Chapter Sixteen
Adam picked up a pencil and tapped it restlessly on the edge of the desk. Bassett blinked owlishly from behind thick round glasses and scowled.
“Some of us are trying to work, Hardacre!”
He put the pencil down.
“How soon did you say?”
“Two weeks.”
The set of the man’s jaw suggested he wasn’t happy with the shortened timeframe for the delivery of a set of plans for a warship that didn’t actually exist.
“Just preliminary sketches will do. Here,” Adam offered a sheaf of densely inked paper. “I’ve written down the specifications; all you have to do is draw the pretty pictures.”
Bassett let out a put upon sigh and reached for the documents.
“Leave it with me but I’m not going to promise anything.”
“He keeps saying that but he always delivers. Don’t you, Bassett?” Daniel Ridgeway stood at the top of the stairs in the upper room of Charteris House. He shot Adam a grin.
Adam pulled his feet off the forger’s desk and put them down to the floor.
The little man merely grunted a reply.
“I hope you have more to say to me than that, Mr. Bassett.”
At the sound of the feminine voice, Bassett stood bolt upright like a sailor coming to attention. Adam tried hard to suppress a laugh. Then he turned and saw who the voice belonged to and found himself momentarily without words.
He, too, rose to his feet.
The woman before him was beautiful. She had the type of figure and face the artists Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney might war over the honor of immortalizing on canvas – as they had done over Emma Hamilton a decade earlier.
The lady wore a fashionable and expensive walking dress, leaf green and trimmed with white embroidery under the bust. A light mantle sat over her shoulders, the fur trim brushing against her elbows.
Bassett leapt to his feet and rushed over to her. “Your Ladyship! You grace us with your presence,” he exclaimed.
The woman gifted her swain with a smile and a kiss to the forehead which made the man blush down to his boots. Adam couldn’t keep in his amusement any longer. He laughed and found himself under the scrutiny of the woman’s grey-green eyes as she turned to him.
Viewed more closely, Adam saw she was not as youthful as she first appeared. Her white-blonde hair – one of her most striking features – was streaked with silver-grey. Around her catlike eyes showed faint traces of lines. Adam decided she might be his age, or even slightly older.
“My dear,” said Ridgeway, approaching, “let me introduce you to our latest recruit, Adam Hardacre.”
Adam had forgotten Ridgeway was even in the room. And it hadn’t gone unnoticed. A faint smile played around the older man’s lips.
“Hardacre, you have the honor of meeting my wife, Lady Abigail. My dear – Lieutenant Adam Hardacre.”
Before Adam knew what he was doing, he found himself taking her proffered hand and bowing formally over it.
Then the thought occurred to him: Ridgeway’s wife knew about this operation? The question must have shown itself plainly on his face because the lady answered.
“Yes, you are not mistaken, Lieutenant. I’m part of what my husband likes to term ‘The King’s Rogues.’ I’m afraid intrigue is our family business.” She leaned in conspiratorially but with clear amusement in her eyes. “You might be surprised how much a man will tell a pretty woman – especially if she is an attentive listener – and how much a woman will reveal to another if they are confidantes.”
Ridgeway laughed and went to his desk. He pulled out a chair for her. She thanked him not only with words but also with a look and a smile that seemed to Adam more a private exchange between lovers than husband and wife.
Bassett, meanwhile, looked on as if about to swoon then collapsed back into his own chair as Lady Abigail sat.
She looked at Adam. “I have some news that is of interest to you, Lieutenant,” she said. “I’ve recently returned from London after making inquiries on your behalf about the girl, Constance Denton.”
Adam glanced at Ridgeway who nodded mutely to confirm he had assigned the inquiry to his wife.
“The information you received from…” Lady Abigail frowned a moment in recollection, “…Miss Olivia Collins was quite correct. Constance was delivered of a boy on the twelfth of May 1794, and she died of childbed fever ten days later, but not before giving the child a name. Christopher John Hardacre.”
Adam reeled with the news. A son! Somewhere out there was a boy who bore his name. Indeed, if he had survived infancy, he’d be a young man of nineteen or twenty now. Christopher John Hardacre.
Lady Abigail continued, “I should point out that my contacts and I are not the only ones who have been inquiring into your past.”
“Who?” The question came from Ridgeway, his tone serious. She addressed her answer to him. Any residue of flirtatious amusement was gone, her husky voice now sober.
“They don’t know, but the request for information came from the superintendent himself who simply said he’d received a letter from a family connection.”
“Do we know who?”
The lady shook her head. “I’ve asked my contacts to find out. It could be a relative, although twenty years is a long time to be following up on a long-lost connection. Perhaps, some article clerk is being thorough in trying to track down the remaining heirs since the squire’s death.”
“Then that has to be someone here in Truro. Isn’t that’s one of the local men, Denton’s family lawyer?”
“Peter Fitzgerald,” said Adam.
Two sets of eyes, one pair grey-green, the other blue, looked at him expectantly.
“I suppose it makes sense. He’s the family’s lawyer. I met him briefly about a month ago. Through Olivia…Miss Collins…I know he’s dealing with probate on behalf of the family. He’s an officious fellow, but harmless enough.”
“Be mindful of him anyway,” Ridgeway instructed.
Lady Abigail rose and so did every man in the room. She kissed her husband on the cheek.
“Will you be home early? Marie and her friend are expected back from boarding school this afternoon.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ve missed our petite-fille since she didn’t come home for the Easter holidays.”
Again, the Ridgeways shared a look – one of a husband and wife, of proud father and mother, and yet of lovers still. For a moment, Adam wondered if he would swoon like Bassett – or become violently ill, a cynical voice inside offered.
He swallowed that voice down.
“Is there any way of finding out what happened to the boy?” The question came unbidden before Adam could censor it.
He now had Ridgeway’s full attention.
“Are you sure you want all that trouble?”
Adam glanced to the floor briefly. “You’re right – it was so long ago. Perhaps I am better off believing he was adopted by a good family and is earning an honest trade somewhere.”
Ridgeway gave him a look that was not without sympathy. “It’s a good fantasy to have – the last thing you’d want to learn is that he was hung as a murderer at Tyburn.”
The furrows between Adam’s eyebrows ran deep.
“Think it likely?”
Ridgeway gave a noncommittal raise of his shoulders.
“It depends on how much like his father he was.”
The Angler’s Arms barn was dressed for the troyl. Swags of greenery festooned the walls, studded with posies of wildflowers of white, yellow and shades of pink. Outside, a pig was roasting on a spit, the smell of which was already making Adam famished.
He had been looking forward to this event all week. Frankly, it was exhausting to be on alert all the time; mindful of every action in case one is watched, and watching everyone else around you, looking for a hint they might be a spy and a traitor.
But tonight was all about the simple pleasure of a country dance among friends, where he could give himself over to the moment without reserve. It would be like furlough.
He settled himself on the edge of an unopened barrel by a door near the back of the inn.
He noticed Will lurking around the back of the kitchen. They shared a nod. No doubt, the young man was waiting for his mother and one of her maids to leave in order to help himself to one of the fairings, a crisp, sweet and spicy ginger biscuit that had been left out to cool.
A moment later, the lad lunged out of sight a moment before emerging with two of the delicious morsels. Adam was surprised to find himself presented with half of the spoils.
The young man grinned at him.
“If Mamb catches me, I’ll tell her ye were the pilferer, then I won’t get a clip around the ear for it.”
Adam laughed. “Don’t be so sure your mother won’t give me a pinch for it either, so we’d better eat these now and leave no evidence.”
“William Bartholomew Trellow!”
The young man jumped and then winced at the sound of his full name being yelled in top voice by his mother.
“Make yourself scarce, Will. I’ll try to delay her for as long as possible,” Adam said with mock urgency.
Will didn’t require a second invitation. Adam chuckled as he watched the large young man sprint down the length of the barn and nearly lose his balance skidding on loose gravel as he rounded the corner.
He heard the sound of a woman’s footsteps and was conscious of the fairing in his hand, the smell of warm ginger reaching his nose. For a half-moment, he considered taking off after Will.
Instead, he turned, waiting to face his punishment like a man. But instead of seeing the thunderous face of Polly Trellow, he saw a vision of beauty. He immediately got to his feet.
Olivia smiled at him nervously and lightly brushed the back of her hand down the skirt of her cream dress embroidered with flowers of light blue, pink and green.
Adam held up the filched fairing. “Share this with me?”
Olivia shook her head. “Miss Lydia made a gift of this dress when she left and this is the first time I’ve worn anything so fine. I’m afraid I’ll spill something and spoil it.”
He took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. He loved the way her lips parted when he did that. The dress was flattering to be sure, he considered, but it was still only a dress.
“It is only the wearer who can make a piece of fabric and thread look so fine,” he told her and she blushed.
As far as he was concerned, Olivia could be wearing nothing at all and still be beautiful. His mind conjured an image of that possibility. Not helpful at this point in time, he told himself.
He enjoyed seeing her blush as well and considered teasing her about it, but the local band of men and women with guitars, violins, flutes, and concertinas began to arrive to start setting up in their allocated corner of the barn.
Adam offered his arm to Olivia and left the musicians to a discussion about which song they should begin with.
*
Olivia welcomed the arrival of the musicians. She felt the heat of her blush stain her cheeks, not simply from Adam’s compliments – after all, pretty words could be had for a ha’penny – but rather, it was the look in his eyes as he said them to her.
She accepted his arm and they walked in silence onto the high street and down toward the green.
He’d only been gone for a little over a week, but she’d missed him even though she had plenty enough to do with a final packing of her belongings and moving into the inn.
Before she left Kenstec for the last time, Olivia had offered a farewell to Constance, even though folklore said ghosts only haunted the place where the spirits left their bodies.
All this week, she was struck by the sensation of time slipping through her fingers. It seemed that once the summer was over, all that would be left to her was a lifetime of bleak winter.
“How is your new job in Plymouth?” she asked. Adam was silent a moment.
“It feels good to be doing something useful again,” he answered.
“I imagine it must feel strange after having been at sea for so many years.”
Adam offered a winning smile. “At least I can help make the ships more resilient and more maneuverable.”
“All the more important for the war effort.” Olivia hadn’t though anything of her answer but she was surprised to see Adam’s expression harden briefly. Perhaps he did wish he was back on his ship. Maybe he worried about his friends still serving.
The silence between them stretched on until even the music from the band’s rehearsal reached them.
“Tell me about you,” said Adam. “Have you had any replies to the inquiry letters you sent?”
For a horrible moment, she wondered whether he knew about her letter to St. Thomas’ Hospital until she realized that he was talking about her applications for a new position as governess.
“No, not yet. Perhaps, by the end of summer…” her voice trailed off. The end of summer. She mentally shook her head to re-gather her thoughts.
“Olivia?”
Adam was wearing that intense look once more and little pleasurable butterflies in her stomach fluttered.
“I have a question to ask—”
She was struck by the similarity – a private meeting in a park, where the result was a proposal of marriage. She held her breath.
“—Did you see Squire Denton’s will?”
Olivia blinked rapidly. The will? “Uh, no, I didn’t actually see it. But I was at the reading of it.”
“Were all the beneficiaries named?”
What a strange turn this conversation was taking.
“I imagine so,” she replied. “The bulk of the estate went to Miss Lydia as heir. There was a residue for Mistress Caroline, and small bequests to the butler, the housekeeper, the Ponsnowyth church, and to me.”
“But to no other members of the family other than the widow and daughter?”
She frowned. “There are no other family members. That’s one of the reasons why the house is being sold. There’s no one with the Denton name left to inherit.”
She watched him take in her words and waited for additional explanation but none was forthcoming. Twilight had deepened, making it difficult to see his full expression.
“Perhaps we should return,” he said. “The pork smells delicious, and I find myself famished.”
She nodded and started back toward the inn without waiting for Adam to offer his arm.
Olivia warred with herself.
She was annoyed, although she had no right to be. In fact, she wasn’t even sure who she was annoyed at. Was it at Adam, who had taken what she thought was a romantic moment and reduced it to an interrogation on Squire Denton’s will? Or was it at herself for being such a silly romantic fool in the first place?
Adam had fallen in step with her but was keeping a respectable distance between them. Her curiosity still burned deep.
“Why did you ask about the will?”
For three solid paces, his only reply was gravel crunching underfoot.
“I wanted to see if Beaufort Denton remembered his eldest daughter,” he said at last.
Olivia was grateful the darkening sky hid her embarrassment. Of course, Adam would want to know whether Constance was remembered in her father’s will.
She was ashamed she hadn’t considered the same thing herself. Squire Denton might have left a bequest for a marker for Constance’s final resting place. But no. Bitter to the end, the squire had cast off his daughter as completely as a worn out pair of shoes and abandoned her mortal remains to an unmarked grave.
But there was more than just Constance. There was her son.
Their son.
Perhaps, it was Adam’s way of asking whether the child survived infancy. She chanced a glance his way. He was walking at her side, eyes ahead but thoughts a thousand miles away, no doubt.
She thought of the letter she had sent to the superintendent of St. Thomas’ Hospital. Should she tell him of it? Would he hate her for meddling in something that was no business of hers?