beneath his fingers, and half a day’s growth of beard.
Unbidden, Jack thought of his maternal grandfather, the one and only time he had seen him, his blue silk jacket glittering with silver thread, a giant sapphire pinning his silk turban, a knife crusted with jewels at his waist, his mustache elaborately trimmed, radiating wealth and power and scorn.
Jack raised an ironic cup to his grandfather. He’d made clear he thought Jack was the lowest of the low; it was only fair to him to live down to his expectations.
Having made his libation to his illustrious ancestors, he turned his attention back to his work, such as it was.
“When the Queen comes again,” Bernardo was saying, his cup listing dangerously to one side, “when the Queen comes again, those sons of dogs will get what’s coming to them. Oh, yes, when the Queen comes . . .”
When the Queen comes, indeed. Jack stifled a yawn. Blather and blether and wishful thinking. It sounded to Jack like nothing more than his father’s toasts to the King Over the Water, a pointless pledge to a hopeless cause.
Why bother?
he’d asked his father once, in his belligerent youth. He’d been reading Rousseau, and saw no point in exchanging one king for another. Stuart or Hanover, it was all one and the same to Jack.
His father had considered the question.
It’s a manner of remembrance
, he had said at last.
Your grandparents fled their home for their allegiance to the man they believed their true king. We wouldn’t be here but for that. So I toast to the King Over the Water and remember my parents in my heart.
That was like his father; he had a deep streak of sentimentality that expressed itself in old ballads and useless toasts, and never when it mattered.
The wound was an old one, but it still twinged at times. There was something about that lament “When the Queen comes again” that had dredged up those old stories, long-ago days when his father had sat in his chair, Kat and Alex on either knee, Jack at his feet, and spun tales of a land Jack had never seen, a land as green as Madras was red and brown, shrouded in mist, colder than the coldest day Jack had ever known, peopled by men with hair as red as his father’s.
Someday,
his father used to say,
I’ll take you there
. But he hadn’t, had he? And even if he had, Jack would never belong. Nigger brat, the officers in the mess called him. Only when his father couldn’t hear, mind, but they called him that all the same.
When the King comes again . . .
Irritably, Jack set his cup down. Either José was pouring it stronger today, or his interview with That Woman had addled his wits. The King hadn’t come again, not for his grandparents, not for his father, and neither would Queen Maria. The Queen was most likely halfway to Brazil by now, whatever nonsense That Woman had spouted.
He didn’t even know her name.
The Pink Carnation, she had called herself, and it might even be true. There was something uncompromising about her, like a blade made from Seville steel. It wasn’t just that she looked like the image of Virtue on a coin, all clear eyes and classical features, head held high, fearless. It was something more. It was the way she had responded when he asked her what the Pink Carnation had to do with such a small, regional matter as this. Jack had met opportunists in his day. He had known more than his share of scoundrels and tricksters; hell, he was one. This woman meant what she said.
Which made her dangerous. Very dangerous.
During Jack’s brief stint in the Maratha chieftain Scindia’s polyglot army, a former British private—a deserter, a drinker, a wastrel, but a beautiful hand with a musket when he was sober—had told him of the classification of officers.
“There’s killing officers and there’s murdering officers,” he had told Jack laconically. “Your father—now, there’s a killing officer. He might get his men killed, but it won’t be a’purpose. He’s following
Unbidden, Jack thought of his maternal grandfather, the one and only time he had seen him, his blue silk jacket glittering with silver thread, a giant sapphire pinning his silk turban, a knife crusted with jewels at his waist, his mustache elaborately trimmed, radiating wealth and power and scorn.
Jack raised an ironic cup to his grandfather. He’d made clear he thought Jack was the lowest of the low; it was only fair to him to live down to his expectations.
Having made his libation to his illustrious ancestors, he turned his attention back to his work, such as it was.
“When the Queen comes again,” Bernardo was saying, his cup listing dangerously to one side, “when the Queen comes again, those sons of dogs will get what’s coming to them. Oh, yes, when the Queen comes . . .”
When the Queen comes, indeed. Jack stifled a yawn. Blather and blether and wishful thinking. It sounded to Jack like nothing more than his father’s toasts to the King Over the Water, a pointless pledge to a hopeless cause.
Why bother?
he’d asked his father once, in his belligerent youth. He’d been reading Rousseau, and saw no point in exchanging one king for another. Stuart or Hanover, it was all one and the same to Jack.
His father had considered the question.
It’s a manner of remembrance
, he had said at last.
Your grandparents fled their home for their allegiance to the man they believed their true king. We wouldn’t be here but for that. So I toast to the King Over the Water and remember my parents in my heart.
That was like his father; he had a deep streak of sentimentality that expressed itself in old ballads and useless toasts, and never when it mattered.
The wound was an old one, but it still twinged at times. There was something about that lament “When the Queen comes again” that had dredged up those old stories, long-ago days when his father had sat in his chair, Kat and Alex on either knee, Jack at his feet, and spun tales of a land Jack had never seen, a land as green as Madras was red and brown, shrouded in mist, colder than the coldest day Jack had ever known, peopled by men with hair as red as his father’s.
Someday,
his father used to say,
I’ll take you there
. But he hadn’t, had he? And even if he had, Jack would never belong. Nigger brat, the officers in the mess called him. Only when his father couldn’t hear, mind, but they called him that all the same.
When the King comes again . . .
Irritably, Jack set his cup down. Either José was pouring it stronger today, or his interview with That Woman had addled his wits. The King hadn’t come again, not for his grandparents, not for his father, and neither would Queen Maria. The Queen was most likely halfway to Brazil by now, whatever nonsense That Woman had spouted.
He didn’t even know her name.
The Pink Carnation, she had called herself, and it might even be true. There was something uncompromising about her, like a blade made from Seville steel. It wasn’t just that she looked like the image of Virtue on a coin, all clear eyes and classical features, head held high, fearless. It was something more. It was the way she had responded when he asked her what the Pink Carnation had to do with such a small, regional matter as this. Jack had met opportunists in his day. He had known more than his share of scoundrels and tricksters; hell, he was one. This woman meant what she said.
Which made her dangerous. Very dangerous.
During Jack’s brief stint in the Maratha chieftain Scindia’s polyglot army, a former British private—a deserter, a drinker, a wastrel, but a beautiful hand with a musket when he was sober—had told him of the classification of officers.
“There’s killing officers and there’s murdering officers,” he had told Jack laconically. “Your father—now, there’s a killing officer. He might get his men killed, but it won’t be a’purpose. He’s following
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