Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey #2)(10)

“A sodomite conspiracy to undermine the government by assassination of selected ministers.”

Grey felt a tightening of the belly, but replied casually. It was not the first time he had heard of such a notion; sodomitical associations and conspiracies were a standby of street criers and Fleet Street hacks whenever news became too slow.

“And why does this concern you?”

Hal fixed his eyes on the slimy cobbles.

“Us. It is a thing that was said. Of—of Father.” The word struck Grey in the pit of the stomach, like a pebble from a sling. He was not sure he had ever heard Hal use the word “Father” any time in the last fifteen years.

“That he was a sodomite?” Grey said, incredulous. Hal drew a deep breath, but seemed to relax a bit.

“No. Not in so many words. Nor was it—thank God—a popular rumor. Only random accusations at the time of his death, made by members of the Society—such accusations were common, thrown at almost every man of any visibility connected with the South Sea Bubble. The scandal was blamed on ‘companies of sodomites’—though God knows it was blamed on every other group, interest, or person anyone could think of, as well. But the Society was prominent at the time, and sodomitical conspiracies were their particular obsession.”

“The Society?” Grey said blankly. “Which Society is this?”

“I forgot. You would not have been old enough to hear much at the time—”

“Damned little, in Aberdeen.” Grey made no attempt to keep an edge of bitterness from his voice, and his brother glanced sharply at him.

“Which is precisely why you were sent there,” Hal said, his voice level. “In any case, it is the Society for the Reformation of Manners to which I refer; you have heard of them?”

“I have, yes.” Angry and unsettled, Grey was making no effort to hide his feelings, and let distaste and contempt show in his voice. “Prigs and puritans, who will not acknowledge their own base urges, but find delight—and release, no doubt—in accusations of corruption, in blackening the characters of innocent men. They are—”

Hal put a restraining hand on his arm again—no more than a touch, this time—to keep him from speaking further, as two chairmen went by at the trot, their heads wreathed in white smoke from their panting breath.

The cold and twilight kept many folk indoors, but there were those whose livelihoods compelled them to the streets, and as they approached St. James Street, there began to be more of them. A balladeer, chestnut sellers, apple-women crying the virtues of their wizened fruit. Grey saw his brother scrutinize each person they passed, as though he suspected them of something.

“Captain Michael Bates is thought to be deeply involved,” Hal said at last. “The general told me of the matter after you and Wainwright had left yesterday; Bates’s father is General Ezekial Bates—long retired, but an intimate of General Stanley’s.”

“Ah,” Grey said. “I see.” He felt unsettled still, vaguely alarmed, pointlessly angry—but this intelligence relieved his mind a little. At least now he knew why the matter had come to Hal’s attention. “And the other men you mentioned—Otway and Ffoulkes?”

“Otway is a private soldier in the Eleventh Infantry, a nobody. Ffoulkes is a reasonably well-known solicitor in Lincoln’s Inn.”

“How are these men connected?”

“Through Bates.”

Captain Bates and Ffoulkes had met, according to General Stanley, when Ffoulkes had handled a minor matter of business for the captain’s family. Otway had evidently met Bates in a tavern near Temple Stairs, formed an unwholesome connexion with him, and then later been introduced to Ffoulkes, though the general did not know the circumstances.

“Indeed,” said Grey, thinking of the bog-houses near Lincoln’s Inn, a spot much patronized by both lawyers and mollies. “This…association is what they refer to as a ‘company of sodomites’? It seems lacking in both membership and organizing principles, I think.”

Hal snorted a little; his breath purled white in the winter air.

“Oh, there’s more. Our friend Ffoulkes, it seems, has a French wife. Who in turn has two brothers. One of these brothers is a notorious pederast—notorious even by French standards—while the other is a colonel in the French army.”

Grey grunted in surprise.

“And is there any evidence of—I suppose it must be treason?”

“It is. And there is. The War Office got wind of something, and has been quietly pursuing the matter for some months. Bates—he was General Stanley’s chief aide-de-camp for some time before joining the Horse Guards, by the way—”

“Christ.”

“Precisely. He apparently had been passing secret materials to Otway, who in turn delivered these to Ffoulkes in the course of their assignations. And from there, of course…”

Grey drew the evening air deep into his lungs. The last of his defensive anger chilled, leaving him cold. It was a personal matter—but not directly personal. Hal’s concern was for the general, of course—and for their family, lest the old rumors be resurrected in light of fresh scandal, stimulated by their mother’s new marriage.

“What has been done?” he asked. “I have heard nothing of it in the streets, read nothing in the periodicals.”