“You were not a great deal of help, but you planted a seed. He got the point. ‘Disreputable types prey on honest gentlemen.’ We can’t have it!’”
“Why not simply rail against slavery? You have the passion for it,” Jamie told him.
“For the same reason I won’t run for office. They don’t care,” Andrew explained. “The ones who will vote for the bill because slavery is evil don’t need persuading. We have to find ways to win the other votes.”
Jamie dropped into a chair next to his friend, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.
“Will it never end?” he moaned.
“The rain will stop eventually if that is what you mean,” Andrew replied reasonably. When Jamie didn’t answer he went on. “Nora—you love her.”
“Yes.” He didn’t open his eyes.
“Does she know about the Avante?” Andrew asked.
“No.”
“Ah. Do you plan to tell her?” his friend went on.
“I have no choice. If I don’t tell her everything, there is no hope for us at all,” Jamie said.
“And if you do?”
“There still may be no chance for us, but I’ll have tried.” Jamie understood that now. Truth, open and total truth, held his only hope.
The door to the inn exploded open, and an odd little man wrapped in coats and dripping buckets stood just inside. Jamie sat straight up and turned with Andrew to gape.
“Mr. Harvey?” he asked. He had never seen the Duke of Sudbury’s secretary quite so travel-worn or quite so wet.
“The very one, sir, and glad I am to see you. Glad indeed.” The little man bustled over to the fire and began to rub his hands. “Searched for you at every inn from the waterfront at Portsmouth up the length of road until the rain stopped me at a snug little inn a short distance from this one. Better than this one, I must say!”
Harvey looked around himself, disapproval on every line of his round little face. “I began to worry you hadn’t left London. His Lordship was anxious, very anxious that you meet the Honorable Mr. Emmet on your way.”
“He needn’t have,” Jamie said bitterly. “Emmet is the reason we stopped at this foul establishment.”
“Ah. I did wonder, sir. Not His Grace’s usual, not at all.”
“Nor mine,” drawled Andrew, “but you may tell your employer we did as he bid.”
“Very good, sirs, but that isn’t why I was sent to fetch you, no indeed.”
Jamie waited; he dreaded what he might hear.
“What then?” Andrew asked.
“Why, Lord Ross’s ship, sir!”
Dear God. It sailed without him. It might take a week to book another. Jamie leaned forward. “Is it gone?” he asked.
“No, but it sails with the tide tomorrow, sir. I was worried, what with the weather. Carriages can’t manage the roads. I brought horses.”
Jamie leapt to his feet, crossed the room in four strides, and threw open the door. The rain lessened somewhat. He could go. He could go to Nora and get it over with once and for all.
Long wet hours later, Jamie shivered on the Portsmouth docks with Andrew and Richard, who met them looking dry and elegant as always. The ever-efficient Harvey hovered nearby.
Jamie hated long good-byes. His mother had clung to him when they parted, but he thought relief and gratitude had as much to do with it as sorrow.
“I may not be back to England.”
