Lord John and the Private Matter (Lord John Grey #1) 7

“Well, then, d’ye want Lord John to go back there and rummage the place?” Quarry asked, impatient. “We’ve a tame constable; shall we ask him to collect the Jews in his district and put their feet to the fire until they cough up this Meyer? What shall we do, for God’s sake?”

Mr. Bowles disliked being hurried, Grey could see. His lips thinned again, but before he could reply, Grey made his own interjection.

“Sir—if I might? I have something—it may be nothing, of course—but there seems to be an odd connexion …” He explained, as well as he could, the appearance of an unusual German wine at Lavender House and its apparent connexion with Trevelyan’s mysterious companion. And Jack Byrd, of course, was connected to Trevelyan.

“So I am wondering, sir, whether it might be possible to trace buyers of this wine, and thus perhaps to fall upon the scent of the mysterious Mr. Meyer?”

The small bulge of flesh that served Mr. Bowles for a brow underwent convulsions like a snail thinking fierce thoughts—but then relaxed.

“Yes, I think that might be a profitable channel of inquiry,” he conceded. “In the meantime, Colonel”—he turned to Quarry with an air of command—“I recommend that you apprehend Mr. Scanlon and his wife, and make such representations to them as may be appropriate.”

“Up to and including thumbscrews?” Harry inquired, standing up. “Or shall I stop at knouting?”

“I shall leave that to your impeccable professional judgment, Colonel,” Bowles said politely. “I shall handle further investigations at Lavender House. And Major Grey—I think it best that you pursue the matter of Mr. Trevelyan’s potential involvement in the matter; you seem best placed to handle it discreetly.”

Meaning, Grey thought, that I now have “scapegoat” written on my forehead in illuminated capitals. If it all blows up, the blame can be safely pinned to my coat, and I can be shipped off to Scotland or Canada permanently, with no loss to society.

“Thank you,” Grey said, handling the compliment as though it were a dead rat. Harry snorted, and they took their leave.

Before they had quite reached the door, though, Mr. Bowles spoke again.

“Lord John. If you will accept a bit of well-meant advice, sir?” Grey turned. The vague blue eyes seemed focused at a spot over his left shoulder, and he had to steel himself not to turn and look to see whether there was in fact someone behind him.

“Of course, Mr. Bowles.”

“I think I should hesitate to allow Mr. Joseph Trevelyan to become a relation by marriage. Speaking only for myself, you understand.”

“I thank you for your kind interest, sir,” Grey said, and bowed, most correctly.

He followed Harry down the rickety stair and out of the noisome yard to the street, where they both stood for a moment, breathing deeply.

“Knouting?” Grey said.

“Russian flogging,” Quarry explained, tugging at his wilted stock. “With a whip made of hippopotamus hide. Saw it once; flayed the poor bugger to the bone in three strokes.”

“I see the appeal,” Grey agreed, feeling an unexpected kinship with his half-brother Edgar. “You haven’t got a spare knout you might lend me, before I go speak to Trevelyan?”

“No, but Maggie might have such a thing in her collection. Shall I ask?” Freed of Bowles’s oppressive den, Quarry’s natural exuberance was reasserting itself.

Grey made a dissentient motion of the hand.

“Don’t trouble.” He fell in beside Harry and they turned down the street, back toward the river.

“If the recent Mr. Bowles were to be dried and stuffed, he would make an excellent addition to that collection. What is he, do you know?”

“Not fish nor fowl, so I suppose he must be flesh,” Quarry said with a shrug. “Beyond that, I think it’s best not to inquire.”

Grey nodded understanding. He felt wrung out—and horribly thirsty.

“Stand you a drink at the Beefsteak, Harry?”

“Make it a cask,” Quarry said, clapping him on the back, “and I’ll stand supper. Let’s go.”

Chapter 13

Barber, Barber,

Shave a Pig

The wineshop of Fraser et Cie was small and dark, but cleanly kept—and the air inside was dizzyingly rich with the perfume of grapes.

“Welcome, sir, welcome. Will you have the kindness to give me your honest opinion of this vintage?”

A small man in a tidy wig and coat had popped up out of the gloom, appearing at his elbow with the suddenness of a gnome springing out of the earth, offering a cup with a small quantity of dark wine.

“What?” Startled, Grey took the cup by reflex.

“A new vintage,” the little man explained, bowing. “I think it very fine myself—very fine! But taste is such an individual matter, do you not find it so?”

“Ah … yes. To be sure.” Grey raised the cup cautiously to his face, only to have an aroma of amazing warmth and spice insinuate itself so deeply into his nostrils that he found the cup pressed to his lips in an involuntary effort to bring the elusive scent closer.

It spread over mouth and palate and rose up in a magic cloud inside his head, the flavor unfolding like a series of blooming flowers, each scented with a different heady perfume: vanilla, plum, apple, pear … and the most delicate aftertaste, which he could describe only as the succulent feeling left on the tongue by the swallowing of fresh buttered toast.

“I will have a cask of it,” he said, lowering the cup and opening his eyes as the last of the perfume evaporated on his palate. “What is it?”

“Oh, you like it!” The little man was all but clapping his hands with delight. “I am so pleased. Now, if you find that particular vintage to your liking, I am convinced that you will enjoy this.… Not everyone does, it takes a particularly educated palate to appreciate the subtleties, but you, sir …” The empty cup was snatched from his hand, and another substituted for it before he could draw breath to speak.

Wondering just how much he had already spent, he obligingly lifted the fresh cup.

Half an hour later, with flattened pocketbook and a pleasantly inflated head, he floated out of the shop, feeling rather like a soap bubble—light, airy, and gleaming with iridescent colors. Under his arm was a corked bottle of Schilcher, the mysterious German red, and in his pocket a list of those customers of Fraser et Cie known to have purchased it.

It was a short list, though there were more than he would have suspected—half a dozen names, including that of Richard Caswell, dealer in information. What else had Caswell carefully not told him? he wondered.

The enthusiastic wine-seller, who had eventually introduced himself as Mr. Congreve, was regretfully unable to tell him much regarding the other buyers of the German red: “Most of our customers merely send a servant, you know; such a pity that more will not come in person, like yourself, my lord!”

Still, it was apparent from the names that at least four of the six were in fact Germans, though none was called Meyer. If his mother could not identify them, chances were good that Captain von Namtzen could; wealthy foreigners in London tended to club together, or at least to be aware of each other, and if Prussia and Saxony found themselves on different sides of the present conflict, their inhabitants did at least still speak the same language.

A bundle of rags crouched by the pavement stirred as though to move toward him, and his eyes went to it at once, with a fixed stare that made the bundle hunch and mutter to itself. His mother had been accurate in describing the environs of Fraser et Cie as “not very nice,” and the ice-blue suit with silver buttons, which had proven so helpful in establishing his immediate bona fides with Mr. Congreve, was attracting rather less-desirable attention from the less-reputable inhabitants of the neighborhood.

He had taken the precaution of wearing his sword as visible warning, and had a dagger in the waist of his breeches in addition to a jerkin of thickened leather beneath his waistcoat—though he knew well enough that a manner demonstrating instant willingness to do violence was better armor than any of these. He’d learned that at the age of eight; fine-boned and lightly built as he was, it had been a matter of self-preservation, and the lesson had served him well ever since.

He gave a hostile glare to two loungers eyeing him, and put a hand on his sword hilt; their eyes slid away. He would have welcomed Tom Byrd’s company, but had reckoned that time was more important than safety. He had sent Byrd to the other wine-sellers his mother had recommended; perhaps he would turn up more names to investigate.

It was minor progress in his quest to untangle the affairs of Joseph Trevelyan, but at this point, any information that seemed straightforward and unambiguous was a relief. He had quite made up his mind that Trevelyan would not marry Olivia under any circumstance—but a means of discreetly severing the engagement while not harming Livy’s reputation remained to be found.

Merely to announce the dissolution of the betrothal himself would not do; if no reason was given, rumor would spread like wildfire, and rumor was the ruin of a young woman. Lacking explanation, it would be assumed that Joseph Trevelyan had discovered some grievous fault in her, for engagements in this stratum of society were neither undertaken nor discarded lightly. Olivia’s wedding contract had taken two months and four lawyers to draw up.

Likewise, he could not let the true cause of the severance be publicly known—and in terms of society, there was no privacy; if anyone outside the families concerned learned the truth, within days, everyone would know of it.

While the Greys were not without influence, they did not approach the wealth and power of the Cornish Trevelyans. Letting the truth be known was to invite enmity from the Trevelyans on a scale that would compromise his own family’s affairs for decades—and would still damage Livy, for the Trevelyans would hold her responsible as the agent of Joseph’s exposure and disgrace, no matter that she had known nothing of it.

He could force Joseph Trevelyan to break the engagement by privately threatening exposure; but that too would cast Livy’s reputation in doubt, if no plausible explanation was given. No, Trevelyan must dissolve the engagement voluntarily, and must do so in a fashion that absolved Livy of any blame in the matter. There would still be talk and speculation, but with luck, it would not be so injurious as to prevent Livy eventually making a reasonable match elsewhere.

What such grounds might be, and how he was to induce Trevelyan to discover them … he had no good ideas, but was in hopes that finding Trevelyan’s inamorata might provide one. Clearly, she was a married woman, and just as clearly, in a position of considerable social delicacy; if he could discover her identity, a visit to her husband might possibly suggest a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the Trevelyans without need of Grey appearing to act directly in the matter.

A growing racket jerked him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see a group of three youths coming toward him, joking and shoving each other in lighthearted disportment. They seemed so innocent as to arouse immediate suspicion, and glancing quickly round, he spotted the accomplice: a filthy girl of twelve or so, lurking nearby, ready to dash in and cut his buttons or snatch his wine, as soon as his attention should be distracted by her playfellows.

He took hold of his sword with one hand, and clutched the neck of the bottle club-like in the other, giving the girl a gimlet stare. She pouted impudently at him, but stepped back, and the gang of young pickpockets clattered past, talking loudly and patently ignoring him.

A sudden silence made him turn to look after them, though, and he saw the girl’s petticoat tail just disappearing into an alleyway. The youths were nowhere in sight, but the sound of hasty footsteps thumped softly, running away down the dark alley.

He swore silently to himself, glancing round. Where might that alley come out again? The lane he was in showed several dark openings between his present location and the turn into the next street. Evidently, they meant to dash ahead, then lie in wait until he had passed their hiding place, jumping out to commit ambush from behind.

Forewarned was forearmed, but there were still three of them—four, counting the girl—and he doubted that the pie-sellers and rag-and-bone men on the street would feel compelled to come to his aid. With quick decision, he turned upon his heel and ducked into the alley where the pickpockets had disappeared, lifting the bottom edge of his waistcoat to render the dagger hilt ready to his hand.

The lane had been shabby; the alley was noisome, narrow, dark, and half-choked with refuse. A rat, disturbed by the earlier passage of the pickpockets, hissed at him from a mound of rubble; he swung the bottle and sent the rat flying into the wall, which it struck with a satisfyingly juicy thump before falling limp at his feet. He kicked it aside and went on, bottle at the ready and hand on his dagger, listening for any sound of footfalls ahead.

The alleyway forked, with a jog hard right, back toward the lane; he paused, listening, then risked a quick glance round the corner. Yes, there they were, crouched at the ready, sticks in hand. The girl, curse her, had a knife or a bit of broken glass in her hand; he saw the light glint from it as she moved.

A moment more, and they would realize he was not coming down the lane. He stepped silently past the fork and made his way as fast as he could through the rubble of the left-hand alley. He was obliged to climb over stacks of wet refuse and worm sideways through the hanging goods in a fuller’s yard, to the gross disfigurement of his suit, but emerged at last into a wider thoroughfare.

He didn’t recognize the street, but was able to see the dome of St. Paul’s looming in the distance, and thus to judge his way. Breathing somewhat easier in spite of the mephitis of dog turds and rotten cabbage that surrounded him, he set his steps eastward, and turned his thoughts to the next item on the day’s agenda of unpleasant duties, which was to resume the search for a break in the clouds obscuring the truth of Timothy O’Connell’s life and death.