He shook hands with Prévost, looking covertly to see if the scar was visible. Papa had said Prévost was called “Old Bullet Head” as the result of having his skull fractured by a bullet that struck him in the head at the Battle of Quebec. To his gratification, he could see it: a noticeable depression of the bone just above the temple, showing as a hollow shadow under the edge of Prévost’s wig.
“My lord?” said a voice at his elbow as he went in to the reception room, where the guests were assembling to be given sherry and savory biscuits to prevent starvation before the luncheon should be served.
“Mr. Ransom,” William said firmly, turning to see Denys Randall, uniformed and looking much more soigné in his toilet than on previous meeting. “Your servant, sir.”
He looked back and saw that Campbell’s party had come in but that Uncle Hal and his father had in the meantime somehow contrived to flank Prévost, behaving as though they were part of the official receiving line, greeting each of the London politicals—several of whom Uncle Hal appeared to know—with effusive welcome before Campbell could introduce them.
Smiling, he turned back to Denys.
“Any word of my cousin?”
“Not directly.” Randall snagged two glasses of sherry from a passing tray and handed one to William. “But I do know the name of the British officer who received the original letter with the news of your cousin’s death.”
“Colonel Richardson?” William asked, disappointed. “Yes, I know that.” But Denys was shaking his head.
“No. The letter was sent to Richardson by Colonel Banastre Tarleton.”
William’s sherry went down sideways and he choked slightly.
“What? Tarleton received the letter from the Americans? How? Why?” William’s last meeting with Ban Tarleton had ended with a pitched fight—on the battleground at Monmouth—over Jane. William was reasonably sure he’d won.
“I would really like to know that,” Denys replied, bowing to a gentleman in blue velvet across the room. “And I sincerely hope you’ll find out and tell me. Meanwhile, have you heard anything of our friend Ezekiel Richardson?”
“Yes, but probably nothing very helpful. My—father received a letter from a sailing captain of his acquaintance, who mentioned casually that he’d seen Richardson on the docks in Charles Town.”
“When?” Denys betrayed no open excitement at the news, but cocked his head like a terrier wondering whether he had just heard the scrabbling of a gopher underground.
“The letter was dated a month ago. No telling whether the captain saw the fellow then or sometime before. No hint that Schermerhorn—that’s the captain—knows that Ezekiel Richardson is a turncoat, by the way, so I suppose he wasn’t in uniform. Not an American uniform, I mean.”
“Nothing else?” The terrier was disappointed, but perked up again at William’s next bit of information.
“Apparently Richardson was with a gentleman named Haym. But he didn’t say anything about what they were doing, or who Haym might be.”
“I know who he is.” Denys kept control of his expression, but his interest was plain.
The conversation was interrupted at this point by the banging of a small gong and the butler’s announcement that luncheon was served, and he found himself separated as another acquaintance hailed Denys.
“All right, Willie?” His father popped up beside him as he made his way through the double doors of the reception room into a generous hall with a fantastic floorcloth of painted canvas, done in simulation of the mosaic of a Roman villa. “Has he found out anything about Ben?”
“Not much, but there may be something.” He hastily conveyed the gist of his conversation with Randall.
“He says he knows the man Richardson was seen with in Charles Town. Haym.”
“Haym?” Uncle Hal had caught up with them in time to hear this, and lifted an eyebrow at the name.
“Possibly,” said William. “You know him?”
“Not to say ‘know,’” his uncle said with a shrug. “But I have heard of a rich Polish Jew named Haym Salomon. I can’t think what the devil he’d be doing in Charles Town, though—the last I heard of him, he’d been sentenced to death as a spy, in New York.”
LUNCHEON WAS TEDIOUS, with small patches of aggravation. William found himself seated between a Mr. Sykes-Hallett, who seemed to be a Member of Parliament from someplace in Yorkshire, judging from his incomprehensible accent, and a slender, stylish gentleman in a bottle-green coat called Fungo (or possibly Fungus), who burbled about the brilliance of the Southern Campaign (about which he plainly knew nothing, nor did he notice the stony looks of the soldiers seated near him) and kept addressing William as “Lord Ellesmere,” though he’d been tersely invited to stop.
William thought he caught a sympathetic look from Uncle Hal at the adjoining table, but wasn’t sure.
“Do I understand correctly that you have resigned your commission, Lord Ellesmere?” the green fungus asked, between nibbles of poached salmon. “Colonel Campbell said that you had—some trouble about a girl? Mind, I don’t blame you a bit.” He raised a hair-thin eyebrow in a knowing fashion. “A military career is well enough for men who have capacity but no means—but I understand that you fortunately do not require to make your way in life at the cost—at least the potential cost—of your blood?”
William had been raised to exercise courtesy even in adverse circumstances, and thus merely took a forkful of the rabbit terrine and put it into his mouth instead of stabbing Fungo in the throat with it.
Now, had it been Campbell … but it wasn’t really Campbell’s malice that troubled him. He hadn’t realized how much it would bother him, not being a soldier anymore. He felt like an imposter, an interloper, a useless and despised lump, sitting here among soldiers in a waistcoat covered with fucking beetles, for God’s sake!
It was a large gathering, some thirty men, two-thirds of them in uniform, and he could feel the lines drawn between the civilians and the soldiers, clearly. Respect, certainly—but respect with an underlying scorn—on both sides.
“What a charming waistcoat, sir,” said the man across the table, smiling. “I admit to a great partiality for beetles. I had an uncle who collected them—he left his collection to the British Museum when he died.”
The man’s name was Preston, William thought—second secretary to the undersecretary of war, or something. Still, he wasn’t either sneering or leering; he had a strong though rather homely face, with a large, crooked nose that bore a pair of pince-nez, and obviously intended nothing more than friendly conversation.
“My cousin embroidered them for me, sir,” William said, with a slight bow. “Her father is a naturalist, and she assures me that they’re completely correct—save for the eyes, which were her particular fancy.”
“Your cousin?” Preston glanced at the next table, where Papa and Uncle Hal were engaged in conversation with Prévost and his two principal guests, a minor nobleman sent as a representative of Lord George Germain, the secretary of state for the colonies, and a dressy Frenchman of some sort. “Surely it is not the duke who is a naturalist. Oh—but of course, the uncle must be on your mother’s side?”