“Tall fellow. Too many teeth. Thinks himself irresistible to widows.”
“I remember him,” Owen nodded.
“He has a cousin in the Navy Office, and that cousin swears he saw a man answering Carter’s description near the gates of Greenwich Hospital. Not once, either. Twice. The second time, he was coming out of a narrow lane by Church Street, close by the market.”
“Greenwich Hospital,” Owen repeated.
Owen felt the first true lift of hope in days. Until then, Carter had been a rumor walking through fog.
Alive? Perhaps. Near London? Perhaps. Willing to speak? Perhaps not.
But Greenwich Hospital, Church Street, the market … these were places, not shadows. They could be visited. Men could be questioned. Alehouses had ears. Lodging houses kept memories when paid sufficiently for them.
“That narrows it,” Owen echoed.
“Yes, not enough to knock on the fellow’s door by breakfast tomorrow, but enough to make the thing less impossible.”
“Who else knows?”
“Just Marlborough. He thinks it only an old regimental matter. I gave him no reason to imagine otherwise.”
“Good.”
“I am occasionally useful,” Thomas grinned playfully.
“Occasionally.”
Thomas accepted the friendly insult with a small bow. “We might begin with the hospital, though I doubt Carter would lodge there if he wished to remain unseen. More likely he keeps near it. There are taverns, coffee rooms, lodging houses. Men who have served drift where other men have served. They do notalways desire company, but they often desire to be understood without explanation.”
Owen looked at him.
Thomas’s smile thinned. “We are not so different from them, you and I, except that our coats are better cut.”
Owen said nothing to that. He had no wish to be understood quite so accurately before noon.
“We should go quietly,” he urged. “Not together at first, perhaps. Or if together, without drawing attention.”
“You are a marquess,” Thomas observed. “Your very attempt at not drawing attention may draw attention.”
Owen frowned. “We ask after old soldiers, after men from the campaign, after Carter only when it can be done without showing too much interest. We start near Church Street and the market. Taverns first.”
“I shall make a list,” Thomas agreed. “I do love a respectable excuse to enter disreputable establishments.”
Owen almost smiled. The movement came unbidden, not from the search alone, though the search had given him more hopethan he had felt in some time, but from the thought of telling Aurelia. He imagined the light in her eyes when she read the news.
“There it is,” Thomas suddenly said.
“What?” Owen inquired.
“That look.”
“I have no look,” Owen replied defensively.
“You have several. That one,” Thomas actually pointed at him with his finger, “is new.”
Owen reached for his glass. “You are fanciful.”
“I am observant. It is one of the qualities Clara most admires in me.”
