Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey #2)(7)

Familiar as he was with Hal’s quick-change methods of conversation, it took Grey only an instant to catch his brother’s meaning.

“Wainwright? Seems a decent fellow,” he said, affecting casualness. “Have you heard anything of him?”

“No more than we learned yesterday. I asked Quarry, but neither he nor Joffrey knew anything of the man.”

That said much; between them, Harry Quarry, one of the two regimental colonels, and his half brother, Lord Joffrey, knew everyone of note in both military and political circles.

“You liked him?” Grey asked. Hal frowned a little, considering.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “And it would be awkward to refuse him, should he desire to take a commission with us.”

“No experience, of course,” Grey observed. This was not a stumbling block, but it was a consideration. Commissions were normally purchased, and many officers had never seen a soldier nor held a weapon prior to taking up their office. On the other hand, most of the 46th’s senior officers were veterans of considerable battlefield experience, and Hal chose new additions carefully.

“True. I should suggest his beginning at second lieutenant, perhaps—or even ensign. To learn his business before moving higher.”

Grey considered this, then nodded.

“Second lieutenant,” he said. “Or even first. There will be the family connexion. It wouldn’t be fitting, I think, that he should be an ensign.” Ensigns were the lowliest of the commissioned officers, at everyone’s beck and call.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Hal conceded. “We’d put him under Harry, of course, at least to start. You would be willing to guide him?”

“Certainly.” Grey felt his heart beat faster, and forced himself to caution. “That is, should he wish to join us. The general did say they had not decided. And Bonham would take him at once as a captain in the Fifty-first, you know.”

Hal huffed and looked down his nose at the thought that anyone might prefer to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven, as it were, but reluctantly conceded the point.

“Yes, I should like to make him captain eventually, if he proves able. But we leave for France in less than three months; I doubt that is time to try him adequately. Can he even handle a sword, do you think?” Wainwright had not been wearing one; still, most nonmilitary gentlemen did not.

Grey shrugged.

“I can find out. Do you wish me to broach the matter of commission with Wainwright directly, or shall you open negotiations with the general?”

Hal drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment, then made up his mind.

“Ask him directly. If he is to be a member of both the family and the regiment, I think we must treat him as such from the beginning. And he is much nearer to you in age. I think he is somewhat afraid of me.” Hal’s brows knitted briefly in puzzlement, and Grey smiled. His brother liked to think himself modest and inoffensive, and affected not to know that while his troops idolized him, they were also terrified of him.

“I’ll talk to him, then.”

Grey made to rise, but Hal waved him back, still frowning.

“Wait. There is—another matter.”

Grey looked sharply at his brother, hearing the note of strain in Hal’s voice. Distracted by thoughts of Percy Wainwright, he hadn’t really looked at Hal; now he saw the tightness around his brother’s mouth and eyes. Trouble, then.

“What is it?”

Hal grimaced, but before he could reply, footsteps came down the corridor, and someone knocked diffidently at the jamb of the open door. Grey turned to see a young hussar, his face flushed from the cold wind outside.

“My lord? A message, sir, from the ministry. I was told to wait upon an answer,” he added awkwardly.

Hal turned a dark countenance on the messenger, but then beckoned impatiently and snatched the message.

“Wait downstairs,” he said, waving the hussar away. He broke the seal and read the note quickly, muttered something blasphemous under his breath, and seized a quill to scribble a reply at the bottom of the page.

Grey rocked back in his chair, waiting. He glanced round the office, wondering what could have happened since yesterday. Hal had shown no signs of worry during their luncheon with the general and Percy.

He could not have said what drew his eye to the scrap of paper. Hal’s office resembled nothing so much as the den of some large beast of untidy habit, and while both Hal and his elderly clerk, Mr. Beasley, could lay their hands on anything wanted within an instant, no one else could find so much as a pin in the general chaos.

The paper itself lay among a quantity of others scattered on the desk, distinguished only by a ragged edge, as though it had been torn from a book. Grey picked it up, glanced at it casually, then stiffened, eyes glued to the page.

“Do let my papers alone, John,” Hal said, finishing his reply with a viciously scrawled signature. “You’ll muddle everything. What’s that you have?” He tossed his quill on the desk and snatched the paper impatiently from Grey. He made to put it back on the desk, then caught sight of the words and froze.

“It is, is it not?” Grey asked, feeling queer. “Father’s writing?” It was a rhetorical question; he had recognized both the hand and the style of writing at once. Hal hadn’t heard in any case; the blood had drained from his face, and he was reading the journal page—for that is what it clearly was—as though it were notice of his own execution.