Chapter 9
Unnatural Acts
Grey returned from the stark silence of the fells to a London in ferment.
As Hal had predicted, the printers had got hold of Ffoulkes’s French family connexions and unearthed the hints of unsavory conspiracy; Ffoulkes’s wife had fled the country and was presumably in France; another conspirator, a lawyer named Jeffords, had been arrested and was to be tried along with Captain Bates and Harrison Otway on a variety of charges ranging from lewd conduct to sodomy, conspiracy to commit unnatural acts, and, as a definite afterthought, conspiracy to assassinate various justices and ministers—presumably those who had been most outspoken about the need to crush this abominable vice.
“Not, I see, on charges of treason,” Grey remarked to his brother, crumpling a broadsheet with a cartoon illustrating two of the conspirators engaging in one of these unnatural acts and tossing it into the fire in Hal’s office. “As you suspected.”
Hal shrugged moodily.
“Doesn’t take a fortune-teller to see that Bernard Adams and that lot would strongly prefer a nice sodomitical conspiracy to outrage the public and keep them distracted than alarming news of a gang of traitors who came damned near to cutting Adams’s throat and did manage to pass a great deal of damaging information to their master in France. To say nothing of fifteen thousand pounds—though I take leave to doubt that it all went to France.”
“They did?”
“They did. It’s been kept very quiet, but Bates sent a note to Adams, cool as dammit, and inveigled him into meeting privately in the yard of a tavern in Lambeth, saying he—Bates, that is—had something of advantage to confide. Adams went, the idiot, and only escaped being killed because Bates missed his footing on a patch of mud, allowing the fool time to shout for help. Adams was wounded, and Bates escaped, of course, but they caught him—trying to make it to Ireland, evidently.”
“Yes, I gather he has an Irish mistress.”
Hal blinked at him.
“He does? Who told you that?”
Realizing that it might be impolitic to reveal his conversation with Minnie, Grey merely shrugged, as though it were common rumor.
“Who told you all this?” he asked.
“Harry. Likely got it from his half brother, Joffrey.”
“Much more likely from Lady Joffrey,” Grey observed, and Hal made a brief grimace of agreement.
A sudden grinding noise made Grey’s head jerk round. In the corner stood a large wooden cabinet, which to this point he had assumed to be part of one of Mr. Beasley’s futile efforts to bring some semblance of order to Hal’s office. The doors to this swung slowly open, revealing a figure inside, and he clapped a hand to his dagger with an exclamation.
“It’s all right.” Hal was still cross, but his voice showed a tinge of amusement. “It’s only an automaton.”
This was by now apparent; the cabinet contained a life-size figure, or rather half of one; the thing ended at the waist, the bottom half of the cabinet presumably being filled with the clockwork mechanism whose whirring had attracted Grey’s attention. Going closer to examine this object, he discovered the figure to be made of wax, wood, and metal, gaily painted to resemble the popular conception of a native of India, complete to kohl-rimmed eyes, red lips, and gauzy turban.
He put out a hand to touch it, then jerked the hand back as a loud clank came from the machine. The figure leaned abruptly toward him in sinister fashion, but proved only to be inserting a stiff hand into a jar placed before it. More clanking and whirring, a long pause…and the figure snapped back into its original position, one arm swinging up so violently that it nearly struck Grey in the face.
“What the devil?”
“It’s a fortune-teller,” Hal said, quite unnecessarily. He was openly amused by this time.
“So I see.” The figure’s metal fingers held out a bit of folded paper, which Grey took gingerly and opened.
“The greatest danger could be your own stupidity,” he read aloud. He refolded the paper and dropped it back in the jar. “Very nice. Where on earth did you get this?”
“Sergeant-Major Weems confiscated it from the O’Higginses,” Hal said. “Put it in here for safekeeping until he can discover whom they stole it from.”
“You’d think it wouldn’t be difficult to trace the owner.” Grey walked round the cabinet, examining it. It was battered and scarred, though originally of very good manufacture.
Hal shrugged.
“They claim they won it in a dice game.”
“Yes, well.” Grey dismissed the automaton and sat down again. “You said the conspirators did succeed in getting material to France?”
“Adams says they did. Whilst he was frolicking on the river with Bates, Otway and Jeffords evidently burgled his house and took the contents of his safe, which included roughly fifteen thousand pounds: the property of His Majesty, intended to be handed over next day to the paymasters of two regiments bound for France. In the kerfuffle over all this, several offices in Whitehall discovered they were also missing assorted bits of important paper—though my personal suspicion is that they’ve leapt at the opportunity to blame any lapses in their bookkeeping on this so-called conspiracy.”
“Rather enterprising for a gang of sodomites,” Grey remarked, fascinated. “What are they supposed to have intended doing with the money—holding orgies of disgusting vice?”
“God knows. The last newspaper I read speculated that they proposed emigrating to France—using the stolen money to insure their welcome—where presumably disgusting vice flourishes unchecked in the streets.”
“Were the documents and money recovered?”
Hal leaned back in his chair.
“No, they weren’t. None of the conspirators had any suspicious material on them when they were arrested, and it wasn’t found in Ffoulkes’s house following his suicide—so the supposition is that Louis of France now has it.” Hal grimaced, as though his breakfast hadn’t agreed with him. “And speaking of France…”
Grey looked up sharply, hearing a new note in his brother’s voice.
“Yes?”
“We aren’t going there.”
“What?”
“The regiment’s orders have been changed. Read that.” Hal extracted a letter from the mess on his desk and threw it in front of Grey. It was from the Ministry of War, and in a few curt lines, ordered the 1st /46th to join with the forces of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, in Prussia.
“No explanation?” Grey raised a brow at his brother, who glowered back.
“No. Not that I need one. It’s frigging Twelvetrees’s doing.”
Twelvetrees. That name rang bells of warning, and within a moment, Grey had recollected why. “Nathaniel Twelvetrees?” Grey hazarded. “The gentleman with whom you—”
“Nathaniel Twelvetrees is dead, and so is the matter to which you refer.” Hal’s voice was flat, but his eyes dared Grey to say more on pain of death. “This is his elder brother. Colonel in the Royal Artillery.”
“I see.”
Which he did. While Hal had succeeded in regaining something of the family honor by his military efforts, he had done it with the assistance of capable men, dedicated soldiers such as Harry Quarry, whom he had lured away from the Buffs with the promise of higher rank and freedom of authority. Other regiments—such as the Royal Artillery—boasted officers of privilege and noble family, if not any pronounced military skills. Such men would want nothing to do with Lord Melton’s disgrace, or his regiment. Consequently, Hal could not rely on so many of the favors and connexions that gave some other regiments preferment.
Evidently, Colonel Twelvetrees thought the French campaign offered more scope and opportunity for distinction in battle, and wished to deprive the 46th of such opportunity. From what Grey knew of the war in Prussia, it was likely to be a long, drawn-out affair, with the Duke of Brunswick’s troops—which they would be joining as allies—at a numerical disadvantage.
Likewise, the English formed a smaller part of the army on the Prussian front, and would therefore have less influence in the management of the campaign.
“Well,” Grey said at last. “The beer is better.”
Hal’s bad temper at last gave way, and he laughed, if reluctantly.
“Yes, that’s something. And at least you speak German. I’ll need you by me, so they don’t slip anything past us.”
“Percival Wainwright speaks German, as well,” Grey said, and his heart jumped. He touched his waistcoat pocket, where the lock of dark hair lay curled in secrecy.
“Does he?” Hal was interested. “Good. Will you have time to show him his business? He signed his papers of commission this morning. I can turn him over to Wilmot or Brabham-Griggs, if you’d rather, but as you seemed to get on with him—”
“No, I can do that,” Grey assured him, rising. “Do you know where I might find him today? Is he at the barracks?”
“No. Actually, he’s at Mother’s house, being fitted with a suit for the wedding. I narrowly escaped myself. Oh—which reminds me: Olivia said if you turned up here, I was to send you home at once to be measured.”
“All right.” This suited him excellently well, though he had his reservations regarding Olivia’s taste. “She isn’t insisting upon yellow velvet, is she?”
“No, but she said something about persimmon waistcoats.”
Grey glanced suspiciously at his brother, who looked back with a perfect bland innocence.
“You wouldn’t recognize a persimmon if you sat on it,” Grey said, “and nor would Olivia.”
He was nearly out the door, when he remembered.
“That page of Father’s journal,” he said abruptly, turning back. “Did you speak to Mother? Have you learned any more about it?”
Something flickered in his brother’s eyes, and then was gone.
“No,” Hal said casually, returning his attention to the stack of papers on his desk. “Not a thing.”
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 annoying insect, Hal could think again. Still, Hal hadn’t told Harry about the journal page, so it wasn’t only himself his brother was keeping secrets from. Harry had not been with the regiment much above a year—he’d come over from the Buffs—but he was one of Hal’s oldest friends.
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 did speak 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.
“Johnny! How quick you’ve been! I didn’t think you’d come ’til teatime.” Olivia waddled forward and went a-tiptoe, straining over her bulge to kiss his cheek. “Here, you try this coat. Perhaps it will fit you better.”
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 grinning at his discomfiture, and he allowed himself to be stripped of his uniform coat and waistcoat, though he did retain his shirt and breeches. Catching, as he did so, a brief glimpse of Percy, bare-legged and clad only in drawers, as the latter wrapped himself in Grey’s banyan, Olivia having evidently stolen this garment from his room.
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.
Percy Wainwright knew where the compliment lay. He laughed with the girls, teasing and making comments, but his gaze kept returning to Grey, alive with interest. He had left off his wig, and at one point, he casually ran a hand through his short-clipped hair, as though to order the dark curls, and glanced at Grey.
Did you get it, then? his upraised eyebrow said.
Grey raised his own.
Percy grinned at him, but glanced away a moment too soon, and when he looked back now and then, Percy was always engaged in conversation with Olivia, a maid, or Tom—who had arrived belatedly and was experiencing loudly audible mortification over Grey’s breeches.
What was this? he wondered. He was not mistaken in the attraction; he knew that for certain. And he had not had any indication during their previous conversations that Percy was either light-minded or flirtatious in the least. Perhaps it was only caution, he told himself—a reluctance, lest anyone notice what was going on between them.
When they had at last resumed their usual garments and the sempstress and her assistant departed with armloads of blue velvet, he made occasion to brush shoulders with Percy at the door of the drawing room.
“Melton tells me I am to have the honor to familiarize you with the ways of the regiment, your duties and the like. If you have time this afternoon…?” For the first time, he regretted staying in his mother’s house. Though officers’ quarters in the barracks would not have been much better. How far away were Percy’s rooms?
“I should like that more than I can say,” Percy replied. “But I am, alas, engaged.” The regret in his voice seemed real, but Grey experienced it as a small blow, nonetheless.
“Perhaps tomorrow—” he began, but saw Percy grimace in apology.
“My engagement is in—in Bath,” he said quickly. “I shall not be back for two or three days. I should in fact have left this morning—I will be very late—save that I hoped to have a chance of seeing you before I left,” he added softly. He looked directly at Grey as he said this, and Grey felt some easing of his disappointment, if not his baser urges.
Bath, my eye, he thought. But after all, the man was surely entitled to his privacy, if he did not wish to say what his engagement was. Percy owed him nothing—yet.
“Find me upon your return, then,” he said. He clapped Percy briefly on the shoulder. “Safe journey.” He turned, and without looking back, went out in search of some privacy of his own.