North,
I need a favor and it is not, unfortunately, small.
First, it involves riding immediately to Blackwall in the rain. Apologies to your wife for the intrusion and to your valet for the rain.
Second, it will mean standing down a lot of smugglers. I know your Foreign Office days are behind you, but surely you can dredge up some manner of authority and menace in the name of protecting Avenelle’s finest from a life of crime. I’ll explain when I meet you, but trust that I would not ask this if it was not essential.
I’m setting out from Pollen Street at eight o’clock, bound for Poplar High Street. There is an abandoned mews at the corner where the High Street connects with Naval Way. Meet me there.
I anticipate no riots and no need for the local garrison, but God knows I’ve been wrong before. I’d not mention it except we all know that the promise of unrest is an incentive in your view.
In all seriousness, I’ll owe you, Northumberland, if you’ll help me sort this.
Yours,
Lachlan
His friend, he was certain, would come. North had been forced to give up his Foreign Office work when he inherited his own dukedom, and North missed the action and diplomacy of spy craft. Ian hoped their encounter would be almost entirely diplomacy with very little action, but there were no guarantees.
If Ian questioned whether it was appropriate to use thesamesalutation for both his friend and his wife—“Yours”—he didn’t ponder it for long.He had no time.He sealed and labeled the second letter, changed clothes in haste, and wrestled into riding boots without the assistance of his errant valet.
Pruitt appeared only as Ian was bolting out the door. The valet was trudging to his bedchamber, his face shiny, his hair damp, holding a steaming bucket of hot water. Behind him, a line of housemaids held their own steaming buckets.
“My God, Pruitt, what are you about?” Ian said, barely stopping. “I’ve been searching for a quarter hour. Put that down. I need you to locate my wife. Give her this note. After that, find Greenly and have him send a boy to the London residence of the Duke of Northumberland withthisnote.”
“But, Your Grace—” tried the steam-dampened valet, carefully setting down the sloshing bucket.
“Not now, Pruitt, please. I haven’t time to debate it.”
And then, without a backward glance, he strode down the landing and was gone.
Five hours later, Ian trudged back to Pollen Street, exhausted, jittery, soaked to the bone. He entered through the stable door, stomping mud from his boots.
The house was warm, and the heat made the cold feel more pronounced. He was racked, intermittently, with shivers, but this was not the cold. This was the stress of the night leaving his body. Good riddance. Lord, what a night.
He’d made it to Blackwall in advance of his tenants. Loring had been waiting, and he’d reported the smugglers were lurking about their boat, clearly anticipating some arrival. So far, there’d been no sign of the caravan from Dorset.
Northumberland had arrived next, God bless him, pretending to be inconvenienced. It was a shallow act. Ian could tell he’d been delighted to receive a summons to tangle with smugglers in the middle of the night.
Ian had explained the circumstances and they’d agreed on their tactic. Broach the smugglers sedately, with due coolness. Threaten with chilling authority. Finally, extract a vow of cooperation. Northumberland no longer had jurisdiction to arrest them, but he could invoke the names of customs officials who could; he could also threaten to board their small craft to examine what other contraband they might harbor.
In short, North had been the villain of the operation and Ian was to play their savior. He would interject thathe wanted no trouble, that he had no desire to search their boat; he wanted only the smugglers’ vow that they would keep away from his tenants, have no future designs on their lace, and if possible, be gone by the time the caravan arrived from Dorset.
If this was a vow they could give him, he and Northumberland had planned to walk away. If no such vow could be made by the smugglers, or if they didn’t trust their compliance, then North would summon former colleagues and actual arrests would commence.
In the end, Ian had barely introduced himself and Northumberland before the smugglers were unmooring lines and loosening sails.
They’d easily,happilyvowed to disappear—from Blackwall this night, but also from the lives of Avenelle lace makers forever.
If Their Graces would be so kind as to forget they’d ever encountered them, the smugglers had claimed other pressing business in Margate, and off they shoved. Good evening to you. You’ve seen nothing of interest here. Many happy returns of the day.
“In a storm?” North had asked the captain, annoying Ian—let them go for God’s sake—but North had been so very amused by their scurried departure.
The smugglers had assured them that the clandestine nature of their work lent itself to sailing in all manner of weather; and they knew when to set out and when to remain.
Tonight, they’d preferred to set out. Urgently.
And that... had been that.
