In fact, Grey’s memory was quite good. Good enough to remember a dinner at which a number of officers from different regiments had been guests. When the gentlemen were at their port, Grey had—upon invitation, and to thunderous applause—recited entirely from memory one of the longer, and very scabrous, odes from Harry Quarry’s infamous Certain Verses Upon the Subject of Eros, copies of which were still eagerly sought and covertly passed around the circles of society, though the book had been published nearly twenty years before.
“What on earth is there to spy on?” he demanded, realizing the logical trap too late. Smith’s mouth turned up at one corner.
“You expect me to tell you?” Because the answer, of course, was that Washington’s entire force was likely on the move in his immediate vicinity, positioning for the move into Philadelphia—and, very possibly, for an attack on Clinton’s withdrawing troops.
Grey dismissed Smith’s question as rhetorical and took another tack—though a dangerous one.
“Woodbine gave you a correct assessment of the circumstances in which he discovered me,” he said. “Plainly I was not discovered in flagrante by Colonel Fraser, as he would simply have done what Corporal Woodbine did and arrested me.”
“Are you asserting that Colonel Fraser met you by arrangement, to pass on information?”
Jesus Christ. He’d known this tack was dangerous but hadn’t foreseen that possibility—that Jamie Fraser could be suspected of being his confederate. But of course Smith would be particularly sensitive to such a possibility, given his own change of loyalties.
“Certainly not,” Grey said, allowing a certain asperity to creep into his tone. “The encounter that Corporal Woodbine witnessed was of a purely personal nature.”
Smith, who plainly knew a thing or two about interrogation, cocked a brow at him. Grey knew a thing or two about it, too, and sat back, sipping his applejack insouciantly, as though quite sure his statement had settled matters.
“They will probably hang you, you know,” Smith said after a suitable pause. He spoke quite casually, eyes on the amber stream as he refilled both cups again. “After what Howe did to Captain Hale? Even more, after Paoli. Charles Grey is your cousin, is he not?”
“Second or third cousin, yes.” Grey knew the man, though they didn’t move in the same circles, either socially or militarily. Charles Grey was a pig-faced professional killer, rather than a soldier, and while he doubted that the Paoli Massacre had been entirely as described—what sort of idiots would lie on the ground waiting to be bayoneted in their beds? Because he didn’t for an instant think a column of infantry was capable of sneaking up in the dark over rough country to within stabbing distance without giving some notice of their presence—he did know about Charles’s merciless bayonet tactics at Culloden.
“Nonsense,” Grey said, with as much confidence as he could summon. “Whatever one may think of the American high command, I doubt it is composed entirely of fools. My execution would yield nothing, whereas my exchange might be of value. My brother does have some small influence.”
Smith smiled, not without sympathy.
“An excellent argument, Lord John, and one I’m sure would find favor with General Washington. Unfortunately, the Congress and the King remain at loggerheads over the matter of exchange; at present, there is no mechanism to allow the exchange of prisoners.”
That one struck him in the pit of the stomach. He knew all too well that there were no official channels of exchange; he’d been trying to have William exchanged for months.
Smith upended the bottle, dribbling the last amber drops into Grey’s cup.
“Are you a Bible-reading man, Colonel Grey?”
Grey looked at him blankly.
“Not habitually. I have read it, though. Some of it. Well . . . bits. Why?”
“I wondered if you were familiar with the concept of a scapegoat.” Smith rocked back a little on his stool, gazing at Grey with his lovely deep-set eyes, which seemed to hold a certain sympathy—though perhaps it was just the applejack. “Because I’m afraid that is where your chief value lies, Colonel. It is no secret that the Continental army is in poor condition, lacking money, disillusion and desertion rife. Nothing would hearten and unify the troops more—or send a more potent message to General Clinton—than the trial and very public execution of a high-ranking British officer, a convicted spy and close relation to the infamous ‘No Flints’ Grey.”
He belched softly and blinked, eyes still fixed on Grey.
“You asked what I meant to do with you.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Smith ignored this, leveling a long, knobby finger at him.
“I’m sending you to General Wayne, who, believe me, has ‘Paoli’ carved upon his heart.”
“How very painful for him,” Grey said politely, and drained his cup.
EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK
THE INTERMINABLE DAY was reluctantly ending, the heat at last beginning to fade from the forest along with the waning light. He didn’t suppose that he would be taken directly to General Wayne, unless that worthy were close at hand, and he thought not. He could tell from the sounds and the feel of the camp that it was a small one, and plainly Colonel Smith was the senior officer present.
Smith had asked him, pro forma, to give his parole—and been substantially taken aback when Grey had courteously refused to do so.
“If I am in fact a duly commissioned British officer,” Grey had pointed out, “then clearly it is my duty to escape.”