THE BLACK CHAMBER

Grey wondered what romantic soul had originally christened the Black Chamber—or whether it was in fact a romantic designation. Perhaps the spies of an earlier day had been consigned to a windowless hole under the stairs at Whitehall, and the name was purely descriptive. These days, the Black Chamber designated a class of employment rather than a specific location.

All the capitals of Europe—and not a few lesser cities—had Black Chambers, these being the centers wherein mail intercepted en route or by spies or simply removed from diplomatic pouches was inspected, decoded with varying degrees of success, and then sent to whichever person or agency had need of the information thus derived. England’s Black Chamber had employed four gentlemen—not counting clerks and office boys—when Grey had labored there. There were more of them now, distributed in random holes and corners in the buildings down Pall Mall, but the main center of such operations was still in Buckingham Palace.

Not in any of the beautifully equipped areas that served the Royal Family or their secretaries, ladies’ maids, housekeepers, butlers, or other upper servants—but still, within the palace precincts.

Grey passed the guard at the back gate with a nod—he’d worn his uniform, with the lieutenant-colonel’s insignia, to facilitate entry—and made his way down a shabby, ill-lit corridor whose scent of ancient floor polish and ghosts of boiled cabbage and burnt tea cake gave him a pleasant frisson of nostalgia. The third door on the left stood ajar, and he entered without knocking.

He was expected. Arthur Norrington greeted him without rising, and motioned him to a chair.

He’d known Norrington for years, though they were not particular friends, and found it comforting that the man seemed not to have changed at all in the years since their last meeting. Arthur was a large, soft man, whose large, slightly protruding eyes and thick lips gave him the mien of a turbot on ice: dignified and faintly reproachful.

“I appreciate your help, Arthur,” Grey said, and as he sat, deposited on the corner of the desk a small wrapped parcel. “A small token of that appreciation,” he added, waving a hand at it.

Norrington raised one thin brow and took the package, which he unwrapped with greedy fingers.

“Oh!” he said, with unfeigned delight. He turned the tiny ivory carving over gently in his large, soft hands, bringing it close to his face to see the details, entranced. “Tsuji?”

Grey shrugged, pleased with the effect of his gift. He knew nothing of netsuke himself, but knew a man who dealt in ivory miniatures from China and Japan. He had been surprised at the delicacy and artistry of the tiny thing, which showed a half-clothed woman engaged in a very athletic form of sexual congress with a naked obese gentleman with his hair in a topknot.

“I’m afraid it has no provenance,” he said apologetically, but Norrington waved that aside, eyes still fixed on the new treasure. After a moment, he sighed happily, then tucked the thing away in the inner pocket of his coat.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said. “As for the subject of your own inquiry, I am afraid that we have relatively little material available regarding your mysterious Mr. Beauchamp.” He nodded at the desk, where a battered, anonymous leather folder reposed. Grey could see that there was something bulky inside—something not paper; the folder was pierced, and a small piece of twine ran through it, fastening the object in place.

“You surprise me, Mr. Norrington,” he said politely, and reached for the folder. “Still, let me see what you do have, and perhaps—”

Norrington pressed his fingers flat against the file and frowned for a moment, trying to convey the impression that official secrets could not be imparted to just anyone. Grey smiled at him.

“Come off it, Arthur,” he said. “If you want to know what I know about our mysterious Mr. Beauchamp—and I assure you, you do—you’ll show me every word you have about him.”

Norrington relaxed a little, letting his fingers slide back—though still with a show of reluctance. Cocking one eyebrow, Grey picked up the leather folder and opened it. The bulky object was revealed to be a small cloth bag; beyond that, there were only a few sheets of paper. Grey sighed.

“Poor protocol, Arthur,” he said reprovingly. “There are snowdrifts of paper involving Beauchamp—cross-referenced to that name, too. Granted, he hasn’t been active in years, but someone ought to have looked.”

“We did,” Norrington said, an odd note in his voice that made Grey look sharply up. “Old Crabbot remembered the name, and we looked. The files are gone.”

The skin across Grey’s shoulders tightened, as though he’d been struck with a lash.

“That is odd,” he said calmly. “Well, then …” He bent his head over the folder, though it took a moment to subdue his racing thoughts enough to see what he was looking at. No sooner had his eyes focused on the page than the name “Fraser” leapt out of it, nearly stopping his heart.

Not Jamie Fraser, though. He breathed slowly, turned the page, read the next, turned back. There were four letters in all, only one completely decoded, though another had been started; it bore someone’s tentative notes in the margin. His lips tightened; he had been a good decoder in his day, but had been absent from the field of battle far too long to have any notion of the current common idioms in use by the French, let alone the idiosyncratic terms an individual spy might use—and these letters were the work of at least two different hands; so much was clear.

“I’ve looked them over,” Norrington said, and Grey looked up to find Arthur’s protruding hazel eyes fixed on him like a toad eyeing a juicy fly. “I haven’t officially decoded them yet, but I’ve a good general idea what they say.”

Well, he’d already decided that it had to be done, and he’d come prepared to tell Arthur, who was the most discreet of his old Black Chamber contacts.

“Beauchamp is one Percival Wainwright,” he said bluntly, wondering even as he said it, why he kept the secret of Percival’s real name. “He’s a British subject—was an army officer, arrested for the crime of sodomy but never tried. It was thought that he’d died in Newgate awaiting trial, but”—he smoothed the letters and closed the folder over them—“evidently not.”

Arthur’s plump lips rounded in a soundless “O.”

Grey wondered for an instant if he could leave it there—but no. Arthur was persistent as a dachshund digging into a badger sett, and if he discovered the rest of it on his own, he would at once suspect Grey of withholding much more.

“He’s also my stepbrother,” Grey said, as casually as possible, and laid the folder on Arthur’s desk. “I saw him in North Carolina.”

Arthur’s mouth sagged for an instant. He firmed it up at once, blinking.

“I see,” he said. “Well, then … I see.”

“Yes, you do,” Grey said dryly. “You see exactly why I must know the contents of these letters”—he nodded at the folder—“as soon as possible.”

Arthur nodded, compressing his lips, and settled himself, taking the letters into his hands. Once determined to be serious, there was no nonsense about him.

“Most of what I could decode seems to deal with matters of shipping,” he said. “Contacts in the West Indies, cargoes to be delivered—simple smuggling, though on a fairly large scale. One reference to a banker in Edinburgh; I couldn’t make out his connection exactly. But three of the letters mentioned the same name en clair—you will have seen that, of course.”

Grey didn’t bother denying it.

“Someone in France wants very much to find a man named Claudel Fraser,” Arthur said, and raised one brow. “Any idea who that is?”

“No,” Grey said, though he certainly had the glimmer of an idea. “Any idea who it is that wants to find him—or why?”

Norrington shook his head.

“No idea why,” he said frankly. “As to who, though—I think it may be a French nobleman.” He opened the folder again and, from the little bag attached to it, carefully removed two wax seals, one cracked almost in half, the other largely intact. Both showed a martlet against a rising sun.

“Haven’t found anyone yet who recognized it,” Norrington said, poking one of the seals gently with a podgy forefinger. “Do you, by chance?”

“No,” Grey said, his throat gone suddenly dry. “But you might look into one Baron Amandine. Wainwright mentioned that name to me as—a personal connexion of his.”

“Amandine?” Norrington looked puzzled. “Never heard of him.”

“Neither has anyone else.” Grey sighed and rose to his feet. “I begin to wonder whether he exists.”

He was still wondering, as he made his way to Hal’s house. The Baron Amandine might or might not exist; if he did, he might be only a front, disguising the interest of someone much more prominent. If he didn’t … matters became simultaneously more confusing and simpler of approach; with no way of knowing who was behind the matter, Percy Wainwright was the only possible avenue of approach.

None of Norrington’s letters had mentioned the Northwest Territory nor held any hint of the proposition Percy had put before him. That was not surprising, though; it would have been extremely dangerous to put such information on paper, though he had certainly known spies do such things before. If Amandine did exist, and was directly involved, apparently he was both sensible and cautious.

Well, Hal would have to be told about Percy, in any case. Perhaps he would know something regarding Amandine, or could find out; Hal had a number of friends in France.

The thought of what Hal must be told reminded him abruptly of William’s letter, which he had nearly forgotten in the intrigues of the morning. He breathed strongly through his nose at the thought. No. He wasn’t mentioning that to his brother until he’d had a chance to speak to Dottie, alone. Perhaps he could contrive a private word with her, arrange to meet later.

Dottie proved not to be at home, though, when Grey arrived at Argus House.

“She’s at one of Miss Brierley’s musical afternoons,” his sister-in-law Minnie informed him, when he inquired politely how his niece and goddaughter did. “She’s very sociable these days. She’ll be sorry to have missed you, though.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, beaming. “It’s good to see you again, John.”

“And you, Minnie,” he said, meaning it. “Is Hal at home?”

She rolled her eyes expressively at the ceiling.

“He’s been at home for a week, with the gout. Another week, and I shall put poison in his soup.”

“Ah.” That reinforced his decision not to speak to Hal of William’s letter. Hal in good spirits was a prospect that daunted hardened soldiers and lifetime politicians; Hal in ill health … Presumably that was why Dottie had had the good sense to absent herself.

Well, it wasn’t as though his news would improve Hal’s mood in any case, he thought. He pushed open the door to Hal’s study with due caution, though; his brother had been known to throw things when peevish—and nothing peeved him more than bodily indisposition.

As it was, Hal was asleep, slumped in his chair before the fire, his bandaged foot on a stool. The smell of some strong and acrid medicine floated in the air, overlying the scents of burning wood, melted tallow, and stale bread. A congealed plate of soup sat upon a tray at Hal’s side, untasted. Perhaps Minnie had made her threat explicit, Grey thought with a smile. Aside from himself and their mother, Minnie was likely the only other person in the world who was never afraid of Hal.

He sat down quietly, wondering whether to wake his brother. Hal looked ill and tired, much thinner than usual—and Hal was normally lean to start with. He could not look less than elegant, even clad in breeches and a worn linen shirt, bare-legged, and with a ratty shawl draped about his shoulders, but the lines of a life spent fighting were eloquent in his face.

Grey’s heart contracted with a sudden, unexpected tenderness, and he wondered whether, after all, he should trouble Hal with his news. But he couldn’t risk Hal being confronted unexpectedly with the tidings of Percy’s untimely resurrection; he would have to be warned.

Before he could make up his mind whether to go away and come back, though, Hal’s eyes opened abruptly. They were clear and alert, the same light blue as Grey’s own, with no sign of drowsiness or distraction.

“You’re back,” Hal said, and smiled with great affection. “Pour me a brandy.”

“Minnie says you have the gout,” Grey said, with a glance at Hal’s foot. “Don’t the quacks say you ought not to take strong drink, with the gout?” Nonetheless, he rose to his feet.

“They do,” Hal said, pulling himself upright in his chair and grimacing as the movement jarred his foot. “But from the look of you, you’re about to tell me something that means I’ll need it. Best bring the decanter.”

It was several hours before he left Argus House—declining Minnie’s invitation to stay for supper—and the weather had deterioriated substantially. There was autumn chill in the air; a gusty wind was getting up, and he could taste salt in the air—the traces of sea fog drifting toward shore. It would be a good night to stay indoors.

Minnie had apologized for not being able to offer her coach, as Dottie had gone off to her afternoon salon in it. He had assured her that walking suited him, assisting him to think. It did, but the whoosh of wind flapping the skirts of his coat and threatening to carry away his hat was a distraction, and he was beginning to regret the coach, when he suddenly saw the equipage itself, waiting in the drive of one of the big houses near the Alexandra Gate, the horses blanketed against the wind.

He turned in at the gate and, hearing a cry of “Uncle John!” looked toward the house and was in time to see his niece, Dottie, bearing down on him like a ship under full sail—literally. She wore a plum silk mantua and a rose-pink cloak and, with the wind behind her, billowed alarmingly. In fact, she scudded toward him with such velocity that he was obliged to catch her in his arms in order to halt her forward progress.

“Are you a virgin?” he demanded without preamble.

Her eyes widened, and without the least hesitation, she wrested one arm free and slapped his cheek.

“What?” she said.

“My apologies. That was a trifle abrupt, wasn’t it?” He glanced at her waiting coach—and the driver, looking rigidly ahead—and, calling to the driver to wait, took her by the arm and turned her in the direction of the park.

“Where are we going?”

“Just for a little walk. I have a few questions to ask you, and they aren’t the sort that I wish to have overheard—nor do you, I assure you.”

Her eyes widened still further, but she didn’t argue; merely clapped a hand to her saucy little hat and came with him, her skirts foaming in the wind.

Weather and passersby prevented his asking any of the questions he had in mind until after they had made their way well into the park and found themselves in a more or less deserted path that led through a small topiary garden, where evergreen bushes and trees had been clipped into fanciful shapes.

The wind had dropped momentarily, though the sky was darkening. Dottie pulled to a halt in the shelter of a topiary lion and said, “Uncle John. What is this taradiddle about?”

Dottie had her mother’s autumn-leaf coloring, with hair the color of ripened wheat and cheeks with the perpetual faint flush of rose hips. But where Minnie’s face was pretty and gently appealing, Dottie’s was underlain by Hal’s fine bones and embroidered with his dark lashes; her beauty had a dangerous edge to it.

The edge was uppermost in the look she turned on her uncle, and he thought that, in fact, if Willie was enamored of her, it was perhaps not surprising. If he was.

“I had a letter from William, intimating that he had—if not actually forced his attentions upon you—behaved in a manner unbecoming a gentleman. Is it true?”

Her mouth fell open in undissimulated horror.

“He told you what?”

Well, that relieved his mind of one burden. She was likely still a virgin, and he needn’t have William shipped off to China to avoid her brothers.

“It was, as I say, an intimation. He didn’t provide me with details. Come, let us walk before we freeze.” He took her by the arm and guided her up one of the paths that led to a small oratory. Here they took shelter in the vestibule, overlooked only by a stained-glass window of St. Barbara, carrying her severed breasts on a platter. Grey affected to study this elevating image, allowing Dottie a moment to settle her wind-flustered garments—and decide what she was going to tell him.

“Well,” she began, turning to him with her chin raised, “it’s true that we—well, that I let him kiss me.”

“Oh? Where? I mean”—he added hastily, seeing the momentary shock in her eye—and that was interesting, for would a completely inexperienced young lady realize that it was possible to be kissed elsewhere than on lips or hand?—“in what geographical location?”

The flush in her cheeks deepened, for she realized as well as he what she had just given away, but she met his eye directly.

“In Lady Windermere’s garden. We’d both come to her musicale, and the supper wasn’t ready, so William invited me to walk outside with him for a bit, and—I did. It was such a beautiful evening,” she added ingenuously.

“Yes, he noted that, as well. I had not previously realized the intoxicant properties of good weather.”

She gave him a slight glare.

“Well, anyway, we’re in love! Did he say that, at least?”

“Yes, he did,” Grey replied. “He began with a statement to that effect, in fact, before going on to make his scandalous confessions regarding your virtue.”

Her eyes widened.

“He—what, exactly, did he say?” she demanded.

“Enough to persuade me—he hoped—to go at once to your father and put before him the desirability of William’s suit for your hand.”

“Oh.” She drew a deep breath at that, as though relieved, and looked away for a moment. “Well. Are you going to, then?” she asked, swiveling big blue eyes back in his direction. “Or have you already?” she added, with an air of hopefulness.

“No, I have said nothing to your father regarding William’s letter. For one thing, I thought I had best speak to you first, and see whether you were in such agreement with William’s sentiments as he appears to think.”

She blinked, then gave him one of her radiant smiles.

“That was very considerate of you, Uncle John. Many men wouldn’t bother with the woman’s opinion of the situation—but you’ve always been so thoughtful. Mother cannot say enough good things about your kindness.”

“Don’t over-egg the pudding, Dottie,” he said tolerantly. “So you say that you are willing to marry William?”

“Willing?” she cried. “Why, I desire it more than anything!”

He gave her a long, level look, and while she continued to meet his eye, the blood rose precipitously in her throat and cheeks.

“Oh, yes?” he said, allowing all the skepticism he felt to show in his voice. “Why?”

She blinked twice, very fast.

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated patiently. “What is there in William’s character—or appearance, I suppose,” he added fairly, for young women had no great reputation as judges of character, “that so attracts you as to desire marriage to him? And hasty marriage at that.”

He could just about see one or both of them developing an attraction—but what was the hurry? Even if William feared Hal’s deciding to allow Viscount Maxwell’s suit, Dottie herself could not possibly be under the illusion that her doting father would force her to marry anyone she did not want to.

“Well, we are in love, of course!” she said, though with a rather uncertain note in her voice for such a theoretically fervent declaration. “As for his—his character … why, Uncle, you are his own father; surely you cannot be in ignorance of his … his … intelligence!” She came up with the word triumphantly. “His kindness, his good humor …” she was picking up speed now, “… his gentleness …”

Now it was Lord John’s turn to blink. William was undoubtedly intelligent, good-humored, and reasonably kind, but “gentle” was not the word that sprang immediately to mind with regard to him. On the other hand, the hole in the paneling of his mother’s dining room, through which William had inadvertently thrown a companion during a tea party, had still not been repaired, and this image was fresh in Grey’s mind. Probably Willie behaved more circumspectly in Dottie’s company, but still …

“He is the very model of a gentleman!” she declaimed with enthusiasm, having now got the bit well between her teeth. “And his appearance—well, of course he is admired by every woman I know! So tall, so imposing a figure …”

He noticed, with an air of clinical detachment, that while she touched on several of William’s notable characteristics, she did not at any point mention his eyes. Aside from his height—which could scarcely escape notice—his eyes were probably his most striking feature, being a deep and brilliant blue, and unusually shaped, with a catlike slant. They were, in fact, Jamie Fraser’s eyes, and they gave John a faint, passing clench of the heart whenever Willie looked at him with a certain expression.

Willie knew the effect his eyes had on young women excellently well—and had no hesitation in making the most of it. Had he been gazing longingly into Dottie’s own eyes, she would have been transfixed, whether she loved him or not. And that touching account of rapture in the garden … Following a musicale, or during a ball, and at Lady Belvedere’s or at Lady Windermere’s …

He had been so occupied by his own thoughts that he did not realize for a moment that she had stopped talking.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with great courtesy. “And I thank you for the encomia regarding William’s character, which cannot fail to warm a father’s heart. Still—what is the urgency in arranging a marriage? William will be sent home in a year or two, surely.”

“He might be killed!” she said, and there was in her voice a sudden note of real fear, so real that his attention sharpened. She swallowed visibly, a hand going to her throat.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “If he were killed, and we’d never … never had a chance to …” She looked up at him, her eyes brilliant with emotion, and put her hand pleadingly on his arm.

“I have to,” she said. “Really, Uncle John. I must, and I cannot wait. I want to go to America and be married.”

His mouth fell open. Wanting to be married was one thing, but this …!

“You cannot possibly be serious,” he said. “You cannot think that your parents—your father, in particular—would ever countenance such a thing.”

“He would,” she countered. “If you put the matter to him properly. He values your opinion more than anyone’s,” she went on persuasively, squeezing a little. “And you, of all people, must understand the horror I feel at the thought that something might … happen to William before I see him again.”

Indeed, he thought, the only thing weighing in her favor was the feeling of desolation that the mention of William’s possible death caused in his own heart. Yes, he could be killed. Any man might be, in time of war, and most particularly a soldier. That was one of the risks you took—and he could not in conscience have prevented William taking it, even though the mere thought of William blown to pieces by cannon fire or shot through the head or dying in agony of the flux …

He swallowed, dry-mouthed, and with some effort shoved those pusillanimous images firmly back into the locked mental closet in which he normally kept them confined.

He took a long breath.

“Dorothea,” he said firmly. “I will discover what you’re up to.”

She looked at him for a long, thoughtful moment, as though estimating the chances. The corner of her mouth rose insensibly as her eyes narrowed, and he saw the response on her face, as clearly as if she’d said it aloud.

No. I don’t think so.

The expression was no more than a flicker, though, and her face resumed its air of indignation mingled with pleading.

“Uncle John! How dare you accuse me and William—your own son!—of, of … what are you accusing us of?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Well, then! Will you speak to Papa for us? For me? Please? Today?”

Dottie was a born flirt; as she spoke, she leaned toward him, so that he could smell the fragrance of violets in her hair, and twined her fingers charmingly in the lapels of his coat.

“I can’t,” he said, striving to extricate himself. “Not just now. I’ve already given him one bad shock today; another might finish him off.”

“Tomorrow, then,” she coaxed.

“Dottie.” He took her hands in his, and was rather touched to find them cold and trembling. She did mean it—or mean something, at least.

“Dottie,” he repeated, more gently. “Even if your father were disposed to send you to America to be married—and I cannot think that anything less exigent than your being with child would compel it—there is no possibility of sailing before April. There is therefore no need to harry Hal into an early grave by telling him any of this, at least not until he has recovered from his current indisposition.”

She wasn’t pleased, but was obliged to admit the force of his reasoning.

“Besides,” he added, letting go of her hands, “campaigning ceases in winter; you know that. The fighting will stop soon, and William will be relatively safe. You need have no fears for him.” Other than accident, flux, ague, blood poisoning, griping belly, tavern brawls, and ten or fifteen other life-threatening possibilities, he added privately to himself.

“But—” she began, but stopped, and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. But … you will speak to Papa soon, won’t you, Uncle John?”

He sighed in turn, but smiled at her nonetheless.

“I will, if that is what you truly desire.” A gust of wind hit the oratory and the stained-glass image of St. Barbara shivered in its leaded frame. A rush of sudden rain rattled across the roof slates, and he drew his cloak around him.

“Stay here,” he advised his niece. “I’ll fetch the coach round to the road.”

As he made his way against the wind, one hand on his hat to prevent it taking flight, he recalled with some unease his own words to her: I cannot think that anything less exigent than your being with child would compel it.

She wouldn’t. Would she? No, he assured himself. Become pregnant by someone in order to convince her father to allow her to marry someone else? Fat chance; Hal would have her married to the guilty party before she could say “cat.” Unless, of course, she chose someone impossible to do the deed: a married man, say, or—But this was nonsense! What would William say, were she to arrive in America, pregnant by another man?

No. Not even Brianna Fraser MacKenzie—the most hair-raisingly pragmatic woman he had ever known—would have done something like that. He smiled a little to himself at thought of the formidable Mrs. MacKenzie, recalling her attempt at blackmailing him into marriage—while pregnant by someone who was definitely not him. He’d always wondered if the child was in fact her husband’s. Perhaps she would. But not Dottie.

Surely not.