Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey #2)(14)

He couldn’t even have it out with Hal, as that would involve his admitting to doubts that he preferred to keep buried, particularly now that they had been disproved. At least, his doubts regarding Hal had been disproved. As to his father…what the devil did that page from the missing journal mean? Who had left it? And why had his mother told Hal the duke had burnt the journal, when clearly he had not?

He glanced at the floor beneath his feet, debating the wisdom of going down and rousing his mother in order to ask her. But Hal had wished to speak to her alone; Grey supposed that was his right. Still, if either one of them thought he would be fobbed off now with further evasions or easy reassurances…He realized that he was clenching his fists, and opened them.

“You are grossly mistaken,” he said softly, and rubbed his palm against his leg. “Both of you.”

He had left his watch open on the desk. It chimed softly now, and he picked it up, holding it toward the fire to see the time—half two. He set it down again, next to the journal that also lay there, one of his father’s. He’d taken the volume at random from the library and brought it upstairs with him, for no good reason. Only feeling the need to touch it.

He laid a hand gently on the cover. Rough-tanned leather, the pages sewn in. It was like all the duke’s journals, made to withstand travel and the vicissitudes of campaign.

…watched the Perseids fall before the dawn twilight this morning, with V. and John. We lay upon the lawn, and counted more than sixty meteors within the space of an hour, at least a dozen very bright, with a visible tinge of blue or green.

He repeated the sentence to himself, making sure he had it word for word. That was the only sentence on the page Hal had burned that mentioned himself by name; a nugget of gold.

He hadn’t remembered that night at all, until the casual record brought it back: cool damp from the lawn seeping through his clothes, excitement overcoming the pull of sleep and the longing for his warm bed. Then the “Ah!” from his father and Victor—yes, “V.” was Victor Arbuthnot, one of his father’s astronomical friends. Was Arbuthnot still alive? he wondered. The sudden jerk of his heart at sight of the first shooting star—a brief and silent streak of light, startling as though a star had indeed fallen suddenly from its place.

That was what he most remembered—the silence. The men had talked at first, chatting casually; he had paid no attention, half-dreaming as he was. But then their conversation had faded, and the three of them lay flat on their backs, faces turned upward to the heavens, waiting together. Silent.

Poets spoke of the song of the heavens, the music of the spheres—and God knew, it was true. The silence of the stars chimed in the heart.

He paused by the window, looking up into a lavender sky, fingers pressed against the icy glass. No stars tonight; the snowflakes came down out of the dark, rushing toward him, endless, uncountable. Silent, too, but not like the stars. Falling snow whispered secrets to itself.

“And you are a fanciful idiot,” he said out loud, and turned away from the window. “Be writing poetry, next thing.”

He made himself lie down, and lay staring up at the plastered ceiling. Remembering the stargazing had quieted him, though he thought he would not sleep. Too many thoughts swirled through his brain, endless and confusing as the snowflakes. Missing journals, reappearing pages, ancient wagers—was that wager at the root of the animus between his brother and Colonel Twelvetrees? And the so-called sodomite conspiracy—had that anything to do with his family’s affairs? He might as well try to fit the falling snowflakes together in a way that made sense.

It was only as his eyes closed that he realized that while snowflakes cannot fit, they do accumulate. One upon another, until the sheer mass of them forms a crust that a man might walk upon—or fall through.

He would wait and see how deep the drifts lay, come morning.



In the morning, though, a letter came.

“Geneva Dunsany is dead.” Benedicta, Dowager Countess of Melton, set down the black-bordered letter very gently by her plate, her face pale. The footman froze in the act of presenting more toast.

For an instant, the words had no meaning. The hot tea in Grey’s cup warmed his fingers through the china, fragrant steam in his nostrils mingling with the scents of fried kippers, hot bread, and marmalade. Then he heard what his mother had said, and set down his cup.

“God rest her soul,” he said. His lips felt numb, in spite of the tea. “How?”

The countess closed her eyes for an instant, looking suddenly her age.

“In childbirth,” she said, drawing a long breath, and opening her eyes. “The child has survived, so far. A son, Lady Dunsany says.” The color was beginning to seep back into the countess’s face, and she picked up the letter again.

“Here is something remarkable, though terribly sad,” she said. “She says that the child’s father—that would be Ellesmere, old Ludovic, you know—died on the same day as his wife.”

“Oh, dear!” His cousin Olivia looked at her aunt, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Olivia was a tenderhearted girl to begin with, and her inclination to be affected by sentiment had grown more pronounced with her own advancing pregnancy. Though Grey supposed that the news that Geneva Dunsany had perished in giving birth was bound to have a morbid effect on a young woman in similar condition.

Grey coughed, wishing to distract his cousin—and to keep his own feelings at bay for the moment.