“I suppose I might,” she said, tilting her head and looking at me sideways, one red brow raised. “Right this minute?”

“Well … soonish. The thing is, Jamie’s just had a letter from one of his aides—from the army—I’ll tell you about that later. Anyway, the gist of it is that Denzell Hunter was captured by the British army and is being held in a military prison camp at Stony Point.”

“Captured doing what?” She sat up straighter and set her lap desk aside. She hadn’t been drawing a sentimental portrait of her daughter, I saw—it looked like a floor plan of something, embellished with small marginal sketches of apes. “You said he’s a Quaker?”

I sighed. “Yes. He’s what they call a Fighting Quaker, but he doesn’t fight. He joined the Continental army as a surgeon, though, and was evidently scooped up off a battlefield somewhere.”

“Sounds like an interesting man,” she remarked, the brow still high. “What does he have to do with me writing to Lord John?”

I explained, as briefly as possible, the connections and possibilities, concluding, “So I—we—want to see that the duke knows where Denny is. Even if he can’t get him released directly—and knowing Hal, I wouldn’t bet against him doing exactly that—he can make sure that Denny’s well treated, and naturally he’d find Dottie and see she’s taken care of.”

Bree was watching me with a curiously analytic look on her face, as though she were estimating the shear forces on the girders of a bridge.

“What?” I said. “John was a good friend of yours. Before, I mean. I should think you’d want to write to him in any case.”

“Oh, I do,” she assured me. “I’m just wondering why you aren’t writing to him. Or for that matter, why aren’t you writing to ‘Hal’? Since you’re on first-name terms, I mean.”

Damn. I couldn’t outright lie; questions of honesty aside, she’d detect it instantly. Stick to the truth as much as possible, then …

“Well, it’s Jamie,” I said reluctantly. It was, but I felt some scruples about dropping him in it with Bree. “He had a falling-out with the Greys a little while ago. They’re not on speaking terms, and if I were to write to John or Hal, he’d … take it amiss,” I ended, rather weakly.

Being her father’s daughter, she instantly put her finger on the crux of the matter.

“What sort of falling-out?” she asked. The analytical look had gone, subsumed by curiosity.

Well, that was it. I could either say, “Ask your father,” and she bloody would, or I could bite the bullet and hope for the best. While I was still trying to make up my mind, though, she went on to the next thought.

“If Da would mind about your writing to Lord John, why wouldn’t he mind me doing it?” she asked reasonably. She’d laid the drawing on the counter, where I could see it clearly. The little apes all looked like Mandy.