He found himself in a grim sort of purgatory here, where he was Mr. George Thompson rather than the Duke of Trent and he came and went from his rooms without anyone giving a damn whether he lived or died. Hiding in plain sight was one of his gifts as a spy, but that didn’t bloody well mean he liked it, particularly when every speck of information he’d managed to glean from his days of scouring the city and questioning chemists had turned out to be worthless.
He’d yet to uncover evidence of the dynamite factory Carlisle suspected was being run from the city. No large purchases of glycerin, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid—the ingredients required for the creation of dynamite—had been recorded at any of the chemists he’d visited thus far. He was becoming convinced that either Vanreid was using his ships to somehow secret dynamite or the bastards had chosen another city as their base.
With a muttered curse, he stalked to the chipped pitcher and bowl atop an equally battered washstand and splashed water on his face. The man staring back at him in the cracked mirror was a forbidding stranger. Wincing, he peeled away the false mustache affixed to his upper lip.
The removal smarted, but not as much as being away from Daisy did. Each day he was gone from her, unable to contact her, far from her side and her bed where he longed to be, was like a bare blade finding its home in his gut.
Two sharp knocks at his door, followed by a pause and then three more in rapid succession interrupted his thoughts. Using the scrap of toweling by the pitcher and bowl, he dried his face before pivoting and striding back across the chamber. He hesitated only a moment before knocking once on the door.
The person on the other side knocked back in the sign they had prearranged.
Griffin had arrived at last. Feeling a small surge of relief that his friend and comrade had finally joined him, he pulled open the door, careful to keep out of sight lest anyone should see him sans mustache.
His friend raised a golden brow at him as he stepped over the threshold and the door snapped closed at his back. Like Sebastian, he wore plain trousers and a work shirt and jacket. He’d grown a beard, and he rather resembled nothing so much as a Whitechapel thug. “Brother George, is that you?” he deadpanned.
“Of course you must know that it is I, brother John,” he returned, grinning.
They clapped each other on the back solidly.
“It’s good to see you, Bast,” Griffin said. “I’m deuced glad Carlisle decided to pair us up on this one.”
“As am I.” Though they were the best of friends, they had not worked together on many missions. When he’d received word from Carlisle two days prior that Griffin would be joining him, he’d been more than pleased, in spite of their last clash. Griffin had a sharp eye, keen wit, steady hand, and the cool calculation of a seasoned warrior. “Even if it means I’ll be stuck in bloody Liverpool for another fortnight at least.”
Tomorrow, they would move to a new part of the city, take different rooms, and begin Thompson Brothers Chemists. Since Sebastian’s work had thus far uncovered precious little, they were going to act as a lure, selling their goods wholesale below market price. Either the Fenians were purchasing their acids and glycerin in small quantities from a variety of chemists to avoid detection, or they were not in Liverpool at all.
Thompson Brothers should—within a relatively short time frame—give them the means to determine the answer. If the plotters were in Liverpool, it stood to reason that they would purchase more affordable supplies, and it was down to Sebastian and Griffin to monitor the customers and their purchases.
“Liverpool is where we need eyes and ears the most,” Griffin said then. “We’ve word from the consul in Philadelphia that there are plots in the works to blow up public buildings here in the city.”
Sebastian’s blood went cold. “Jesus. The information is reliable?”
Griffin nodded. “It comes directly from the Pinkertons.”
Hell. The Pinkerton Detective Agency’s work was always sound. “I’ve still no evidence that the dynamite is being manufactured here. I’ve run every lead I had to ground, and I’ve come up with nothing.”
“I’m here now, old chap. We’ll find these bastards one way or another and put a stop to them.” Though Griffin’s tone was congenial, his countenance was anything but. His expression was fairly murderous.
“That we will.” He paused then, his thoughts going, inevitably, to Daisy. Christ, what must she think of him? He had wedded her, bedded her, and left with nothing but a terse note and no indication of when he might return. Though he knew his actions were borne of duty rather than callousness, she did not, and the notion had been driving him mad this last fortnight. He longed for her as he never had for another, and though he cursed himself for his weakness, he couldn’t deny it. “Have you any word from London?”
“Bloody fucking hell, Bast. Is this about your American tart?”
His head felt as if it may explode. “She. Is. Not. A. Tart,” he bit out.
“Oh, Christ.” Griffin studied him in his signature, penetrating manner that had made far more worthy opponents than Sebastian tremble in fear. “Never say you fancy yourself… inlovewith the chit.”
He spat the word “love” as though it were a dirty word, something to revile, a bitter taste he couldn’t wait to remove from his tongue.
Heat climbed his throat. Good God. He didn’t flush, and yet… how else to explain the warmth searing his flesh, reaching to even his cheeks? He cleared his throat. “The chit is my wife.”
Griffin’s lips thinned. “Have you forgotten the circumstances that made her your wife?”
“No, goddamn it,” he growled.
Of course he hadn’t forgotten. How could he, when the deceit he’d perpetrated swallowed him whole each time he thought of it? He had spent his entire adult life as a spy, lying to everyone around him. Manipulating, dissembling, using, donning whatever name and disguise he required in the moment. But for the first time, the credo by which he’d lived—anything in the name of the League—no longer sufficed.
“I saw any number of cheeky wenches in the tavern below. You could have your pick of the lot for the night, if that’s what ails you.” Griffin’s gaze was steadfast, unrelenting.
Damn him. “I don’t want to tup a whore,” he bit out. “I’mmarriedto her, by God. I owe her my fidelity, if nothing else.”
