“Good day to you, sir,” he said. Campbell, who had been saying something to one of the aides, looked up absently, then halted abruptly, stiffening.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he said, broad face darkening like a seared chop.
“My business, sir, is none of your concern,” William said politely, and made to pass.
“Coward,” Campbell said contemptuously behind him. “Coward and whoremonger. Get out of my sight before I have you arrested.”
William’s logical mind was telling him that it was Campbell’s relations with Uncle Hal that lay behind this insult, and he ought not to take it personally. He must walk straight on as though he hadn’t heard.
He turned, gravel grinding under his heel, and only the fact that the expression on his face made Campbell go white and leap backward allowed John Cinnamon time to take three huge strides and grab William’s arms from behind.
“Amène-toi, imbécile!” he hissed in William’s ear. “Vite!” Cinnamon outweighed William by forty pounds, and he got his way—though in fact, William didn’t fight him. He didn’t turn round, though, but backed—under Cinnamon’s compulsion—slowly toward the gate, burning eyes fixed on Campbell’s mottled countenance.
“What’s wrong with you, gonze?” Cinnamon inquired, once they were safely out the gate and out of sight of the clapboard mansion. The simple curiosity in his voice calmed William a little, and he wiped a hand hard down his face before replying.
“Sorry,” he said, and drew breath. “That—he—that man is responsible for the death of a—a young lady. A young lady I knew.”
“Merde,” Cinnamon said, turning to glare back at the house. “Jane?”
“Wh—how—where did you get that name?” William demanded. The lead in his belly had caught fire and melted, leaving a seared hollow behind. He could still see her hands, small and delicate and white, as he’d laid them on her breast—crossed, the torn wrists neatly bound in black.
“You say it in your sleep sometimes,” Cinnamon said with an apologetic shrug. He hesitated, but his own urge was strong and he couldn’t keep from asking, “So?”
“Yes.” William swallowed and repeated more firmly, “Yes. He’s here. Number Twelve Oglethorpe Street. Come on, then.”
THE HOUSE WAS modest but neat, a white-painted clapboard with a blue door, standing in a street of similarly tidy homes, with a small church of red sandstone at the end of the street. Rain-shattered leaves had fallen from a tree in the front garden and lay in damp yellow drifts upon a brick walk. William heard Cinnamon draw in his breath as they came to the gate, and saw him glance to and fro as they went up to the door, covertly taking note of every detail.
William hammered on the door without hesitation, ignoring the brass knocker in the shape of a dog’s head. There was a moment of silence, and then the sound of a baby crying within the house. The two young men stared at each other.
“It must be his lordship’s cook’s child,” William said, with assumed nonchalance. “Or the maid. Doubtless the woman will—”
The door swung open, revealing a frowning Lord John, bareheaded and in his shirtsleeves, clutching a small, howling child to his bosom.
“You woke the baby, damn your eyes,” he said. “Oh. Hallo, Willie. Come in, then, don’t stand there letting in drafts; the little fiend is teething, and catching a cold on top of that won’t improve his temper to any noticeable extent. Who’s your friend? Your servant, sir,” he added, putting a hand over the child’s mouth and nodding to Cinnamon with a fair assumption of hospitality.
“John Cinnamon,” both young men said automatically, speaking together, then stopped, equally flustered. William recovered first.
“Yours?” he inquired politely, with a nod at the child, who had momentarily stopped howling and was gnawing ferociously on Lord John’s knuckle.
“Surely you jest, William,” his father replied, stepping back and jerking his head in invitation. “Allow me to make you acquainted with your second cousin, Trevor Wattiswade Grey. I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Cinnamon—will you take a drop of beer? Or something stronger?”
“I—” Panicked, Cinnamon looked to William for direction.
“We may require something a bit stronger, sir, if you have it.” William reached for the baby, whom he received gingerly from Lord John’s wet, relieved grasp. His father wiped his hand on his breeches and extended it to Cinnamon.