Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey #2)(4)

“Are you fond of dogs, Lord John?”

“Very much so, though I am afraid I have none myself at present. I am seldom at home, you see.”

“Ah. You make your home with your brother, when in England?” Percy glanced in Hal’s direction, then brought his eyes back to Grey’s, the question plain in them.

Does your brother know?

Grey shook his head, attention ostensibly on the bread roll he was tearing. The question of what Hal knew was a good deal too complex to deal with here. Leave it that Hal did not know about Lavender House, nor his brother’s association with it. That was enough for now.

“No,” he said casually. “I stay at my mother’s house in Jermyn Street.” He looked up, meeting Percy’s eyes directly. “Though perhaps I shall seek lodgings elsewhere, now that her domestic arrangements will be altered.”

Percy’s mouth lifted in a slight smile, but Sir George, pausing in his own conversation to chew a morsel of beef, had caught this remark, and now leaned across the table, his round face reflecting earnest goodwill.

“My dear Lord John! You certainly must not alter your arrangements on my account! Benedicta desires to keep her house in Jermyn Street, and I should be most distressed to feel that my presence had deprived her of her son’s company.”

Grey noticed his brother’s lips press thin at the notion of Sir George’s occupation of Jermyn Street. Hal glanced sharply at his brother, admonition plain in his face.

Oh, no, you don’t! I want you there, keeping an eye on this fellow.

“You are too kind, sir,” Grey replied to Sir George. “But the matter is not pressing. I shall rejoin the regiment shortly, after all.”

“Ah, yes.” Sir George looked interested at that, and turned to Hal. “Have you fresh orders for the spring, my lord?”

Hal nodded, a plump oyster poised on his fork. “Back to France as soon as the weather permits. And your troops…”

“Oh, it’s the West Indies for us,” Sir George replied, beckoning for more wine. “Seasickness, mosquitoes, and malaria. Though I will say that at my age, that prospect is somewhat less daunting than mud and frostbite. And the rations are less difficult to manage, of course.”

Hal relaxed a bit at the revelation that Sir George would not be remaining long in England. Benedicta’s money was her own, and safe, for the most part—or as safe as law and Hal could make it. It was his mother’s physical welfare with which he was mostly concerned at the moment. That was, presumably, the point of this luncheon: to indicate firmly to Sir George that Benedicta Grey’s sons took a close interest in her affairs, and intended to continue doing so after her marriage.

Surely you don’t suppose he would beat her? Grey inquired silently of his brother, brows raised. Or install a mistress at Jermyn Street?

Hal adopted a po-faced expression, indicating that Grey was an innocent in the wicked ways of men. Fortunately, Hal himself was not so trusting!

Grey rolled his eyes briefly and averted his gaze from his brother as the steward brought in a dish of hot prunes to accompany the mutton.

Sir George and Hal went off into an intense discussion of the problems of recruitment and supply, leaving Grey and Percy Wainwright once more to their own devices.

“Lord John?” Wainwright spoke low-voiced, brows raised. “It is Lord John?”

“Lord John,” Grey agreed, with a brief sigh.

“But—” Percy glanced again at Hal, who had put down his fork and was drawing up a complicated pattern of troop movements upon the linen tablecloth, using the silver pencil he always kept to hand. The steward was observing this, looking rather bleak.

Is he not a duke, then? “Lord John” was the proper address for the younger son of a duke, while the younger son of an earl would be simply “the Honorable John Grey.” But if Grey’s father had been a duke, then…

“Yes,” Grey said, casting his own eyes up toward the ceiling in token of helplessness.

Apparently, Sir George had not had time to brief his stepson on the matter, beyond warning him not to address Hal as “Your Grace”—the proper address for a duke.

Grey made a slight gesture, not quite a shrug, indicating that he would explain the intricacies of the situation later. The simple fact of the matter, he reflected, was that he was quite as stubborn as his brother. The thought gave him an obscure feeling of pleasure.

“So you think of purchasing a commission in the Forty-sixth?” Grey asked, using his bread to soak up the juices on his plate.

“Perhaps. If that should be agreeable to…all parties,” Wainwright said, glancing at his stepfather and Hal, then back at Grey.

And would it be agreeable to you?

“I should think it an ideal arrangement,” Grey replied. He smiled at Wainwright, a slow smile. “We should be brothers-in-arms, then, as well as brothers by marriage.” He picked up his wineglass in toast to the idea, then took a sip of wine, which he rolled round his mouth, enjoying the feeling of Percy’s eyes fixed on his face.

Percy drank, too, and licked his lips. They were soft and full, stained red with wine.

“Lord John—tell me, please, how did you find our Prussian allies? Was it an artillery regiment with which you were placed, or foot? I confess, I am not so familiar as I should be with arrangements on the eastern front.”