Read Online Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon - Free Book Online Page B

cold as yesterday’s turbot.”
    Tom Byrd squinted over the red coat he was mending by the imperfect light from a leaded-glass window. He didn’t look up from his work, but a small glow of gratification appeared to spread itself across his snub features.
    “Well, I could see as how you had the matter well in hand, me lord,” he said tactfully, “but there was a dreadful lot of them Irish, to say nothin’ of the Frenchies.”
    “Frenchies?” Grey put a fist to his mouth to stifle a rising eructation. “What, you thought Miss Stokes’s friends were French? Why?”
    Byrd looked up, surprised.
    “Why, they was speakin’ French to each other—at least a couple of them. Two black-browed coves, curly-haired, what looked as if they was related to that Miss Stokes.”
    Grey was surprised in turn, and furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to recall any remarks that might have been made in French during the recent contretemps, but failing. He had marked out the two swarthy persons described by Tom, who had squared up behind their—sister, cousin? for surely Tom was right; there was an undeniable resemblance—in menacing fashion, but they had looked more like—
    “Oh,” he said, struck by a thought. “Did it sound perhaps a bit like this?” He recited a brief verse from Homer, doing his best to infuse it with a crude English accent.
    Tom’s face lighted and he nodded vigorously, the end of the thread in his mouth.
    “I did wonder where she’d got Iphigenia,” Grey said, smiling. “Shouldn’t think her father was a scholar of the classics, after all. It’s Greek, Tom,” he clarified, seeing his young valet frown in incomprehension. “Likely Miss Stokes and her brothers—if that’s what they are—have a Greek mother or grandmother, for I’m sure Stokes is home-grown enough.”
    “Oh, Greek,” Tom said uncertainly, obviously unclear on the distinctions between this and any other form of French. “To be sure, me lord.” He delicately removed a bit of thread stuck to his lip, and shook out the folds of the coat. “Here, me lord; I won’t say as it’s good as new, but you can at least be wearing it without the lining peepin’ out.”
    Grey nodded in thanks, and pushed a full mug of beer in Tom’s direction. He shrugged himself carefully into the mended coat, inspecting the torn seam. It was scarcely tailor’s work, but the repair looked stout enough.
    He wondered whether Iphigenia Stokes might repay closer inspection; if she did have family ties to France, it would suggest both a motive for O’Connell’s treachery—if he had been a traitor—and an avenue by which he might have disposed of the Calais information. But Greek . . . that argued for Stokes Père having been a sailor, perhaps. Likely merchant seaman rather than naval, if he’d brought home a foreign wife.
    Yes, he rather thought the Stokes family would bear looking into. Seafaring ran in families, and while his observations had necessarily been cursory under the circumstances, he thought that one or two of the men in the Stokes party had looked like sailors; one had had a gold ring in his ear, he was sure. And sailors would be well-placed for smuggling information out of Britain, though in that case—
    “Me lord?”
    “Yes, Tom?” He frowned slightly at the interruption to his thoughts, but answered courteously.
    “It’s only I was thinking . . . seeing the dead cove, I mean—”
    “Sergeant O’Connell, you mean?” Grey amended, not liking to hear a late comrade in arms referred to carelessly as “the dead cove,” traitor or not.
    “Yes, me lord.” Tom took a deep swallow of his beer, then looked up, meeting Grey’s eyes directly. “Do you think me brother’s dead, too?”
    That brought him up short. He readjusted the coat on his shoulders, thinking what to say. In fact, he did not think Jack Byrd was dead; he agreed with Harry Quarry that the fellow had probably either joined forces with whoever had killed