“Well, the bottle is, though I gather from his letter that it’s called that colloquially because it’s made by a small group of monks who live on the edge of the Black Forest. Its real name is something German …” Discarding the last shreds of wax, he held the bottle up close to his eyes and squinted at the handwritten label. “Blut der M?rtyrer. Blood of Martyrs.”
“How jolly.” Hal held out his cup, and the rich aroma of what was plainly good brandy, if perhaps a little more red than usual—he squinted into his cup—filled his nose. “You’ve kept up your German, then?”
John glanced up from his own cup, raising the other eyebrow.
“I’ve scarcely had time to forget it,” he said. “It’s barely a year since Monmouth and bloody Hessians coming out of every crack in the earth. Though I suppose,” he added casually, glancing away, “that you mean have I seen our friend the graf lately. I haven’t. This came with a brief note saying that Stephan was in Trier, God knows why.”
“Ah.” Hal took a sip of the brandy and closed his eyes, both to enhance the taste and to avoid looking at John.
The brandy began to settle in John’s limbs, the warmth of it softening his thoughts. And, just possibly, his judgment.
“Have you decided to write to Minnie, then?” John’s voice was casual, but the question wasn’t.
“I haven’t.”
“But you—oh. I see, you mean you haven’t quite decided, which is why you were hovering over that sheet of paper like a vulture waiting for something to die.”
Hal opened his eyes and sat up straight, fixing John with the sort of look meant to shut him up like a portmanteau. John, though, picked up the bottle and refilled Hal’s cup.
“I know,” he said simply. “I wouldn’t want to, either. But you think Ben’s really dead, then? Or are you writing to her about Dottie and her husband?”
“No, I bloody don’t.” The cup tilted in Hal’s hand. He saved it with no more than a splash of brandy landing on his waistcoat, which he ignored. “I don’t believe it, and I think Mrs. MacKenzie is likely right about Dottie writing to me. I want to wait until we hear from her before I alarm Minnie.”
John watched this, his own expression deliberately blank.
“It’s only that I’ve never seen you begin any letter, to anyone, with the salutation ‘Dear.’”
“I don’t need to,” Hal said irritably. “Beasley does all that nonsense when it’s official, and if it’s not, whoever I’m writing to already knows who they are and what I think of them, for God’s sake. Pointless affectation. I do sign them,” he added, after a brief pause.
John made a noncommittal hm noise and took a swig of brandy, holding it meditatively in his mouth. The quill had made an inky spot on the table where his brother had dropped it. Seeing it, Hal stuffed the quill back into its jar and rubbed at the mark with the side of his hand.
“It was just—I couldn’t think how to begin, dammit.”
“Don’t blame you.”
Hal glanced at the sheet of paper, with its accusatory salutation.
“So I … wrote … ‘M.’ Just to get started, you know, and then I had to decide whether to go on and write out her name, or leave it at ‘M.’ … So while I was thinking …” His voice died away, and he took a quick, convulsive swallow of the Blood of Martyrs.
John took a somewhat more reserved mouthful, thinking of Stephan von Namtzen, who wrote now and then, always addressing him with German formality as “My Esteemed and Noble Friend,” though the letters themselves tended to be much less formal … Jamie Fraser’s salutations ranged from the casual “Dear John” to the slightly warmer “My dear friend,” and depending upon the state of their relations, “Dear Sir” or a coldly abrupt “My Lord,” in the other direction.
Possibly Hal was right. People he wrote to never were in any doubt about what he thought of them, and the same was true of Jamie. Perhaps it was good of Jamie to give fair warning, so you could open a bottle before reading on …
The brandy was good, dark and very strong. He ought to have watered it, but—but given the rigidity of Hal’s body, thought that it was just as well that he hadn’t.
Dear M. It was true that Hal had always addressed letters to him merely as “J.” Just as well that Mr. Beasley, Hal’s clerk, did tidy up Hal’s correspondence, or the King might well have found himself addressed curtly as “G.” Or would it be “R,” for “Rex”？