Mary hurried to draw age lines and spread soot upon her face, and despite her haste, the effect was quite effective.
Gabe had applied the additions to his disguise similarly, though he put powder in his hair to make it white, instead of dark. He had blackened out one tooth and wore a wide-brimmed hat low on his head.
Colin remained as he was, despite Gabe’s insistence that he change. The safe house was veritably brimming with costumes, paints, and powders.
“Shall we leave?” Mary glanced at the mantle clock. “The ball will be drawing to a close now; the rendezvous will be at any moment.”
Gabe went to the tantalus and poured a healthy dram of port,
“Come now, Gabe. There is no time for that,” Colin said.
“Indeed,” Gabe dipped his hand in his glass, cupping some port, and splashed it on Colin’s coat.
“Oi!” Colin cursed soundly.
“Ye might not look the part, but ye must smell the part.”
Colin grumbled. “Bugger.”
With a laugh, Mary took some for her own costume, then preceded the men through the safe house and outside to the awaiting carriage. The hour was late and the sky was dark. A low-lying fog swirled around the horses’ hooves, and there was a bite to the chilled air.
“I will drive,” she said, stepping up awkwardly onto the perch.
My, but her bottom was sore!
“I didn’t know that you knew how to drive a team, Mary.” Colin grinned at her, his obsidian eyes twinkling.
She affected an accent in a deep voice. “Aye, all workin’ men ken how te lead a team.” She winked.
Gabe chuckled. “Ye might want te practice yer accent, love.”
Mary’s stomach fluttered at the endearment, but said defensively, “I will not be required to speak while we observe the rendezvous, so my accent scarcely matters.”
Gabe eyed her from beside the driver’s perch, and his gaze turned concerned. “Are ye certain ye’re well enough te lead a team, Mary?”
“I will admit that I am sore, but I am also determined.” She shrugged her uninjured shoulder. “I will heal, Gabe. At the very least I should like to see justice done for this treachery.” Her eyes narrowed. “Lady Kerr most particularly.”
“Bloodthirsty lass.” His lips curved up in an alluring half-smile. “Verra well. And if ye have te talk, Mary, try te mimic my accent, aye?”
Mary gave him a quick nod and he followed Colin into the unmarked carriage, pulling up the steps and closing the door behind himself.
She waited until she heard the tell-tale knock on the hack’s roof before she clicked at the bays and flicked the reins, gently bringing them to a walk and then a trot. The sudden wind at her charcoaled cheeks was biting, indeed. But she did not care.
Despite the dangers shrouding this assignment, Mary relished the excited anticipation bubbling through her. She adored the thrill of the assignment. More than that, however, she was elated that Gabe uttered nary a single protest at her taking the lead—and thus being in the most danger of attack or recognition. He trusted her. And he loved her!
Her stomach fluttered. And that evening was not the first time he had told her he loved her; she recalled now, that he had used those same Gaelic words while they were in the carriage travelling to London.
She smiled into the cool night air, lightness touching her heart. She had Gabe for a lover. And he loved her.
* * *
Gabe sat in the front facing seat of the carriage, gazing through the window at the streetlamps passing by.
His heart still beat hard in his chest. Mary loved him! Bloody hell, it was a euphoric feeling.
But what of his earlier assertions that he could not fall in love? And of what happened to Hydra’s family?
He shook his head. Even after he had discovered his love for her, he could not bring himself to let her go. He sat straighter in his seat. What if he didn’t have to? What if he could have Mary for the rest of his life? Would she not be safer with him than without him? Two trained spies were certainly better than one.
What a fool he’d been. Using Hydra’s family as an example of why he should not be with Mary was faulty logic. Hydra was the only spy in his family, and he carried the burden of protecting them all. Mary was a spy; Gabe shouldn’t have to worry about her, at all. Hell, even his reaction to Mary when she’d engaged in combat with bloody Boxton had been faulty. She was right; she’d fought the devil off and was already in control before Gabe had shown up.
His instinct to protect her had reared its head and controlled his words and actions. He’d been a confounded arse to the woman.
Indeed. If Mary was, at this very moment, carrying their child it would behove him to lay claim to her and their unborn bairn.
A gleeful smile tugged at his soot-smudged lips and his heart began to gallop. A bairn. Their bairn, born to them in wedlock…
Colin shifted in his seat across from him, drawing Gabe’s gaze.
“I mean te wed Mary,” Gabe softly blurted.
The words felt remarkably freeing to say aloud.
“My felicitations.” Colin inclined his head. “Does Mary know this?”
Gabe exhaled on a silent laugh. “No. But now tha’ I ken she shares my feelings, I fully intend te ask.”
The air was still between them as the carriage rolled over the cobblestoned streets of London. Gabe watched his friend with a gimlet eye. Something was off about him.
“Why did ye really come te see Mary today, Colin?” Gabe asked quietly.
Colin gazed out the window, his jaw tightening. There was several moments of silence before the tension in Colin’s shoulders released and he sighed. “It’s Isobel.”
Awareness dawned, and an odd flood of simultaneous emotions rushed through him. He was relieved that the visit had nothing to do with Mary, but was concerned for his friend’s sister.
“Is she well?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t bloody well know! The woman has completely closed herself off. I worry about her, Gabe. She has always been ill at ease with our Spanish heritage—most particularly because she resembles our father more than I. But despite my efforts, I have not been able to speak to her about this most recent bout of melancholy. I’d hoped to seek Mary’s help, perhaps send the women on a shopping trip. Lace and bonnets and so forth.”
“I am certain tha’ Mary would be amenable te a shopping trip.”
Colin rested his elbow on the window’s frame and rubbed fretfully at his lips with the backs of his fingers. “I hope it will help her.”
Gabe turned his gaze out the window. “Act lively, Colin. We’ve arrived.”
The carriage carefully rolled to a halt and rocked gently as Mary climbed down from her perch.
The door swung open, a gust of cool night air wafting in.
Mary clucked her tongue, and deepened her voice, “Come along, men. Time is wasting away.”
Biting back a smile of mirth, Gabe followed Colin out of the carriage. Mary had tethered the horses to the post of a nearby building, nearly three streets from the Crowned Pig’s Grunt.
Silently, the three of them walked, keeping to the shadows of the nearby buildings. When they were but one street away from the rendezvous point, Mary halted, forcing them to follow suit.
She spun around and uttered under her breath, “Recall your roles, men.”
Indeed. Their intent this evening was to appear to be intoxicated men stumbling from tavern to tavern searching for women, drink, and song.
Mary turned back around and lurched forward, mumbling something incoherent to herself. She was most definitely a believably drunken lad. Gabe wrapped an arm about Colin’s shoulders and the two stumbled together toward their goal.
The sign for the Crowned Pig’s Grunt came up beside them and Gabe loudly slurred, “Thish looks likey good ‘un!”
With a drunken nod, Mary tripped through the door, landing on all fours inside. The tavern was packed to the gills and every eye turned to stare at her. She rose ineptly from her awkward position, patted clumsily at her clothes, gazing through glazed, squinting eyes at the crowd.
The combined stench of foul, sweating bodies, fetid liquor, salty ocean water, and stale piss assailed his nostrils. Gabe fought the urge to grimace and squeeze his nose shut. Instead, he turned a bleary eye on the tavern’s patrons; most appeared to be sailors.
Their quarries were nowhere to be seen. When they did come, Gabe suspected they would not wish to be observed by so many patrons, intoxicated or not, and would likely leave.
Mary, apparently coming to the same conclusions as he, hiccoughed and spun around, tripping on her twisted ankles and splaying herself upon the filthy tavern floor.
Hiding his instant worry for her welfare, Gabe laughed loudly, pointing at her sprawled upon the floor, Colin joining in after feigning a wretch.
“Oi!” a tavern wench called. “Take it ouside!”
Gabe wiped his nose noisily across his sleeve. “Aint noffin good in ‘ere n’eyway.”
He helped Mary stumble to her feet and lifted her arm over his shoulder, ineptly helping her back through the doors. They staggered down the walk until they were out of view of the tavern’s doors and, releasing Mary, then darted into the narrow alleyway. The stink there was not much improved from inside the tavern, though the most prominent scents were piss and garbage. And likely not all of it was old.
Mary groaned, rubbing her shoulder.
“God’s teeth, Mary! I cannae believe I forgot! How are ye?”
She waved him off. “Well enough for now, Gabriel. Focus on our assignment, if you will.”
His lips thinned in displeasure, but he remained silent. As much as he wished to disrobe her to inspect her wounds, he knew they did not have the time, and this was most certainly not the place. But there was one thing that he must say.
“Mary,” he whispered. “I was wrong about yer needing protection. Y’are a strong woman, capable of taking care of yerself, and I was beastly towards ye.”
She blinked. “Thank you, Gabe. But really—”
“I ken ye donnae need me te be with ye fer protection, but I’d like te be with ye as a partner.”
Colin cursed under his breath.
Mary pressed a quick buss to his lips, then pushed him against the cool brick wall next to Colin. “Thank you,” she hissed, leaning against the wall beside Gabe and peering around the corner.
She signalled to Gabe and he discretely stuck his head around the corner above hers. Nearly thirty paces away walked a group of five—no…six—men and one woman. He could not yet see all of their faces, but he supposed the woman must be Lady Kerr.
Mary gasped and Gabe glanced down at her. She signalled him with her shocked grey eyes and mouthed the word “Frederick.”
Impossible. He turned to look back at the advancing group and his heart stopped in his chest. There strode Frederick Ashley, Baron Winning, Gabe’s own cousin, among a group of known traitors.
What the devil was he doing with them? Fred was a right bastard, and had been since they were still in the schoolroom, but a traitor? No. Could he have been coerced into joining? Did he even know what this meeting was about, or did he simply believe others in high society were finally accepting him?
Damn ye, Frederick, ye fool!
If the blighter found himself killed, Gabe would be named Baron, for the man had never sired any heirs. And that was the last thing Gabe wanted, to be known. It would ruin his life in the Secret Service…and he would lose his last living family member.
Gabe could not rescue his cousin without both compromising his, Colin’s, and Mary’s identities—and with it, exposing their ties to the Winning Barony—and endangering all of their lives.
They watched the group disappear into the Crowned Pig’s Grunt.
“Report,” Colin whispered.
Mary left the building’s corner to go to Colin, on Gabe’s other side. Gabe watched the tavern’s door while Mary gave Colin a brief synopsis in hushed tones.
If they followed them into the tavern it could pose multiple problems: one, they would not find a suitable place to sit in order to overhear them over the din, and two, if their quarry left because of the lack of privacy, it would be suspicious for them to follow right after them.
They would have to remain where they were.
The sounds of boats upon the River Thames, and the muffled roar of activity from the tavern filled the air. The moonlight dimly stretched through the thick, coal- and fog-filled London air, dancing along the surface of the water. Gabe gazed at the dock across the street and the water beyond it. A frigate hung low in the water, likely full of goods to be unloaded or supplies in preparation for a long journey. Beyond it were others, mere shadows along the Thames.
Which one of these ships would be the one to bring the forged documents to France? And which one had “Anthony Spencer” booked passage on?
The door to the Crowned Pig’s Grunt opened, the light from within shining along the damaged cobblestoned street, and the group of traitors emerged. Gabe could not help but notice that Lord Boxton was not among them, but he saw Lord Reddington, the Marquess of Hale, Mr. Piper, Frederick, and two men that Gabe did not know.
The tall, lanky man leading the group pointed toward the docks and they set off across the street.
Gabe ducked back, shrouding himself in the darkness that hid Mary and Colin.
He waited until the traitors walked down the wooden planks before he turned to whisper, “The tavern was too crowded. They have gone te the docks. They’re likely to board tha’ frigate, as it’s the closest one.”
“But how are we to follow?” Mary asked. “We would have no plausible reason to be there. We cannot very well swim to the ship and listen from the water. They would shoot us on sight.”
Gabe shook his head regretfully. “We have nae choice, I’m afraid, Mary. We must remain ashore te watch them. We willnae hear them, but we will be able te see them well enough if we find the right spo’.” He lowered his hat on his head, hiding his eyes. “Come along, then. We donnae wish te miss the meeting.”
He led them through the darkness across the street, rushing from one shadow to another. Their quarries boarded a small rowboat and took themselves to the moored frigate, then began to climb the rope ladder leading to the deck one at a time.
“Why the devil would they wish te conduct their meeting on a boat?” Colin mumbled as they crouched against the side of the nearest dockside building.
It was as close as they were able to get without being exposed, but it afforded them a well enough view of the proceedings, provided the traitors did not go below deck.