“Three.” Two had been with men. The third was enjoying a meteoric rise in the Catholic Church, which would not be helped by the photograph of his copulation with a busty young woman.
“Who in this house went to Oxford a couple of years after you? Who would know the gossip? Who’s best placed to invite these fearfully nice chaps for a spot of shooting, meet the pater?” Da Silva’s quiet tone was a vicious parody of an upper-class accent.
“You can’t mean James Armstrong.”
“Look at who they are. Think. James invites the young Turks, the ones with burgeoning careers and everything to lose. Sophie selects the ladies. Women talk, she’ll know who’s frustrated, who’s open to suggestions. They target them, they invite them, and then the footman, or her charming brother, or the bloody Prussian Ambassador beds them. It’s a family business.”
Curtis thought about that, holding the torch while da Silva went through the next drawer at speed. It held a few more photos, people he didn’t recognise, one an older man with a girl who looked no more than twelve, and then sheaves of paper. Da Silva flicked, then stopped as Curtis grabbed his hand.
“What?”
Curtis scrabbled back through the folder and found what had caught his eye. He pulled it out. A page of diagrams, bitterly familiar. He stared at it, blood pounding in his temples.
“What is it?”
Curtis licked his lips. “It’s the schema for a Lafayette rifle.” He took a deep breath, then went through the papers around it, one by one. “Architectural plans of the Lafayette factory. More specifications for guns. For—” He stopped and swallowed hard, holding out the page. “This one is the revolver I used at Jacobsdal.”
“Oh God,” da Silva said softly. “Curtis…”
“Why would Armstrong have these, locked away here? Unless—”
Those papers, in this secret cabinet of vileness, could mean only one thing. Jacobsdal had been no accident. The guns had been sabotaged in the factory. Sir Hubert Armstrong had murdered the soldiers of Curtis’s company, his men, his friends, as surely as if he had pulled the triggers himself.
The papers rattled in his hand. Da Silva took them from him, his touch gentle. “I’m sorry.”
“Armstrong betrayed us. He sent us to hell, for profit.”
“Keep your voice down.” Da Silva’s hand closed on Curtis’s shaking wrist, and he tilted the torch so both their faces were partly lit. “It is unspeakable, and I can’t imagine how angry you are, but keep quiet.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Curtis’s voice rasped in his throat.
“You’ll have to fight the hangman for the privilege. Sabotage of the British Army in time of war? He’ll swing for treason.”
“Christ.” Curtis clenched his useless, mutilated hand in its black leather sheath. “I’m in the bastard’s house. Eating his food. His guest.” He wanted to vomit up every meal he’d had here. He wanted to drag Sir Hubert out of bed and beat him to a bloody pulp.
“We’ll make him pay. I swear to you, Curtis, we’ll see him dead. Don’t lose your head now.” Da Silva held his gaze till Curtis gave a stiff nod. He kept his grip on Curtis’s wrist for a moment longer, the slim fingers a steadying contact, then let go and went back to the drawer.
Curtis stood still, trying to control the rage that surged through him. He had not truly believed Lafayette, had acted on his words only because inaction was impossible, but now there was no doubt. The full scale of Armstrong’s treachery unspooled in his mind: the dead men and the mutilated. George Fisher’s bewildered face. His own empty, futureless life, without the army, without the purpose and companionship that had been all he ever wanted. All of it to light Sir Hubert’s house with electricity, to keep Lady Armstrong in dresses and James in horses.
“Shit and derision.” Da Silva’s voice was quiet but very clear.
That jolted Curtis out of his trance of fury. “What is it?”
Da Silva jerked a paper at him. Curtis registered the letterhead, and For your eyes only. “That’s Foreign Office. What the devil is that doing here?”
“Ask your old college friend with the Prussian in his arse.” Da Silva’s hands were moving very fast now, flicking through typed and handwritten sheets. “Uh-oh. Tell me, as a military man, what does this look like to you?”
“Army supply-line plans.” Curtis could barely bring himself to look; they were stamped Top Secret. “What the devil—? Why does Armstrong have these?”
“Why do you think?” snapped da Silva.