Rumours Of War

ached), and knaves of their like; and for that matter old fools such as Sir Peregrine, who by their indolence and complacency were often as not the cause of brave men’s deaths as much as any witless but courageous officer.

‘He is a little out of sorts, though, the duke; not quite as susceptible to entreaties as he may once have been.’

There was a degree of mystery, no doubt deliberate, in Kat’s remark.

‘And why should that be?’ asked Hervey, happy to be intrigued.

‘Harriette Wilson.’

‘Harriette Wilson? How—’ He had heard that the memoirs of (how to describe Harriette Wilson?) this most beguiling courtesan were making many a man run scared; but hardly the duke? Anyway, had he not told the blackmailing publisher to do his worst and go to hell? ‘What does she say of him?’

Kat took a little volume from the door pocket.

Hervey frowned, but sportively. ‘Don’t tell me you are reading her tittle-tattle.’

‘I am. And I am spellbound of it too. You would not believe what she writes.’ Kat began leafing through it until finding her mark. ‘Hear what she says—’

‘Kat, it would be insupportable! We are about to dine with him!’

‘Just so, Matthew, and it is as well to know what the duke must know we all know.’

Hervey shook his head in mild despair.

Kat began to read:It was in summer, one sultry evening, that the duke ordered his coachman to set him down at the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, whence he sallied forth, on foot, to No. 2 or 3, in Berkeley Street, and rapt hastily at the door, which was immediately opened by the tawdry, well-rouged housekeeper of Mrs Porter, who, with a significant nod of recognition, led him into her mistress’s boudoir, and then hurried away, simpering, to acquaint the good Mrs Porter with the arrival of one of her oldest customers.

The carriage jolted twice as the nearside wheels caught a pothole, making the light inside flicker and Kat lose her place.

‘I have it again now: “Mrs Porter, on entering her boudoir, bowed low; but she had bowed lower still to His Grace, who had paid but shabbily for the last bonne fortune she had contrived to procure him.” ’

‘Kat, I really—’

‘ “Is it not charming weather?” said Mrs Porter, by way of managing business with something like decency. “There is a beautiful girl just come out,” said His Grace, without answering her question; “a very fine creature; they call her Harriette, and—” ’

‘Kat, enough! Let us imagine the memoirs are full of it, and be done.’

Kat closed the book, and smiled. ‘Indeed they are. So you may see that, for all the duke’s bold words to his blackmailer-publisher, he has some cause for discretion at the present.’

They arrived at Apsley House at five minutes past nine. The lateness of the dinner hour did not suit the duke, who preferred to dine modestly between seven and eight, and to retire by eleven. However, in these uncertain times, while parliament stood prorogued, it was Lord Liverpool’s practice to hold meetings of his cabinet in the early evening.

‘You will find the house little changed,’ said Kat as they pulled up at the porticoed entrance to the yard. ‘Although the duke has noble plans for it.’

‘I am glad of it,’ said Hervey, pushing the box spurs back into his patent boots in readiness to alight. ‘I thought its appearance too mean when first I saw it.’ He had no pretensions in this, neither did it flow from hero- worship; the face of the Duke of Wellington’s townhouse was to him a measure of the nation’s very esteem to the army as a whole.

‘You will find the duke altered in appearance, though,’ added Kat, as Hervey stepped down from the chariot and held out a hand to her. ‘Quite fat and fresh he is since his sojourn in St Petersburg.’

Hervey took her words to be exaggeration.

There was no band playing in the yard this evening, unlike that first occasion, but as before there were non- commissioned officers of the Grenadier Guards augmenting the footmen, and aides-decamp in attendance, although the scale of affairs seemed much reduced from before, and there were not nearly so many carriages.

‘We shall be about twenty, the duke said. A good number; we shall all be able to hear him.’ There was no hint of irony in Kat’s voice.

And Hervey was pleased at the prospect of hearing him, for besides the pleasant courtesy of escorting Kat, his especial interest in accepting her invitation was not merely to show himself but to learn whatever intelligence there was that might assist his design for advancement.

They made their way into the entrance hall, as drably painted as before, he noted, though lit as brilliantly, then handed their cloaks to a footman, and Hervey his card, and made their way to the spiral staircase which would take them to the principal floor. At its foot they paused to cast an eye over the towering statue of the nude Bonaparte which had been their first occasion for words that evening seven years ago.

‘It is strange to think of him in his grave, is it not?’ said Kat, tapping one of the emperor’s knees with her fan. ‘He had not so very many years over the duke, I believe.’

‘They were born in the same year.’

‘Indeed? And yet I could not imagine the duke portrayed thus. So athletic a form,’ she said, with a mischievous grin, which for an instant made her face the schoolgirl’s.

‘I think he could stand comparison,’ replied Hervey loyally, but taking up Kat’s little game. ‘I imagine that Harriette Wilson is complimentary in that respect?’

Kat raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly, as if weighing the proposition seriously. ‘I believe that is so. But not as much as was Lady Hester Stanhope of Sir John Moore. If she is to be believed he—’

‘I think we should go up,’ insisted Hervey.

‘Very well,’ said Kat, tapping his arm with her fan and smiling as if pleased with herself. ‘But Sir John Moore was the duke’s rival, was he not?’

They began to ascend the spiral.

‘Only in matters of command, I believe,’ said Hervey, concentrating on keeping his spurs apart; ascending a staircase such as this was almost as perilous as coming down.

‘Sir John was a very fine figure of a man by all accounts though. Did you ever meet him, Matthew?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘What manner, exactly?’

‘I was at Corunna when he died.’

‘Indeed? You were with Moore at Corunna? You have never told me that!’

‘I was a mint-new cornet.’

Kat seemed to be calculating. ‘How old were you? A baby!’

Hervey smiled. They had reached the top of the stairs, and he gave Kat’s invitation card to a footman. ‘Brevet-Major Hervey,’ he added.

‘Well?’ she insisted, shaking his arm playfully.

‘Seventeen.’

Her eyes widened.

‘Rising eighteen.’

‘I am a-tremble at the thought. You shall tell me all about it, and soon!’

‘Lady Katherine Greville and Brevet-Major Hervey,’ announced the master of ceremonies.

The duke, undoubtedly fuller-faced, and wearing plain clothes this evening instead of, as last time, the levee dress of the Royal Horse Guards of which he was colonel, smiled broadly. He bowed and took Kat’s hand to kiss it. And then, to her escort, he returned the brisk military bow and held out his hand. ‘I am very glad to see you again, Hervey. I have only lately read the Bhurtpore despatches. Smart work. Smart work indeed.’

Smart work – the exact same words the duke had used after the little affair at Toulouse, when first Hervey had been presented to him. But that was all of twelve years ago. The duke’s hair had whitened rather since, and his own was perhaps not so full about the temples as then. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he replied,