Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

by Diana Gabaldon

  I first met with Mr. Adams at a party at Lord Joffrey's house, upon the 8th of April last year. Mr. and Mrs. T were also there, and Mrs. T spent some time in conversation with me alone. Upon her retiring for a moment, Adams came up to me and said without preamble that she was a handsome woman, but no doubt expensive. If I cared to hear of a way of making some money, I should call upon him at his home upon the Tuesday next.

  My curiosity was roused, and so I did. Taking me into his private library, he shocked me by producing a sheaf of notes, signed by me in promise of payment of various gambling debts, some very large. He produced also certain correspondence, written to me by Mrs. T, and of a nature which made the relations between us more than clear. These would have ruined both of us, if made public.

  I perceiving that Mr. Adams had me in an invidious position, I inquired what use he might have in mind to make of me.

  The note then detailed Adams's enrollment of Captain Bates in a scheme involving the abstraction and transfer of a number of documents. The names of Ffoulkes, Otway, and Jeffords were mentioned; others were involved, Bates believed, but he did not know their names. Ffoulkes had been drawn into the conspiracy by the offer of money, Bates believed; Otway and Jeffords by the threat of exposure.

  Bates had stolen various documents from several offices in Whitehall; he was well known there and his presence passed without remark. He had given these documents to Adams, who, he presumed, was collecting information from his other cat's-paws, as well.

  The attack upon Adams was a sham; the plan had been for Bates to meet him privately by the river near Lambeth, where Adams would pass over a small chest containing all the documents.

  A boat would be waiting. Bates would create the signs of a struggle, wound Adams slightly for the sake of conviction, and then go aboard the boat, which would carry him to France, where he would deliver these documents to Mrs. Ffoulkes's brother. The chest would contain not only the official documents but also the evidence of Bates's gambling debts, Mrs. Tomlinson's letters, and a sum of money. Once safely in France, he might destroy the former, send for Mrs. Tomlinson, and live in peace.

  Adams had told me that Otway and Jeffords were to burgle his house for the look of the thing, then make themselves scarce, but that he would keep hold of the documents himself until they were given me. I learned later from Otway that Adams had men in hiding, who sprang upon him and Jeffords the moment they had entered the house. Meanwhile, he proceeded to our rendezvous, where other men of his employ were already waiting.

  These emerged as soon as I had done my part of wounding Mr. Adams slightly, scratching his arm with a knife as agreed upon, and seized me.

  I do not know what became of the documents themselves. Adams had with him a small chest, but this was knocked over in the struggle and proved to be empty. You will know what followed.

  The statement ended abruptly.

  This was signed by Captain Michael Bates, his signature witnessed by the governor of Newgate, and--a final touch of Bates's sardonic humor--one Ezekial Poundstone, hangman.

  Grey folded the sheets carefully together. It was a brief, clear statement, but possessed of a sufficiency of detail--names, dates, places--and the nature of some of the documents Bates had removed at Adams's behest.

  He stood looking into the pond for some time, quite unaware of where he was or what he was looking at.

  Plainly, Adams's plan had been to have Bates, Otway, and Jeffords blamed for the theft. He could not have expected what had actually happened--that the theft would be hushed up, the conspirators condemned for unnatural vice rather than theft and treason--these being, of course, quite natural vices.

  What had been Ffoulkes's part in the matter? Presumably, to conduct the negotiations with France, using his wife's relatives as the go-between with Louis's spymasters. But when had Ffoulkes shot himself? It seemed so long ago, and Grey's memory of anything further back than yesterday was still undependable. He did recall one thing, though, and going hastily into the house entered the library and rummaged through the drawer into which he was inclined to decant miscellaneous papers, until he emerged with a smeared and worn-edged broadsheet, the faint smell of coffee still in its creases.

  He hastily unfolded Bates's statement to check a date. No, Ffoulkes had shot himself a few days before the arrest of Bates, Otway, and Jeffords.

  The theft would have been discovered very shortly; Adams could not delay in executing the part of his crime designed to shield himself from blame. But what of the other part? The delivery of the stolen material to France? With Ffoulkes dead, that pathway might be closed.

  He folded the letter again, and thrust it into his pocket. These were all questions that could wait. The important thing was that he now had a tool that might be used to open up Bernard Adams like a keg of salt herring. Someone in authority would need to see this letter--but not just yet.

  "Nordman!" he called, going to the hallway. "Call the coach, please--I'm going out."

  Bernard Adams's house was not grand, but it was elegant; an Inigo Jones jewel, set in its own small private wood. Grey was not of a mind to admire the scenery, but did observe a small stone building, a little way from the house, whose ornaments showed it clearly to have been originally a Catholic chapel. Adams was not Catholic, though--could not have held such positions in the government as he had, if he were.

  Not openly Catholic.

  "An Irish Jacobite," Grey murmured to himself, appalled. "Jesus." Positions in the government. Adams's rise to power had begun with his appointment as secretary to Robert Walpole--and Grey saw, as clearly as though the scene was taking place before him on the drive, the picture of the tall, ailing prime minister, leaning heavily on his secretary--his Irish secretary--coming down the path to visit the widow of the late Duke of Pardloe.

  Clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth creaked, he bounded up the steps and pounded on the door.

  "Sir?" The butler was an Irishman; so much was obvious from the one word.

  "Your master. I wish to see him."

  "Ah. I'm sorry, sir, the master's gone out."

  Grey seized the man by one shoulder and thrust him backward, stepping into the house.

  "Sir!"

  "Where is he?"

  The butler glanced wildly round for assistance, and looked as though he was about to shout for help.

  "Tell me where he is, and I'll go. Otherwise...I shall be obliged to look for him." Grey had worn his sword; he put a hand on the hilt.

  The butler gasped.

  "He--he has gone to meet the Duchess of Pardloe."

  "He--what?" Grey shook his head, convinced that he was hearing things, but the man repeated it, gaining confidence, as Grey seemed not about to run him through.

  "The Duchess of Pardloe, sir. She sent a note this morning--I was there when the master opened it, and, ah...happened to see."

  Grey nodded, narrowly keeping a grip on himself.

  "Did you happen to see where the meeting was? And when?"

  "In the Edgeware Road, a house called 'Morning Glory,' four o'clock," the butler blurted.

  Without a word, Grey let go of his sword and left. He felt dazed and off balance, as though someone had suddenly pulled a carpet out from under him.

  It couldn't be--but it couldn't not be. No one but his mother would use that title. And to use it to Adams was a direct challenge. It must be her. But how had she got back to London, and what in God's name did she think she was doing?

  Gripped by fear, he ran down the drive toward the street where he had left his carriage waiting. Morning Glory. He knew the house; it was a small, elegant house belonging to the Walpole family. What...?

  "Edgeware Road!" he shouted to the coachman, ducking inside. "And hurry!"

  Morning Glory looked deserted. The shutters were closed, the fountain in the front court dry, the court itself unswept, carpeted with dead leaves. It had the look of a house whose family had gone away to the country, leaving the furniture under sheets, the servant
s paid off.

  Neither was there any sign of a coach, a horse, or any living person. Grey mounted the stoop softly, and stood for a moment, listening. The place was still, save the cawing of rooks in the bare-limbed trees in the garden.

  He took hold of the doorknob; it turned in his hand. Slowly letting out the breath he had been holding, he opened the door and stepped warily inside.

  The furniture was under sheets, he saw. He paused, listening. No voices. No sound, save his own breathing. He knew the house, had been here now and then, at musicales--the present Earl of Orford's wife sang, or thought she could.

  The doors off the foyer stood open--all but one. That one led, he thought, to the library. He put a hand on his sword hilt, but decided against drawing it. Adams was a slight man, and twenty years Grey's senior; he wouldn't need it.

  He set his hand on the doorknob; it was white china, painted with roses, and a pang went through him at the cool slick touch of it on his hand, but there was no time now to think of such things. He eased the door gently open--and came face to face with the barrel of a pistol, pointed directly at him.

  He flung himself to the side, seizing a chair, which he narrowly stopped himself from throwing at the person holding the gun.

  "Jesus!" he said. He stood frozen for an instant, then, quivering in every limb, set the chair slowly down and collapsed onto it.

  "What the devil are you doing here?" his mother demanded, lowering the pistol.

  "I might ask you the same thing, madam." His heart was pounding in his chest, sending small jolts of pain down his left arm with every beat, and he had broken out in a cold sweat.

  "It is a private affair," she said fiercely. "Will you bloody leave?"

  He paid no attention to her unaccustomed language.

  "I will not. What were you intending? To shoot Mr. Adams on sight? Is that thing loaded?"

  "Of course it is loaded," she said in exasperation, "and if I'd meant to shoot him on sight, you'd be dead at the moment. Will you go away!"

  "No," he said briefly, and rising, reached for the gun. "Give me that."

  She took two steps back, holding the gun--which was not only loaded and primed, but cocked, he saw--protectively against her breast.

  "John, I wish you to leave," she said, as calmly as she could, though he saw the pulse beat fast in the hollow of her throat, and the slight shaking of her hands. "You must go, and now. I will tell you everything, I swear it. But not now."

  "He isn't coming." That much had dawned on him. It was nearly half past four--he had heard the bells strike, just before his arrival. If Adams had meant to come, he would be here. The fact that he was not...

  She stared at him, uncomprehending.

  "Adams," he repeated. "It is Bernard Adams who killed Father?"

  Her face drained of all color, and she sat down, quite suddenly, on a sofa. Her eyes closed, as though she could not keep them open.

  "What have you done, John?" she whispered. "What do you know?"

  He came and sat down beside her, removing the pistol from her hand, gone limp and unresisting.

  "I know that Father was murdered," he said gently. "I've known since the morning you found him. I was there, hiding in the conservatory."

  Her eyes sprang open in shock, the same light blue as his own. He laid his free hand over hers, squeezing gently.

  "When did you come back?" he asked. "Does Sir George know?"

  She shook her head blindly. "I--three days ago. I told him I wanted to be in London for the marriage of a friend. He will come back himself in a month; he made no objection."

  "He will probably have objections, should he come back to find you dead or arrested."

  He breathed, feeling his heart begin to slow.

  "You should have told us," he said. "Hal and me."

  "No." She shook her head, closing her eyes again. "No! He would never have let it rest. You know what Hal is like."

  "Yes, I do," Grey said, smiling despite himself. "He's just like you, Mother. And me."

  Trembling, she bent her head, and buried her face in her hands. A constant fine tremor was running through her, like the shifting of sand beneath one's feet as the tide goes out, terra firma melting away.

  "I have lost a husband," she said softly, to her feet. "I would not lose my sons." Lifting her head, she gave him a quick, desperate glance.

  "Do you think I know nothing about men? About you and your brother in particular? Or about the general?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.

  "Do you mean to tell me that I might have told you this--any of you--and expected you not to go straight out in pursuit of the matter, regardless of the threat?"

  "Well, of course not." He stared at her in incomprehension. "What else could we do?"

  She drew a trembling hand down her face, and turned to the wall, where an ornamental looking glass hung.

  "Would it be better if I'd had daughters?" she asked the mirror, in apparent earnestness.

  "No," she answered herself. "They'd only marry men, and there you are."

  She closed her eyes for a moment, plainly collecting herself, then opened them and turned to him, composed.

  "If I'd known who it was," she said firmly, "I would have told Hal. At least," she amended, "I would have told him once I'd decided how best to deal with the matter. But I didn't know. And for him--or later, you--to go charging into danger, with no clear notion where the danger lay, nor how widespread the threat might be? No. No, I wasn't having that."

  "You may have a point," he admitted reluctantly, and she gave a small snort.

  "But you did find out." It occurred to him, with a sense of awe, that she had never been reconciled to the duke's death--that she had been waiting, patiently watching, all this time, for an opportunity to discover and destroy the man who had killed him. "How did you discover Mr. Adams's name?"

  "I blackmailed Gilbert Rigby."

  Grey felt his mouth fall open, and swiftly closed it.

  "What? How?"

  The ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

  "Captain Rigby--I suppose I must call him 'Dr. Rigby' now--gambles. He always did, and I kept an eye upon him. I knew he had run through most of his family's fortune, when he sold the town house his father left him, last year. He's using some of the funds donated for the Foundling Hospital now. And so I asked Harry Quarry to make inquiries, very quietly--and to buy up his debts." She reached toward a leather case that lay on the table beside the sofa, and flipped open the cover, to show a sheaf of papers. "I showed him them, and told him I would expose him if he did not tell me who had killed Gerard."

  What had he told Dr. Longstreet? Had she known which man it was, she would have killed him, I assure you.

  Grey felt shock, but no particular surprise.

  "And he did."

  "I think it was a relief to him," she said, sounding faintly surprised. "Gilbert is not a bad man, you know--only weak. He could not bring himself to tell the truth at the time; that would have cost him everything. But he was sincerely appalled at what had happened--he said that he did not know for certain that Bernard Adams had killed Gerry, and had managed to keep his conscience dormant all this time by telling himself that Gerry must have committed self-murder. But faced with the truth--and with those--" she cast a sardonic eye toward the leather case, "he admitted it. He still has something to be lost, after all."

  "And you don't?" Grey asked, piqued at the thought of her planning to face Adams by herself.

  She eyed him, one brow raised.

  "A great deal to lose," she said evenly. "But I am a gambler, too--and I have a great deal of patience."

  He picked the pistol up, and carefully uncocked it.

  "Did you calculate the odds of being caught?" he asked. "Even if you could prove that Adams killed Father--and Gilbert Rigby's admission is far from proof--you'd very likely be hanged for murder. And what would Sir George think of that?"

>   She looked surprised.

  "What? What do you think I am?"

  "You don't want me to answer that, Mother. What do you mean?"

  "I mean I didn't intend to kill him," she said indignantly. "What good would that do? Beyond the minor gratification of revenge, what would I want with his miserable little life?" she added bitterly.

  "No. I meant to make him confess the crime"--she nodded toward the table, and Grey saw that besides the leather case containing Rigby's debts, there was a portable writing desk, as well--"and then let him go. He could leave the country if he liked; he would be exposed, he would lose everything that mattered to him--and I could give Gerry back his honor."

  Her voice trembled on the last word, and Grey brought her hand on impulse to his lips.

  "I'll see it done," he whispered. "I swear it."

  Tears were running down her face, but she took a deep breath and held her voice steady.

  "Where is he? Adams?"

  "Running, I think." He told her what Adams's butler had said. "As he hasn't come, he probably supposes that you do have proof. And there's this--" He fumbled in his pocket, turning out the usual assortment of trifles, among which was Captain Bates's postmortem denunciation.

  She read it in silence, then turned back to the first page and read it again.

  "So he's gone," she said flatly, laying the papers on her knee. "Taken the money and fled to France. I frightened him, and he's gone."

  "He hasn't left the country yet," Grey said, trying to sound encouraging. "And even if he should escape--plainly he has lost his position, his reputation. And you did say you don't want his life."

  "I don't," she said, between clenched teeth. "But this"--she smacked the papers with the back of her hand, sending them to the floor--"is useless to me. I don't care that the world knows Bernard Adams for a criminal and traitor--I want him to be known as my husband's murderer; I want your father's honor back!"

  Grey bent to pick up the papers from the floor, and rising, tucked them back into his pocket.

  "All right," he said, and took a deep breath. "I'll find him."

  He hesitated for a moment, looking at his mother. She sat upright, straight as a musket barrel--but she looked very small, and suddenly her age showed in her face.

  "Will I see you...home?" he asked, not sure where her home might be. The house in Jermyn Street had been closed; should he take her to Minnie's house? His heart sank at thought of the hubbub that would cause.