Snatching her granddaughter from destruction, Benedicta settled the christening robes more securely, and with a look of some reservation, handed the child back to her son.

Minnie, on the far side of the font, eyed him severely, but was occupied in restraining her own three sons, all of them decently silent, but wriggling like small satin-clad worms. Hal, beside her, appeared to have fallen asleep on his feet.

Mr. Gainsborough, the portrait artist who had been commissioned to commemorate the christening, skulked in the shadows, motioning to his assistant and squinting back and forth from his sketching pad to the scene before him. He caught Grey’s eye and motioned to him to lift his chin and turn toward the light.

Grey coughed politely and turned instead toward the priest, who was speaking to him.

“Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desire of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led of them?”

“I do renounce them.” Minnie’s sister, the child’s godmother, stood beside him, and murmured the words with him.

“Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? And in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten son, our Lord? And that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary; that He suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried; that He went down into hell and also did rise again…”

Grey looked down into the sleeping face of innocence, and swore. He did not know if he might believe. But for her, he would try.

Following the christening, the family rattled home by coach to the Grey manor on the edge of Hyde Park. The trees were in their autumn glory, their falling leaves borne on the wind, and bits of red and gold and brown flew up in showers from the wheels as they passed.

Minnie and her sister went up to return the baby to her nurse, but the boys demanded food, and shedding their pumps, satin coats, and linen neckcloths with abandon, besieged their father for nourishment.

“I want almond biscuits, Papa!”

“No, apple ’n’ raisin pie!”

“Treacle tart, treacle tart!” piped Henry, raising a general cheer.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Hal said, trying in vain to quell the riot. He put a hand to his head, which seemed somewhat the worse for wear. “Come along, Cook will find us something, I daresay.”

He ushered his troops firmly before him, but then paused and looked back at Grey, hand on the baize door to the kitchen passageway.

“Will you do us the honor to share a dish of treacle tart for breakfast, my lord?” he asked politely.

“With all my heart,” John said, and grinned exceedingly. “Your Grace.”

He handed his cloak to the footman and made to follow them, but was stopped by a glimpse of his own name. The early post had been left on the silver salver by the door, and a letter addressed to Lord John Grey lay on top. Frowning, he picked it up. Who would send a letter to him here?

He broke the seal and unfolded two sheets. The first was a drawing; a sketch of the Roman Forum. He recognized the view, from the top of the Capitoline Hill. The message on the second sheet was brief, written in a clear, round hand.

The seagulls on the Tiber call all night, and call your name.

“Ave!” they cry.

“Ave.”

There was no signature, of course.

“Ave,”Grey said softly, “atque vale, frater meus.”Hail—and farewell. And touching the corner of the note to the candle flame, held it until his fingers began to scorch, then dropped it on the salver, where it flared and burnt to ash. He put aside the drawing—to remember.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

“Hogg house.”When Lord John reflects that surely Geneva’s body does not lie “in some hogg house or desolate shed,” he is not considering that her family might have left her in a pig-sty. A “hogg house” was a storage building for dried peat.

Homophobia.I am greatly indebted both to Norton Rictor ( Mother Clap’s Molly-House) and to Byrne Fone ( Homophobia: A History) for insight into the perception and treatment of homosexuals in the mid-eighteenth century. Quotes in this book regarding the social and legal prosecution of “sodomites” are taken from Homophobia,and are actual quotes from the newspapers and other periodicals of the period.

Horace Walpolewas one of the best-known letter-writers of the early-to mid-eighteenth century, and his collected correspondence is as valuable to a student of that period as Samuel Pepys’s diaries are to an earlier one. Fourth son of the formidable Robert Walpole (First Earl of Orford, who more or less invented the office of prime minister, though he himself refused to use that title), Horace was not political himself, but had great insight—expressed with wit and irony—into the social, military, and political processes of his milieu.

Prejudice.Speaking of phobias…historical attitudes in England toward the Irish, Scottish, etc. are rendered as they were (interpreted through writings of the period), rather than as modern political correctness might desire (e.g., descriptions of the Irish gathering “like fleas” and other opprobrious remarks are taken from primary sources of the period, as quoted in M. Dorothy George’s London Life in the Eighteenth Centuryand Liza Picard’s Dr. Johnson’s London).

A Note on Scots/Scotch/Scottish

So far as I know (judging from published material from the period), everybody in the British Isles (including the Scots), used “Scotch” to refer to the people (as well as the whisky) up until about 1950. At which point, the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) got their feet under them and started in.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that one of the first things a political action group representing a minority does is to respecify the name of said group as a means of asserting independence—i.e., “negroes” became either “black” or “African American,” “Indians” became “Native Americans,” etc. By the same token, the Scotch became “Scots.” (In all justice, “Scots” as a term referring to the people was certainly in use for centuries prior to that; however, “Scotch,” “Scotchman,” etc. were also acceptable and widely used; post-SNP, this was seen as deeply offensive.)

Just to be confusing, “Scots” is also the term used (both historically and in modern times) for the Scottish dialect—or language as the case may be (again, with the political activism). I asked a friend—a well-known linguist and the dean of the college of Arts and Letters at a prominent university—what the position was on Scots in linguistic circles: Dialect of English, or distinct language? She (an Englishwoman) looked round to be sure we were not overheard (we were at a cocktail party, surrounded by wealthy alumni, none of them either Scottish or linguists), lowered her voice, and said, “Well, if you’re Scottish, then of courseit’s a separate language—and if you aren’t, then plainly it’s not.”

Anyway, “Scotch” and its derivatives (“Scotchman,” “Scotchwoman”) were used by everybody—including Scottish people (I have a book of popular jokes and comic routines done by Sir Harry Lauder—a popular Scottish comedian of the ’40s and ’50s, which uses “Scotch” as a designation of people throughout) up ’til about the mid-twentieth century. You still see such references in novels published later than that, but by about 1970, “Scot,” “Scots,” and “Scottish” had become pretty much de rigueur,and “Scotch” was now strictly limited to whisky and 3M’s” brand of transparent tape. In the eighteenth century, though, “Scotchman” was still common usage.