Death of an Officer's Lady (Murray of Letho Book 7) by Lexie Conyngham

Author:Lexie Conyngham [Conyngham, Lexie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kellas Cat Press
Published: 2015-06-13T22:00:00+00:00

II

Belgium

George was in a quandary.

George was a simple soul, and he was not accustomed to quandaries. In his experience, anything too complicated to be sorted out at once would either sort itself out eventually, or someone cleverer than he was would sort it out for him. Just recently, however, his quandaries seemed to be multiplying: he had no idea how to deal with any of them, and the people he usually relied on to make quandaries go away were all intimately involved in producing them in the first place. There was Captain Gunn’s strange attack on Sir Alexander Gordon, for example: what should he do about that? Should he tell Gunn again that Sir Alexander wanted to see him, and probably therefore involve him in a duel? Duels, as George well knew, could turn out nasty for all involved, which was why they had been outlawed amongst the civilian population. Only the army, where they had the capacity to be much nastier, still allowed them. Then there was Gunn’s mysterious request to George that he look after James Graham, the new and chronically unmusical drummer boy. Should he try to find out why? What was the link between the officer and the boy? George was deeply curious, but also suffered a distinct dread of finding out what he might not want to know. Then there was a particularly distressing quandary, for he had received his brother Charles’ letter telling him that Argo’s wife was dead, and dead by violence, and he had found no way yet to tell Argo this awful news. Edinburgh felt a long way away at present, with everything focussed here, but no doubt Argo would fall apart, and that would do good to no one.

Lastly, his latest quandary – and therefore perhaps the most distressing, for George was quite good at putting things to the back of his mind – had arrived that morning in the apparently innocent shape of an invitation to dinner. The invitation had come from the Frys. Major Saddler had expressly forbidden his officers from attending any social events before Bonaparte made his appearance. General Fry outranked Major Saddler, but then he was not George’s commanding officer. Should he go to Major Saddler and plead a special case? But on the other hand, did he really want to go to dinner at the Frys? Why had he been invited? Was General Fry testing him for the role of future son-in-law? And if so, was it a role that George wanted? Should he in fact be grateful for a cast-iron excuse to turn down the invitation? But then, was it really cast-iron? Would the Frys be offended that he should turn it down, when most other officers in Brussels were happily attending all kinds of parties and balls and routs?

George turned these thoughts over in his mind in rotation as he worked at the camp with the soldiers. The dinner quandary was becoming urgent, as he had out of good manners to reply soon: the dinner was only next Thursday.

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