Chapter Fourteen
Adam had been in The Blue Anchor for more than an hour nursing the same pint of beer. He observed the tide of drinkers and diners with an apparent indifference when, in reality, he worked hard to remember as many faces as possible.
How many of the Society’s fellow travelers were here? He supposed he’d have to wait to find out. Harold had yet to join them. He was on duty until six o’clock, and it was not yet seven.
It was hard to know exactly who or what he was supposed to be looking for. There were some he recognized from the Andromeda, others were vaguely familiar from other smaller ships in the harbor.
“Hardacre?”
The man in front of him looked rough, sporting on his chin several days of dark growth not so far gone as to yet call it a beard. Longish dark hair fell on his forehead.
“Who’s asking?”
“A friend.”
“My friends already know who I am.”
The man curled his lip into a sneer and leaned in. “I know who ye are, all right? And I don’t particularly care which way we play this. If ye’ve been given an invitation, then ye’re to follow me.”
Interesting, Adam thought, they’re very cautious.
“Follow you where?”
“Wherever I damned well go.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then me and a few mates will be by to make sure ye forget yer own name, let alone any meetin’.”
Adam locked eyes with the man and slowly rose from the table. He was taller, but the man before him was built like an ox. Adam had already decided how he was going to play this. If Wilkinson had him pegged as a trouble-making malcontent, then he would give him one. Appearing too eager would only serve to arouse suspicions.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Ye don’t have to worry about him, Hardacre. He’ll be along in his own good time.”
The man turned on his heel and walked toward the door. Adam waited a beat, then followed, skirting around the patrons who milled at the bar.
Outside, the light had softened to a pale purple. Adam fell into step with the man as he marched up the hill toward the Packet Quays where some of the wealthy shipping owners had built their homes to overlook the harbor.
“If we’re friends now, I ought to know your name.”
All Adam received in return was a grunt.
As they crossed one of the streets, Adam felt himself grabbed from behind. He struggled hard against Grunt and his unseen associate when another man came in from the side and shoved a canvas sack over his head. The men secured his hands.
“Calm yerself, Hardacre, ye’re still among friends,” said Grunt, sounding a lot more companionable than he did in the pub. “We just have to be cautious like.”
The three men took turns for a moment in shoving him along and turning him about, as though he were a ball in some game. By the time they finished, he had no idea where he was, precisely, nor how far they had gone. After about ten minutes, Adam could see light through the loose weave of the Hessian bag and heard the sound of a door opening.
“Hardacre,” Grunt announced on his behalf. An unseen hand shoved him hard in the center of his back. Adam stumbled forward. He gritted his teeth as two firm hands clasped his shoulders, propelling him down a carpeted hallway and into a room where, from what he could hear, a group of men gathered.
At last, the bag was pulled away. Adam was momentarily blinded by the brightly-lit room.
He seemed to be in some kind of library or private gentlemen’s club. Bookshelves accounted for three walls. There was a smattering of leather seats clustered around a fireplace, but the dominant feature in the room was a large, round mahogany dining table that might seat twelve. Now, however, no more than half a dozen men were in the room, including the three who had “accompanied” him. Behind him, hands worked to release the knot of the leather thong that bound his wrists together.
Unsurprisingly, Major Wilkinson sat at the end of the table. Adam experienced the odd feeling of being back before the Naval Board. He resisted the urge to stand to attention. Instead, he rubbed the red weal on his wrist where he had been tied.
“I was expecting a meeting of bluestockings,” said Adam. “You gentlemen play a bit rough.”
“It’s because this is not a game, Hardacre,” Wilkinson answered with no small measure of condescension. “Now, sit down and have a drink. Brandy will be acceptable, won’t it? Or is whiskey more to your taste?”
Adam raised an eyebrow and took the nearest seat. Brandy had been near impossible to get since the outbreak of war. Whiskey, too – especially the high quality ones from Cork. They were extremely hard to come by.
Both things hinted at connections with both France and Ireland.
“Whiskey,” Adam answered and a moment later one was placed to his right.
“You’ll have to forgive our unorthodox methods. Prime Minister Pitt has spies everywhere and I’m sure we have better things to do than swing at the end of a hangman’s noose, right gentlemen? Don’t misunderstand me, Hardacre. We are all patriots here to a man. But we will not obey a mad king or his tyrannical Prime Minister.”
Wilkinson’s impassioned words were met by quiet affirmations by those present. Adam looked around at all of them. These men did not seem like fanatics. They seemed sober and earnest.
Wilkinson continued. “We will not stand by and see men fight in a war for which there is no just cause. Good men; hard working men whose hands are callused by true labor. Good men like you who have been made to suffer indignity, refused a commission that was rightfully yours for no other reason than you weren’t born into the ‘right’ social class.”
As the man spoke, something stirred within Adam, a vestige of resentment, the bitter taste of humiliation he bore for eight long years watching the promotion of men younger and less skilled than himself. His right hand squeezed the glass in it. His bosun’s tattoo stood out starkly.
Adam downed the amber liquid and welcomed the fire in his throat that added fuel to the roiling in his gut.
The role of malcontent seemed made for him and he determined he had a few choice curses for Sir Daniel-Bloody-Ridgeway when he next saw him.
“What can be done of it?” he asked. “Your pretty words and sympathy won’t restore my years or persuade the Royal Navy of their error. My background may be humble, but I’m not a stupid man. The revolution in France starved and slaughtered thousands. What for? They got rid of a king and got an Emperor instead. What makes you think this band of merry men can do better?”
Wilkinson’s lip lifted a fraction.
“That’s more than you need to know.”
Adam set the glass down heavily and shook his head slowly.
“No. Not enough for me to put my neck on the line.”
“Then let’s put it like this, Hardacre – plans are well advanced to usher in a new era that the Radicals have only caught a glimpse of. We have men the length and breadth of the country ready to rise up. You’re not the only man who has much to gain in this.”
“To usher in a Heaven on Earth? I’m not buying it.”
“Then what will you buy?”
Adam focused his attention on the grain of the timber of the table. His mission had been clear – uncover specific information about a secondary plot to invade England, and identify the ringleader.
“A revolution of the type you allude to would need a vast amount of money and organization – more than any individual possesses,” stated Adam. He looked up to see Wilkinson straighten in his seat. “Everyone knows Napoleon has his forces massed at Calais. England waits hour by hour for the invasion to begin. Whoever you’re working for is going to need detailed information about our fleet – numbers of men, orders, tonnage, logistics – and that’s information you’re only going to get from a man on the inside.”
“Men on the inside, Mr. Hardacre,” Wilkinson responded. “That’s why we approached you. You’re obviously very astute but I’m not sure you appreciate how your resignation was received by the men of the lower ranks, and not only aboard your own ship. Word gets about and, from what I hear, ordinary seamen and merchantmen from Penzance to Portsmouth have declared you a hero. These men will talk to you – and gladly – as a friend and a former colleague.”
Adam fixed Wilkinson in the eye. “All right. I can get you your information,” he said. Wilkinson smiled. “But I want in on the planning.” The smile faded a little.
“Really?”
“Why not? I spent twenty years of my life in the Navy – I know how they all think, sailor and officer alike. I’ve done my time as a lackey. I won’t be yours.”
The man’s face firmed to the expression of a man trying not to become angry.
“And your price?”
“A thousand pounds.”
One of the two other men at the table – hitherto silent – sucked in air over his teeth.
“In gold.”
“Is that all, Mr. Hardacre?” Wilkinson asked, more with amusement than amazement.
“It’s enough to buy a house and a couple of fishing boats for my retirement.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Wilkinson shrugged.
Adam smirked. It might sound reasonable to Wilkinson but not to the other men in the room, he would wager.
“And one more thing – when the French come, tell them I want to be left the hell alone.”
“That, too, sounds acceptable.” Wilkinson leaned fully back in his chair, looking more at ease than at any other time during this interview. “But in order to earn your fee, you will have to demonstrate the quality of your information.”
“What is it you want to know?”
Wilkinson slid an envelope toward him.
“The details are in there, along with twenty pounds. Start with the private dockyards in Plymouth. Find out everything you can. On receipt of your personally delivered, comprehensive report, the balance of the first installment of one hundred pounds is yours. You will then be given a second assignment. On the successful execution of that, you will be invited to join our inner circle.”
The major rose to his feet and extended his hand. Adam did likewise. The two men shared a firm handshake.
“We’ll meet again in a fortnight’s time.”
“Where?”
“Are you still staying at the inn at Ponsnowyth?”
Adam confirmed he was with a quick nod.
“You’ll receive word there.”
A man of about Adam’s age, but with reddish hair, had been standing at the fireplace throughout the meeting. Now, he tugged on the bell pull. A moment later, Grunt entered.
“Our guest is ready to leave,” the man at the fireplace said. Adam detected a lilt to his voice but he spoke too few words to guess at his accent.
Grunt held up the Hessian mask and leather ties, and approached. Adam shoved him away angrily.
“Try to put that thing on me again and I’ll slit your throat!”
Grunt bared his teeth and looked ready to charge at him when Wilkinson intervened.
“Put them down, Dunbar. Our guest will be leaving through the front door.”
Adam bared his teeth right back at the thug and stepped around him to follow a footman to the door. Out on the street, he turned and looked up at the building, a typical Georgian townhouse, third along in a terrace of perhaps ten or eleven homes, all flat fronted with chimney stacks at each party wall, three chimney pots per stack. He didn’t linger.
Turning back to the street, Adam looked left and right as if deciding which direction to go in. He went right, the furthest distance to a cross street. He counted the houses as he went. Just as he turned right, Adam glanced back to see if he was being followed yet. He’d bet a crown that he would be trailed from a distance to be sure he left the area. Dunbar was probably waiting at the front door until he reached the end of the block.
That was why he’d chosen the furthest cross street.
Two steps into the street and out of sight of the front door, he suddenly changed pace, hurrying as fast as he could without his rushing footsteps giving the game away. At the back of the terrace, he turned right again and slipped into the darkest shadows of a hedgerow behind the end townhouse.
He waited and, finally, his followers arrived.
“Damn…” Grunt – correction, Dunbar – grumbled to his companion. “Lost him.” Adam was mere feet away. He remained perfectly still. The two men stood at the corner. “I don’t trust the bastard.”
“Just because he brought you down a peg? Don’t be daft. Anyway, he’s not lurking around here. Once he gets his bearings, he’ll probably go down to the pub.”
Dunbar grunted again. The two men turned and went back the way they came.
Adam waited until they were gone then made his way along the back of the terrace, counting the houses again until he reached the back garden of the house he’d been in.
He hunched low in a break in the hedgerow and pulled out his pocket spyglass to train on the house. He could see only one window lit. It wasn’t late – no more than nine o’clock – ten at the outside. Adam guessed if he visited the house by day, he would find it unoccupied. There were many such residences on the Quay whose owners might be absent for months at a time.
Nevertheless, he made note of the location.
Adam entered the tavern hungry and thirsty, and a little bit annoyed to see Harold just sitting there, chatting up one of the barmaids.
He sent the young woman on her way with a barely polite request for a meal and a pint.
“Where the hell did you get to?” he asked. Harold had the good grace to look sheepish. That was something at least.
“Yes, well, the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem right. I know people are angry and want reform, but if the Admiralty got wind of one of their officers having Radical tendencies then it’d be the end of my career.”
Adam’s anger receded like the tide.
“I suppose you’re right.”
There was silence between the two men as a fresh plate of bread and another of roast beef and gravy was set before Adam. An ale quickly followed. He didn’t stand on ceremony. Adam started on his meal with gusto.
And he knew Harold had read his mood right because his friend waited until the better portion of it was consumed before he spoke.
“So, did you go?”
Adam chewed meditatively over a large piece of bread and considered his answer. Should he take his friend into his confidence?
If he was worried about conventional Radical correspondence societies who spoke of nothing more than the “common sense” of the workers, then the young lieutenant ought to be spared from tonight’s call to out-and-out treason.
“I did,” Adam finally admitted. “You’d have detested every minute of it. Pontificating blowhards to a man – and the women who were there were fat and ugly.”
Harold mock shuddered.
“Then you’ve done me a good service, indeed. Perhaps, I can do you one in return.”
“Like what?”
“Give you an excuse to see the rather fetching governess all on her lonesome at Kenstec House again.”
“What makes you think I have a special interest in Olivia Collins?”
Harold shrugged. “Well, maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps, it is she who has taken a fancy, although I can’t imagine what she’d see in an old man like you. At any rate, I’ve set my heart on buying Kenstec and retiring as a county squire. I think it would suit me and I’d need a governess.”
Adam was beginning to grow tired of the conversation.
“You’re not married and you don’t have children; why would you need a governess?”
Harold didn’t immediately respond, so Adam looked up from mopping up gravy from his now empty plate to look directly into his friend’s eyes. They were full of mischief. Adam gave him a sour look.
“Leave the poor woman alone.”
“I can’t think of any good reason why I should.”
“Perhaps you would like me to give you some?”
“And thus our conversation returns full circle,” Harold said, ill-disguising his triumph. “Admit to me you’ve taken a shine to the woman and I promise not to tease you any further.”
“I will not.”
“Then, in that case, you won’t have any objections if I take up the pursuit of her? These lonely spinster governesses are just waiting for any man to make love to them.”
Adam refused to analyze the feeling welling up him – it was good enough to simply call it annoyance.
“You’d be wasting your time,” he replied, putting enough gravity in his voice to alert a sober man that he was about to cross a line.
“Ah-ha!”
And it would appear that Harold wasn’t sober enough.
“Ah-ha nothing,” said Adam through gritted teeth. “She’d see through you in a heartbeat.”
Harold paid no attention. “We’ll see which of us is receiving her favors before too long.”