“It was like being pecked to death by a flock of small parrots,” he told Hal. “Screeching, and feathers everywhere.”

“Never mind parrots,” Hal said shortly. He’d been out himself, to a more formal—and doubtless less noisy—gathering at the home of a Mrs. Roma Sars, where he’d talked to some of the politicals who’d been at Prévost’s luncheon.

“I was hoping to talk to Monsieur Soissons and find out how the devil bloody Percy comes to be here, when he’s supposed to be dead—or at least decently pretending to be—but Soissons wasn’t in the way,” Hal replied shortly. He’d got his stock off, and the dark-red mark across his neck suggested that he’d been choking back words of one kind and another all afternoon. “Where was it you said you’d met the fellow last?”

John undid his own leather stock and closed his eyes, sighing with relief.

“I met him at the American camp in a place called Coryell’s Ferry, just before Monmouth. I told you about that.”

Hal wiped his face with a discarded towel, evidently used previously for blacking boots, and tossed it into the corner.

“And how the devil did he come to be there, for that matter?”

John shook his head. What did it matter now, after all? Still, he wasn’t going to explain just how it was that Percy had escaped being hanged for the crime of sodomy; he’d rather Hal didn’t expire of apoplexy just yet.

“About how you got yourself arrested by the Americans, escaped, and showed up after the battle in camp with a homicidal Mohawk Indian purporting to be James Fraser’s nephew? More or less,” Hal said, and a corner of his mouth twitched. “Mostly less, I imagine. You didn’t mention Percy, at any rate.”

John blinked in a noncommittal sort of way and tilted his head toward the door. Brisk footsteps were coming down the corridor; doubtless Hal’s valet, coming to extract Hal from the bondage of his dress uniform.

To his surprise, however, the footsteps belonged to William, mildly disheveled but evidently sober.

“I need to find Banastre Tarleton,” he said, without preamble. “How do you suggest I do that?”

“What d’you want him for?” Hal inquired, sitting down in a wooden chair. “And if you want help, turnabout’s fair play—help me get these bloody boots off. They’re John’s, and they’re killing me.”

“It’s not my fault you’ve got bunions,” John said. “Totally fitting for an infantry commander, though, you’ll admit. No one can say you don’t do your job thoroughly.”

Hal gave him a mildly evil look, then put his hands on William’s head to brace himself as William wrestled one boot loose.

“Do you know where Tarleton is?” he asked John, who shook his head.

“Neither do I,” Hal said, addressing the cowlick on top of William’s head, which swirled neatly clockwise before sticking up. Just like his father’s, John thought.

“Clinton’s chief clerk would know,” Grey said, and cleared his throat. “His name’s Ronson—Captain Geoffrey Ronson, if you please.”