Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade(31)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

“Well, then there is nothing for it but to demand an explanation,” Grey said. “You have a right to that, I think.”

“Well, I thought so, too,” Sir George said, exhibiting a sudden diffidence. “That is why I came. But I am afraid…the butler said she had given orders…I do not wish to make myself offensive….”

“What do you have to lose?” Grey asked bluntly. He turned to Tom, who had been making himself inconspicuous by the door, intending to tell him to have the countess’s lady’s-maid come down. He was forestalled, though, by the opening of the door.

“Why, Sir George!” Olivia’s face lighted at sight of the general. “How lovely to see you! Does Aunt Bennie know you’re here?”

She almost certainly did, Grey reflected. Whatever her present mental aberration, he was sure that his mother was still sufficiently logical as to have deduced the likely effect of her note, and would almost certainly have noticed Sir George’s carriage drawing up in the street outside; it was elderly but solid, and of a sufficient size as to accommodate several passengers, and a small orchestra to entertain them en route.

That being so, she had probably also decided what to do when he did appear. And since she had given orders not to admit Sir George, the chances of Grey inducing her to come down from her boudoir and speak to the general without the use of a battering ram and manacles were probably slim.

Whilst he was drawing these unfortunate conclusions, Olivia had been eliciting the purpose of Sir George’s visit from him, with consequent exclamations of dismay.

“But what can have made her do such an unaccountable thing?” Olivia turned to Grey, her agitation surpassing Sir George’s. “We have sent the invitations! The wedding is next week! All of the clothes, the favors, the decorations! The arrangements for the wedding breakfast—everything is ready!”

“Everything except the bride, apparently,” Grey observed. “She has not had a sudden attack of nerves, I suppose?”

Olivia frowned, running her hands absently over her protruding belly in a manner that made the general turn tactfully away, affecting to reexamine the sit of his wig in the looking glass.

“She was a bit odd at supper last night,” she said slowly. “Very quiet. I supposed she was tired—we’d spent all day finishing the fitting of her gown. I didn’t think anything of it. But…” She shook her head, mouth firming up.

“She can’t do this to me!” she exclaimed, and turning, headed for the stairs in the determined manner of a climber about to attempt the Hindoo Kush. Sir George, openmouthed, looked at Grey, who shrugged. Of them all, Olivia was likely the only one who could gain entrance to his mother’s boudoir. And as he had said to Sir George, there was nothing to lose.

The general, relieved of Olivia’s blatantly fecund presence, had left the looking glass and was pottering round the room, heedlessly picking things up and putting them down at random.

“You do not suppose this is meant as some sort of test of my devotion?” he asked, rather hopefully. “Like Leander swimming the Hellespont, that sort of thing?”

“I think if she had meant you to bring her a roc’s egg or anything of the kind, she would have said so,” Grey said, as kindly as possible.

Olivia had left the door ajar; he could hear raised voices upstairs, but could not make out what was being said. The general had halted in his erratic progress round the room, and was now staring at a potted plant in a morbid sort of way. He put out a hand to the mantelpiece, touching one of Benedicta’s favorite ornaments, a commedia dell’arte figurine in the shape of a young woman in a striped apron. Grey was moved to see that the general’s hand was shaking slightly.

“You are quite positive that nothing has happened?” he asked, more by way of distracting the general’s mind than in actual hopes of discovering an answer. “If there was an event, it must have been quite recent, for she was fitting her wedding gown yesterday, and she would not have done that, if…”

The general turned to him, grateful for the distraction, but still unable to conceive of an answer.

“No,” he repeated, shaking his head in bafflement. “So far as I am aware, the only thing of note that has happened to anyone I know in the last twenty-four hours was your own adventure at Tyburn.” His eyes focused suddenly on Grey. “Are you quite recovered, by the way? I beg your pardon, I should have inquired at once, but…”

“Quite,” Grey assured him, embarrassed. He could see himself in the glass over the general’s shoulder, and while the night’s sleep had improved his appearance considerably, he still sported a number of visible marks, to say nothing of a rough stubble of beard. “How did you…”

“Captain MacLachlan mentioned it, when I saw him at my club last night. He…ah…was most impressed by your courage.” There was a delicate tone of question in this last remark, inviting Grey to explain his behavior if he would, but not requiring it.

“The captain and his friend were of the greatest assistance to me,” Grey said, and coughed.

The general was now regarding him closely, curiosity momentarily overcoming his worry.

“It was a most unfortunate affair,” he said. “I knew Captain Bates quite well; he was my chief aide-de-camp, some years ago. Did you—that is, I presume that you were acquainted with him, also? Perhaps a club acquaintance?” This was put with the greatest delicacy, the general plainly not wishing to appear to link Grey in friendship with a convicted sodomite.

“I met him briefly, once,” Grey said, wondering whether the general was aware of the political machinations behind Bates’s trial and conviction. “A…most interesting gentleman.”

“Wasn’t he,” the general said dryly. “He was at one point a fine soldier. A great pity that he should end in such a manner. A very sordid affair, I am afraid. I am glad, though,” he added, “that you were not badly injured. A Tyburn mob is a dangerous thing; I have seen men killed there—and with less provocation than you offered them.”

“Tyburn?” a shocked voice said behind Grey. He whirled, to find Olivia staring at him, mouth open in astonishment. “You were at Tyburn yesterday?” Her voice rose. “It was you who seized the legs of that dreadful beast, and was set upon by the crowd?”

“What?” Tom, who had tactfully retired to the hallway, appeared behind Olivia, eyes popping. “That was you, me lord?”

“How did you hear of it?” Grey demanded, attempting to hide his discomfiture by dividing an accusatory glare between his cousin and his valet.

“My maid told me,” Olivia replied promptly. “There’s a broadsheet circulating, with a cartoon of you—though they didn’t have your name, thank God—being drowned in the mud of perversion. What on earth possessed you, to do such a—”

“So that’s what happened to your uniform!” Tom exclaimed, much affronted.

“And why were you at Tyburn in the first place?” Olivia demanded.

“I have not got to account to you, madam,” Grey was beginning, with considerable severity, when yet another form joined the crowd in the doorway.

“What the devil have you been doing, John?” his mother said crisply.

There was no help for it. So much, Grey thought grimly, for trying to spare the feelings of his female relations, both of whom were staring at him as though he was a raving lunatic.

The countess listened to his brief account—from which he carefully omitted Mrs. Tomlinson and his own visit to Newgate—then sank slowly into a chair, put her elbows on the table among the breakfast things, and sank her head into her hands.

“I do not believe this,” she said, her voice only slightly muffled. Her shoulders began to shake. Sir George exchanged appalled glances with Grey, then made a tentative move toward her, but stopped, clearly not sure whether any attempt at comfort might be well received. Olivia had no such compunctions.

“Aunt Bennie! Dearest, you mustn’t be upset; Johnny’s all right. Now, now…” Olivia hovered over the countess for a moment, patting her shoulder. Then she bent closer, and her look of tender anxiety vanished suddenly.

“Aunt Bennie!” she said reproachfully.

Benedicta, Dowager Countess of Melton, sat up, reached for a napkin, and mopped at what were clearly now revealed to be tears of laughter.

“John, you will be the death of me yet,” she said, sniffing and dabbing at her eyes. “What on earth were you doing at Tyburn?”

“I was passing by,” he said stiffly, “and stopped to see what was happening.”

She cast him a look of profound disbelief, but didn’t take issue with this remark. Instead, she turned to Sir George, who had not ceased to gaze at her since her appearance.

“I owe you an apology, Sir George,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And, I suppose, an explanation.”

“Oh, no, my dear,” the general said softly. “You owe me nothing. Not ever.” But his heart was in his eyes, and she rose and came to him swiftly, taking his hand.

“I am sorry,” she said, low-voiced but clear. “Do you still wish to marry me, George?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, and without taking his rapt gaze from her face, lifted her hand and kissed it.

“Well, I’m glad of that,” she said. “But I shan’t hold you to it, if you should change your mind as a result of what I tell you.”

“Benedicta, I would take you bankrupt, in your shift,” he said, smiling. His mother smiled back, and Grey cleared his throat.

“Tell us what, exactly?” he said.

“Don’t presume upon my good nature,” his mother said, turning and narrowing her eyes at him. “Part of this is your fault, telling feeble-minded lies about being run down by mail coaches. I thought you were trying to hide the fact that you had been attacked again. Without cause, I mean.”

“Indeed,” Grey said, provoked. “Being attacked by a murderous crowd is quite all right, while being attacked by a random footpad is not?”

“That depends upon whether the attack on you and Percival Wainwright was random,” the countess said. “Must we stand here in the midst of stale toast and kipper bones, or may we repair to a more civilized spot?”

Relocated to the drawing room and provided with coffee, the countess sat beside Sir George on the settee, her hand on his arm, and looked at Grey.

“After your father’s death,” she said, “I went to France for some time. Within a month of my return to England, I received three proposals of marriage. From three men whom I had reason to suspect of having been involved in the scandal that took your father’s life. I refused them all, of course.”

The general had stiffened at this, the happiness of his renewed engagement fading.

“From whom did you receive these proposals of marriage?” Grey asked, before the general could. His mother’s eye rested on him.

“I decline to tell you,” she said briefly.