“Yes,” he agreed. “And more discreet inquiries elsewhere.”
Thomas drummed his fingers once against the arm of his chair. “I know one or two men who might know where to look next. Not today, perhaps. But I can begin asking.”
“Do so.”
“I will.”
It was as Thomas said this that laughter rose from across the room, in a sound that was loud, coarse, and triumphantly unembarrassed. Owen knew the voice before he turned.
General Arthur Langley was seated at a card table not far off, with a cigar in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other.He was well into some game or other with three other men, none of whom looked particularly pleased by either their cards or their company. Langley, by contrast, was enjoying himself immensely.
He had won a considerable heap already, if the pile before him meant anything, and every time one of the others lost another round, Langley appeared to take fresh delight in it. He made some cutting remark that brought a strained laugh from one of the gentlemen and visible irritation from another. The general only smiled, drew on his cigar, and swept more money toward himself with the ease of a man entirely accustomed to prevailing.
Owen watched him in silence.
Yesterday in the park, Langley had been controlled, polite enough to remain unchallengeable. Here, in the company of men over cards and drink, something uglier showed itself with less effort. There was cruelty in the man’s amusement. It was not the hot cruelty of temper, but the colder sort that enjoyed humiliation because it proved superiority.
Thomas followed his gaze. For a moment neither spoke.
“There he is,” Thomas whispered.
“Yes.”
“You once thought well of him.”
Owen’s eyes remained fixed on the table. “I thought him worth admiring.”
“And now?”
Owen took his time answering.
“I do not know what to think,” he said at last. “Only that each day I like him less.”
That, if anything, was too mild. He felt in Langley’s presence now a growing disquiet that had little to do with simple dislike. The old respect of a junior officer for a powerful superior had begun to fray, and what lay beneath it was not yet fully shaped. Suspicion, yes. Anger, perhaps. But also something nearer to betrayal, though Owen did not care to name it so.
Thomas’s mouth thinned. “We will get to the bottom of it.”
Owen glanced at him.
“We will,” Thomas repeated. “If Langley is clean, we shall know it. And if he is not, then he ought not to remain protected merely because men once saluted him.”
Across the room, Langley barked another laugh and took another man’s money.
“We will get to the bottom of it,” Owen repeated.
This time, the words felt less like determination and more like an oath.
They did not approach the card table. There was no purpose in it, and Owen would not reveal by one misplaced look that Langley occupied his thoughts more than a dozen other men in the room. Still, when he and Thomas eventually rose to leave, Owen felt the general’s presence like a stone under the skin.
***
That night, back in his study, with the house gone mostly quiet around him, Owen sat down to write to Aurelia again.
At first, he meant only to report the practical facts, that Thomas now knew the truth of their arrangement and of the investigation, that he had pledged his help, and that the inquiries made at White’s had confirmed Carter’s existence but yielded little else of use.
But once he began, his pen did not stop there.
He wrote of Carter, yes, and of Thomas’s seriousness once he heard what was at stake. He wrote that Thomas wished the honor of the military upheld and would not see it quietly blackened by cowardice or deceit if he could help it.
