“Lise!”
“Henrik!”she said, joy at seeing him making her rush toward him.“What brings you home?Has something happened?”Before he could answer, she was folding her brother in an embrace.
Lise hoped it meant the war with France had ended, but his stiff stance indicated otherwise, as did his grave expression when she drew back to look at him.
“Is Papa here?”he asked.“I didn’t see him indoors.”
“He and Mama are on their way to the Albrecht estate.Papa decided the honorable thing to do was to meet with Friedrich’s parents again, rather than using him as a courier.They’ve taken the signedEhevertragin person.”
Lise couldn’t help the morose tone to her voice.However, her brother’s grim countenance took precedence over her own heartache.“Henrik, what’s wrong?”she demanded.
He shook his head, looking weary.“I need to sit.”
Immediately linking her arm through his, she turned him back toward the house.“Then you will sit and drink coffee while we talk.”She leaned her head against his shoulder.“You are here with me and healthy.Nothing else can matter as much to me as that.”
As they went along the passageway to the drawing room, she called out to their housekeeper for coffee and cake.
“Please, Henrik,” Lise said, as soon as he’d leaned back in the most comfortable chair.“What has happened?”
“I have confidential news from Lübeck.”Henrik’s gaze fixed on hers.“An Englishman has been captured by the French.A surveyor.”
The room seemed to tilt.Lise was seated and yet she felt instantly light-headed.Her heart clenched at the same time as a lump formed in her throat.“When?”she asked.
“Five days ago, maybe six now.One of the servants at the manor where he’s being held has a cousin in the KGL.Word reached our camp this morning.”Henrik ran a hand through his hair.“They’re claiming he is a spy.That he was making maps to aid the British in getting goods out of Europe and their army into it.”
“Do they know who he is?”Lise’s words came out as barely a whisper.
Henrik shrugged, as the refreshments were brought in.He waited until Anna left the room.
“Jonathan must have had papers on him, of course.Who knows what name he was using, but he wouldn’t have given any indication he was an earl’s son.”He paused and sipped his coffee.“The servant’s description sounded like him, though, and I believe he was doing survey work in the region.”
She nodded, feeling shocked beyond words.She shouldn’t be.After all, Jonathan was engaged in a dangerous activity.He knew the risks.The fact that the heir to an earldom was taking those risks on behalf of his countrymen, if not for her own people, lifted him in her esteem even further.
“Our parents have met him twice and liked him,” she told Henrik.“Mama thought he seemed like a resourceful man.We hosted him for dinner, did you know?”
“I didn’t know.I’m pleased they met him and had a favorable impression.”He took a piece of cake, although he didn’t seem to notice what he was doing.“There could be other British mapmakers,” he suggested, yet his voice lacked conviction.
“How many Englishmen do you suppose are wandering Holstein with surveying equipment?”she snapped.Then immediately softened her tone.“It’s Lord Bowen.It has to be.He was here.Recently.Hiding in the hay loft.”
Henrik’s mouth dropped open.Then he sighed.“He is a good man, and a brave one.No one can deny that.”
“Why did you come here?”she asked.“What can be done?”Without waiting for an answer, she thought out loud.“Perhaps Captain Albrecht would allow you to go to Lübeck?Not officially, of course.Not with a detachment intent on a skirmish.But merely to determine ...,” she trailed off as Henrik shook his head.
“I already asked him,” Henrik informed them.“Captain Albrecht said that was a waste of his troops.That we can’t risk stirring up trouble for an English spy.”
“But the KGL is a part of the British Army.Surely, if Colonel Ashworth knew that Jonathan ...Lord Bowen, I mean, had been captured, he would want any of you in the area to try to free him.”
“Not if it meant firing shots, Lise.Only diplomatic means may be used, but not by a KGL soldier.Anything else could have dire consequences and escalate the tensions, destroying the currently peaceful state of affairs.”
“Peaceful,” she muttered.“More like intolerable.While Bonaparte tries to control the entire Continent and starve the British in the process.”Then she recalled something that might help.“Friedrich has been visiting almost weekly.”She tried to sound pleased.“He told me he has purchased a house in Lübeck.”
Henrik’s eyebrows rose.“How on earth did he manage that?What work does he do to earn such a sum?”
“I don’t really know.It was a seized property of someone who as fled to Britain, if I understood him rightly.Maybe it wasn’t too expensive, given the circumstances.”Distasteful, egregious circumstances.What if her family were tossed out of their home?Would someone like Friedrich cheerfully buy it and move in?“Perhaps you could visit him.”
“I told you I can’t.Captain Albrecht forbids it at present.But when I told him that I thought I knew the Englishman, he allowed me to come speak to Papa.I hoped with our standing as one of the oldest families in Holstein, our father could write to the authorities in Lübeck and vouch for Jonathan.Tell them that he is truly a surveyor and not a spy.”
But he was a spy, even if she and Henrik couldn’t say it.
