Uncle Hal watched him for a bit, not speaking. The resemblance between him and Lord John was considerable, and it gave William an odd feeling to see him—something between comfort and resentment.
“Your father,” Hal said after a few moments. “Or my brother, if you prefer. Do you recall when you saw him last?”
Resentment sparked abruptly into anger.
“Yes, I bloody do. On the morning of the sixteenth. In his house. With my other father.”
Hal made a low humming noise, indicating interest.
“That when you found out, was it?”
“It was.”
“Did John tell you?”
“No, he bloody didn’t!” Blood surged to William’s face, making his head throb with a fierce suddenness that made him dizzy. “If I hadn’t come face-to-face with the—the fellow, I don’t suppose he’d ever have told me!”
He swayed and put out a hand to keep from falling over. Hal grabbed him by the shoulders and eased him back down onto the pillow, where he lay still, teeth clenched, waiting for the pain to ebb. His uncle took the flask from his unresisting hand, sat down again, and took a meditative sip.
“You might have done worse,” his uncle observed after a moment. “In the way of sires, I mean.”
“Oh, really?” William said coldly.
“Granted, he is a Scot,” the duke said judiciously.
“And a traitor.”
“And a traitor,” Hal agreed. “Damned fine swordsman, though. Knows his horses.”
“He was a f**king groom, for God’s sake! Of course he knows horses!” Fresh outrage made William jerk upright again, despite the thunder in his temples. “What am I bloody going to do?!”
His uncle sighed deeply and put the cork back in the flask.
“Advice? You’re too old to be given it and too young to take it.” He glanced aside at William, his face very like Papa’s. Thinner, older, dark brows beginning to beetle, but with that same rueful humor in the corners of his eyes. “Thought of blowing your brains out?”
William blinked, startled.
“No.”
“That’s good. Anything else is bound to be an improvement, isn’t it?” He rose, stretching, and groaned with the movement. “God, I’m old. Lie down, William, and go to sleep. You’re in no condition to think.” He opened the lantern and blew it out, plunging the tent into warm gloom.
A rustling as he raised the tent flap, and the searing light of the sinking sun outlined the duke’s slender figure as he turned.
“You are still my nephew,” he said in a conversational tone. “Doubt that’s much comfort to you, but there it is.”
AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
THE SUN WAS LOW and shining directly into my eyes, but the casualties had come so fast that I couldn’t take time to move my equipment round. They’d fought all day; it was still going on—I could hear it, close by, but saw nothing when I glanced up, blinking against the sun. Still, the shouts and banging of muskets and what I thought must be grenades—I’d never heard a grenade explode, but something was making a sort of irregular hollow poong! that was quite different from the boom of cannon or the slow percussion of musket fire—were loud enough to drown the sounds of groaning and crying from the shade trees and the relentless buzzing of the flies.
I was swaying with weariness and heat and, for my own part, was nearly indifferent to the battle. Until, that is, a young man in militia brown staggered in, blood streaming down his face from a deep cut in his forehead. I had stanched the bleeding and half-wiped his face before I recognized him.
“Corporal . . . Greenhow?” I asked dubiously, and a small spurt of fear penetrated the fog of fatigue. Joshua Greenhow was in one of Jamie’s companies; I’d met him.
“Yes, ma’am.” He tried to bob his head, but I stopped him, pressing firmly on the wad of lint I’d slapped on his forehead.
“Don’t move. General Fraser—have you . . .” My mouth dried, sticky, and I reached automatically for my cup, only to find it empty.
“He’s all right, ma’am,” the corporal assured me, and reached out a long arm to the table, where my canteen lay. “Or at least he was last time I saw him, and that was no more ’n ten minutes gone.” He poured water into my cup, tossed it into his own mouth, breathed heavily for an instant in relief, then poured more, which he handed to me.
“Thank you.” I gulped it; it was so warm that it was barely discernible as wet, but it eased my tongue. “His nephew—Ian Murray?”
Corporal Greenhow started to shake his head, but stopped.
“Haven’t seen him since about noon, but I haven’t seen him dead, either, ma’am. Oh—sorry, ma’am. I meant—”
“I know what you meant. Here, put your hand there and keep the pressure on.” I placed his hand on the lint and fished a fresh suture needle threaded with silk out of its jar of alcohol. My hands, steady all day, trembled a little, and I had to stop and breathe for a moment. Close. Jamie was so close. And somewhere in the midst of the fighting I could hear.
Corporal Greenhow was telling me something about the fighting, but I was having trouble attending. Something about General Lee being relieved of his command and—
“Relieved of command?” I blurted. “What the devil for?”
He looked startled by my vehemence, but replied obligingly.
“Why, I don’t quite know, ma’am. Was something to do with a retreat and how he oughtn’t to have told them to do it, but then General Washington come up on his horse and cursed and swore like the dickens—saving your presence, ma’am,” he added politely. “Anyway, I saw him! General Washington. Oh, ma’am, it was so . . .” Words failed him, and I handed him the canteen with my momentarily free hand.