the time of the outrage. There was the possibility of hired assassination, though, and Robert Gerald had seen somethingin the moment of his death that caused him to utter that last silent accusation.
There was nothing so far to which Grey could point as evidence, either of guilt or depravity. Still, if evidence was to be found anywhere, it must be at Medmenham—the deconsecrated abbey which Sir Francis had restored from ruins and made a showplace for his political ambitions.
Among the talk and entertainments, though, Grey was conscious of a silent process of evaluation, plain in the eyes and ma
“What is it that Sir Francis wants with me?” he had asked bluntly, walking in the gardens with Everett on the second afternoon. “I have nothing to appeal to such a man.”
George smiled. He wore his own hair, dark and shining, and the chilly breeze stroked strands of it across his cheeks.
“You underestimate your own merits, John—as always. Of course, nothing becomes manly virtue more than simple modesty.” He glanced sidelong, mouth quirking with appreciation.