Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the time Adam had run downstairs, Harold and his companion had been escorted inside and into the dining room.
Harold saw him. “Adam! What the hell is going on here?”
He only spared a glance at Harold. There, surrounded by the Society, was Olivia. Her eyes were wide, but she showed more composure than her escort.
Hell and Damnation!
One misstep would be all it would take for Adam to lose the trust of Wilkinson and after today’s incident, Dunbar would look for any excuse to foment just that.
Now he really would have to play the part of traitor if he – not to mention Olivia and Harold – had any chance at all.
He folded his arms and looked at his old friend with regret.
“You should have left when you were told, Harold.”
His friend’s mouth opened in shock. Harold turned to Wilkinson. “I demand you release me and Miss Collins immediately!”
“Sadly, I cannot let that be the case,” said the major. “You will have to be our guests for a few days.”
“No, sirrah, I will not!” Harold pronounced.
Black Angus backhanded him. Harold stumbled a step with a gasp of pain. Adam winced inwardly. Olivia brought her hands to her mouth to suppress a cry of alarm.
“Now that is a pity,” said Wilkinson. “I was prepared to treat you well and leave you unharmed when we all abandon England’s shores in a four days’ time.”
What? That was news to him.
He glanced at Olivia and saw something in her eyes that told him this unexpected trip to France was not news to her, but she remained silent.
“Perhaps I should take Miss Collins into the kitchen, while you have words with the lieutenant there,” said Adam, forcing as much nonchalance in his voice as he could.
“You know this woman?” asked Wilkinson.
Adam nodded, noting that Dunbar had said nothing and still carried the same gormless look on his ugly mug. If the man had noticed his interest in Olivia at the barn dance, he hadn’t thought to tell Wilkinson.
“She was the governess here until the family moved to London. She was staying at the Angler’s Arms while I was there. We spoke a few times.”
“Then go ahead. Make her a cup of tea or something. I want to make a few things perfectly clear to your friend here. But if you’re thinking of helping the lady to escape, then it will be all the worse for Lieutenant Bickmore.”
Adam offered a curt nod. He fought the desire to show any particular chivalry as he ushered Olivia from the room. Safer for all of them if he remained aloof.
When the kitchen door closed behind them, she let out a sigh of relief. Adam gave her a swift embrace before stoking the fire and settling the kettle on the stove. Wilkinson had said to make tea and if anyone walked in, that’s exactly what they were going to find him doing.
“We don’t have long to talk,” he said softly. “Tell me how you and Harold came to be here.”
“I don’t trust him.”
He turned. Olivia sat at the kitchen bench, her shawl clutched tight about her shoulders even though it was warm.
“Why?”
“A feeling. I can’t explain it.”
Adam offered her a reassuring smile “I’ve known Harold for ten years. He’s stood by me when everyone else walked away. Is that enough to give him the benefit of the doubt?”
Olivia took a deep breath and nodded.
“Then I hope he’s not taking too many lumps and he keeps his trap shut about you and me. Now, tell me everything from the beginning.”
In low tones, she told him about her meeting with Ridgeway and Lady Abigail, Fitzgerald’s conversation with an unknown Frenchman, meeting Harold in Truro, and his insistence they stop at Kenstec House.
Adam prepared the cups while he considered what she told him. So Fitzgerald was in on it. He cursed the old snake, and prayed that once Ridgeway discovered Olivia hadn’t arrived back at the inn from Truro he would begin a search. But until then, as far as Adam was concerned they were on their own.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to play along with them. If, for any reason, we’re apart, be sure to stay with Harold or with the leader, Wilkinson. He considers himself a gentleman. Keep away from the rest of them if you can.”
*
Olivia shuddered but nodded her head to let Adam know she understood.
“I fear what will happen if Mr. Fitzgerald comes here,” she said. “As soon as he sees me, he may suspect I overheard his conversation. And he’ll certainly reveal how…close you and I are.”
Adam held out his hand and gave hers a squeeze, but he didn’t draw any closer.
“I suspect Fitzgerald prefers to keep himself at arm’s length. The man is not a true believer, not like Wilkinson. What was he promised? Gold?”
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. It was payment at any rate.”
“I asked for a thousand pounds in gold,” Adam added with a wink before bringing his attention back to the stove to check on the heating kettle.
She smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood, but she suspected Adam’s confidence was chiefly for her benefit.
“The new moon is in three days’ time, unless our friends do something soon, you’ll be on the Channel at the turn of the tide. You can’t let them take you to France,” she said.
“I won’t,” he said, his back still to her. “Besides, I don’t speak the bloody language.”
Adam turned back with a large steaming kettle in his hand and filled the teapot. “I need to talk to Harold, but they’ll have him locked away. If I convince him I’m not a traitor, we might have half a chance of breaking out of here.”
Olivia let her disquiet settle. Adam would never abandon his friend, but he thought of the lieutenant more kindly than she could.
Harold’s brash and self-confident nature was amusing at first but she was never quite sure whether he was mocking her. His insistence in overriding her wish to head straight to the Angler’s Arms was another thing she didn’t appreciate. And now after the shock of his foolhardy actions had ebbed, Olivia wondered whether it was not done on purpose.
A man burst through the door without warning. Olivia started but managed to keep her tea cup upright.
“Dunbar, you have the grace of an ox,” said Adam with an exaggerated put-upon sigh.
“Watch yer mouth, ye—”
“Uh-uh, mind your language in front of the lady.”
This Dunbar man looked familiar, but she didn’t look at him for long. Better not to make eye contact with him.
“Wilkinson wants to see ye and the lady.”
Wilkinson was not a man who looked like a traitor, Olivia thought. But then, neither did Peter Fitzgerald. Wilkinson looked like what he was, a retired military man; he had that air of authority. The major sat alone at the end of the table.
“Miss Collins, once again I wish to apologize for the inconvenience of keeping you here for a few days, and I will do my best to ensure your stay is comfortable under the circumstances,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.” She said the words but didn’t mean them. Gratitude was the last thing she felt. She ought to denounce him as a traitor and call him to shame. But she did not. She took her cue from Adam. There was something to be said for being not deemed a threat to threatening people. Let Wilkinson believe she would be meekly compliant.
Behind her, Adam asked, “What happened to Bickmore?”
“I’m afraid he’s not been very cooperative. We’ve got him tied up and locked upstairs in one of attic rooms.”
“I believe the room I’m in is Miss Collins’ old room. She can have it back until we’re ready to move on,” said Adam. “How about she waits in the study while I move out of there. She can select a book or two to read – with your permission, that is.”
Wilkinson shook his head. “Very chivalrous of you, Hardacre, but one of the others will escort the woman to her quarters later. Just take her to the study and lock her in. You have work to do. Our signal station has to be ready by tomorrow evening and I don’t care if you have to work all night tonight to do it.”
One touch of Adam’s hand to her elbow was enough to communicate his tension. She allowed him to lead her to the study without protest. She looked about at the place where she had spent hours poring over records of Kenstec House. Now that memory would be forever changed.
Adam leaned in and whispered in her ear.
“When it’s safe, get the house master key – the one you used when we first explored the tower room. If it’s there, take it. I’ll knock on your door tonight. We’ll free Harold. We can buy him some time to go and get help.”
Olivia nodded. “Be safe, my love.”
She watched his face soften.
“I promise.”
She kept her eyes on Adam as he left the room, closing and locking the door after him from the outside.
The day had softened with the shades of twilight but there was still enough light to see without setting a lamp. She went straight to the mantel over the fireplace and found the papier-mâché box she had returned to the study when she moved out of the house.
Sure enough, the master key was still inside.
Olivia tied it in a knot in the hem of her chemise and picked a book at random before approaching the desk to examine what appeared to be a booklet, amongst other papers. Although the light was not the best, there was enough to make out that it was in French not English.
She slipped the little volume into the back of the book she had taken down. Like it or not, she was now a spy. Her act of rebellion against her captors was daring, it emboldened her.
No longer would she live her life in fear or with half-measures, she vowed.
No longer would she take the safe option if it was not the right one.
It was strange. For some reason, she was no longer afraid of seeing Peter Fitzgerald again. Her future was in jeopardy no matter what, so she may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
*
Adam was bone weary but he pushed on with the construction of the rooftop signal station. If he was noisy about his work, then no one would come to check on him. Indeed, so late in the night, they’d likely appreciate it if he stopped.
He wasn’t sure of the time, but looking up through the roof hatch, he could see some of the constellations in the clear summer night sky. The chill air that flooded through told him it had to be well after midnight.
He’d already had the signal tower up once and taken it down again to make adjustments. Now it worked smoothly and better than Wilkinson and his cohort deserved.
He grasped the rope that extended the center mast and pulled. Through a system of pulleys, two of the upright beams slid up a wooden rail on the fixed lower beam. When they arrived at the top, the beam notched into place. Adam changed ropes and his pulley system lifted the third beam atop the second. Then it was just a matter of going up the ladder and releasing the hinged cross beams that dropped into position like spars on a ship’s mast.
Each of the three levels of spars carried hooks for three lanterns. Nine lamps in all. Adam wondered what the French codes would be.
If he were genuinely finishing now for the night, he’d fold the arms in and drop the sectioned mast down into the room out of sight, then close the hatch against the open sky. But the signal tower was going to be used tonight after all…
He descended the stairs with a cat-like grace. A sliver of light spilled out from under Olivia’s door. He scratched at the door, not even daring anything as loud as a knock. As soon as the door opened, he slipped around and closed it behind him.
He expected to find Olivia frightened but, by contrast, her eyes were bright with excitement.
“I found something!” she whispered.
Adam fought his disquiet and approached.
“What is it?”
“It’s a French code book. It was on the desk in the study. I don’t think anyone has discovered it missing yet!”
“Can you read it? Are you sure it’s not a translation of an English one?”
“I wouldn’t know. I suppose it could be, but more than that, there are handwritten notes in the back, a list of some kind. Names and figures.”
“Let me see.”
Olivia handed him the book.
The list was fascinating. Even though it was in French, he recognized it as a list of ships – French and Spanish – and their capitaines. The figures appeared to be tonnage, numbers of crew and guns on board. There were thirty-three vessels in all.
This was a list of an Armada. In his head, Adam rattled through the names of all the ships of the English fleet currently on deployment. To his best of his recollection, Admiral Nelson would be lucky to muster twenty-five – twenty-seven at most.
If the Fleet was defeated, England’s final line of defense went with it. Napoleon would be unstoppable; an invasion inevitable.
His stomach sank.
Ridgeway needed to see this. And that was an understatement. Ridgeway needed to see this as soon as possible, even if it ended any chance of maintaining a pretense that Adam was part of the Society.
Not a too bad option as far as he personally was concerned. If they wanted to take him to France, he knew he wouldn’t live to see England again.
Well, the signal tree was intended to pass messages to a French vessel at sea each night from tomorrow, but it would make its debut tonight with a signal to Falmouth.
“Time to go,” he told Olivia. “I need to get you and Harold out of here and set a lantern signal on the tower.”
Adam removed a penknife from his boot and handed it to her. “Here. It’s not much but it’s something in a pinch.”
She nodded gamely. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you, Olivia. Will you marry me?”
To his delight, she grinned. “Ask me again when you get us out of here safely.”