Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(7)

“Yes, me lord. His Grace said as he wants to speak to you about ‘the events of last night.’?” Tom had crossed to the window and was looking censoriously at the remnants of Grey’s shirt and breeches, these stained with grass, mud, blood, and powder stains, and flung carelessly over the back of the chair. He turned a reproachful eye on Grey, who closed his own, trying to recall exactly what the events of last night had been.

He felt somewhat odd. Not drunk, he hadn’t been drunk; he had no headache, no uneasiness of digestion….

“Last night,” he repeated, uncertain. Last night had been confused, but he did remember it. The eel party. Lucinda Joffrey, Caroline…Why on earth ought Hal to be concerned with…what, the duel? Why should his brother care about such a silly affair—and even if he did, why appear at Grey’s door at the crack of dawn with his six-month-old daughter?

It was more the time of day than the child’s presence that was unusual; his brother often did take his daughter out, with the feeble excuse that the child needed air. His wife accused him of wanting to show the baby off—she was beautiful—but Grey thought the cause somewhat more straightforward. His ferocious, autocratic, dictatorial brother—Colonel of his own regiment, terror of both his own troops and his enemies—had fallen in love with his daughter. The regiment would leave for its new posting within a month’s time. Hal simply couldn’t bear to have her out of his sight.

Thus he found the Duke of Pardloe seated in the morning room, Lady Dorothea Jacqueline Benedicta Grey cradled in his arm and gnawing on a rusk her father held for her. Her wet silk bonnet, her tiny rabbit-fur bunting, and two letters, one open, one still sealed, lay upon the table at the duke’s elbow.

Hal glanced up at him.

“I’ve ordered your breakfast. Say hallo to Uncle John, Dottie.” He turned the baby gently round. She didn’t remove her attention from the rusk but made a small chirping noise.

“Hallo, sweetheart.” John leaned over and kissed the top of her head, covered with a soft blond down and slightly damp. “Having a nice outing with Daddy in the pouring rain?”

“We brought you something.” Hal picked up the opened letter and, raising an eyebrow at his brother, handed it to him.

Grey raised an eyebrow back and began to read.

“What?!” He looked up from the sheet, mouth open.

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Hal agreed cordially, “when it was delivered to my door, just before dawn.” He reached for the sealed letter, carefully balancing the baby. “Here, this one’s yours. It came just after dawn.”

Grey dropped the first letter as though it were on fire and seized the second, ripping it open.

Oh, John, it read without preamble, forgive me, I couldn’t stop him, I really couldn’t, I’m SO sorry. I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. I’d run away, but I don’t know where to go. Please, please do something! It wasn’t signed but didn’t need to be. He’d recognized the Honorable Caroline Woodford’s writing, scribbled and frantic as it was. The paper was blotched and puckered—with tearstains?

He shook his head violently, as though to clear it, then picked up the first letter again. It was just as he’d read it the first time—a formal demand from Alfred, Lord Enderby, to His Grace the Duke of Pardloe, for satisfaction regarding the injury to the honor of his sister, the Honorable Caroline Woodford, by the agency of His Grace’s brother, Lord John Grey.

Grey glanced from one document to the other, several times, then looked at his brother.

“What the devil?”

“I gather you had an eventful evening,” Hal said, grunting slightly as he bent to retrieve the rusk Dottie had dropped on the carpet. “No, darling, you don’t want that anymore.”

Dottie disagreed violently with this assertion and was distracted only by Uncle John picking her up and blowing in her ear.

“Eventful,” he repeated. “Yes, it was, rather. But I didn’t do anything to Caroline Woodford save hold her hand whilst being shocked by an electric eel, I swear it. Gleeglgleeglgleegl-pppppssssshhhhh,” he added to Dottie, who shrieked and giggled in response. He glanced up to find Hal staring at him.

“Lucinda Joffrey’s party,” he amplified. “Surely you and Minnie were invited?”

Hal grunted. “Oh. Yes, we were, but I had a prior engagement. Minnie didn’t mention the eel. What’s this I hear about you fighting a duel over the girl, though?”

“What? It wasn’t—” He stopped, trying to think. “Well, perhaps it was, come to think. Nicholls—you know, that swine who wrote the ode to Minnie’s feet?—he kissed Miss Woodford, and she didn’t want him to, so I punched him. Who told you about the duel?”

“Richard Tarleton. He came into White’s cardroom late last night and said he’d just seen you home.”

“Well, then, you likely know as much about it as I do. Oh, you want Daddy back now, do you?” He handed Dottie to his brother and brushed at a damp patch of saliva on the shoulder of his coat.

“I suppose that’s what Enderby’s getting at.” Hal nodded at the earl’s letter. “That you made the poor girl publicly conspicuous and compromised her virtue by fighting a scandalous duel over her. I suppose he’s got a point.”