Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(8)

Dottie was now gumming her father’s knuckle, making little growling noises. Hal dug in his pocket and came out with a silver teething ring, which he offered her in lieu of his finger, meanwhile giving Grey a sidelong look.

“You don’t want to marry Caroline Woodford, do you? That’s what Enderby’s demand amounts to.”

“God, no.” Caroline was a good friend—bright, pretty, and given to mad escapades—but marriage? Him?

Hal nodded.

“Lovely girl, but you’d end in Newgate or Bedlam within a month.”

“Or dead,” Grey said, gingerly picking at the bandage Tom had insisted on wrapping round his knuckles. “How’s Nicholls this morning, do you know?”

“Ah.” Hal rocked back a little, drawing a deep breath. “Well…dead, actually. I had rather a nasty letter from his father, accusing you of murder. That one came over breakfast; didn’t think to bring it. Did you mean to kill him?”

Grey sat down quite suddenly, all the blood having left his head.

“No,” he whispered. His lips felt stiff and his hands had gone numb. “Oh, Jesus. No.”

Hal swiftly pulled his snuffbox from his pocket, one-handed, dumped out the vial of smelling salts he kept in it, and handed it to his brother. Grey was grateful; he hadn’t been going to faint, but the assault of ammoniac fumes gave him excuse for watering eyes and congested breathing.

“Jesus,” he repeated, and sneezed explosively several times in a row. “I didn’t aim to kill—I swear it, Hal. I deloped. Or tried to,” he added honestly.

Lord Enderby’s letter now made more sense, as did Hal’s presence. What had been a silly affair that should have disappeared with the morning dew had become—or would, directly the gossip had time to spread—not merely a scandal but quite possibly something worse. It was not unthinkable that he might be arrested for murder. Quite without warning, the figured carpet yawned at his feet, an abyss into which his life might vanish.

Hal nodded and gave him his own handkerchief.

“I know,” he said quietly. “Things…happen sometimes. That you don’t intend—that you’d give your life to have back.”

Grey wiped his face, glancing at his brother under cover of the gesture. Hal looked suddenly older than his years, his face drawn by more than worry over Grey.

“Nathaniel Twelvetrees, you mean?” Normally he wouldn’t have mentioned that matter, but both men’s guards were down.

Hal gave him a sharp look, then glanced away.

“No, not Twelvetrees. I hadn’t any choice about that. And I did mean to kill him. I meant…what led to that duel.” He grimaced. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” He looked at the note on the table and shook his head. His hand passed gently over Dottie’s head. “I won’t have you repeat my mistakes, John,” he said quietly.

Grey nodded, wordless. Hal’s first wife had been seduced by Nathaniel Twelvetrees. Hal’s mistakes notwithstanding, Grey had never intended marriage with anyone and didn’t now.

Hal frowned, tapping the folded letter on the table in thought. He darted a glance at John and sighed, then set the letter down, reached into his coat, and withdrew two further documents, one clearly official, from its seal.

“Your new commission,” he said, handing it over. “For Crefeld,” he said, raising an eyebrow at his brother’s look of blank incomprehension. “You were brevetted lieutenant-colonel. You didn’t remember?”

“I—well…not exactly.” He had a vague feeling that someone—probably Hal—had told him about it, soon after Crefeld, but he’d been badly wounded then and in no frame of mind to think about the army, let alone to care about battlefield promotion. Later—

“Wasn’t there some confusion over it?” Grey took the commission and opened it, frowning. “I thought they’d changed their minds.”

“Oh, you do remember, then,” Hal said, eyebrow still cocked. “General Wiedman gave it to you after the battle. The confirmation was held up, though, because of the inquiry into the cannon explosion, and then the…ah…kerfuffle over Adams.”

“Oh.” Grey was still shaken by the news of Nicholls’s death, but mention of Adams started his brain functioning again. “Adams. Oh. You mean Twelvetrees held up the commission?” Colonel Reginald Twelvetrees, of the Royal Artillery: brother to Nathaniel and cousin to Bernard Adams, the traitor awaiting trial in the Tower as a result of Grey’s efforts the preceding autumn.

“Yes. Bastard,” Hal added dispassionately. “I’ll have him for breakfast, one of these days.”

“Not on my account, I hope,” Grey said dryly.

“Oh, no,” Hal assured him, jiggling his daughter gently to prevent her fussing. “It will be a purely personal pleasure.”

Grey smiled at that, despite his disquiet, and put down the commission. “Right,” he said, with a glance at the fourth document, which still lay folded on the table. It was an official-looking letter and had been opened; the seal was broken. “A proposal of marriage, a denunciation for murder, and a new commission—what the devil’s that one? A bill from my tailor?”

“Ah, that. I didn’t mean to show it to you,” Hal said, leaning carefully to hand it over without dropping Dottie. “But under the circumstances…”