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Alec heaved a silent sigh. That was the trouble. Without the complete truth, his story didn't sound better than the rumors. I didn’t betray my country, but I did become a spy for the Home Office. He could all too easily picture Julia flying into a temper at someone in town, responding to someone's sly comments about him with rash statements that only set fire to the smoldering rumors. Being known as Sidmouth’s man might be even worse than being thought a traitor.

Hard times after the war had caused unrest, and calls for reform. The Home Office sent out agents to keep track of the most dangerous agitators. Some of those agents had crossed the line from collecting information to deliberately stirring up rage against the government before sending in the constables to arrest everyone. It had culminated in a plot to assassinate members of the Cabinet several months ago, where it came out that one of the conspirators was actually in Sidmouth’s employ. During the trial, the lead conspirator, Arthur Thistlewood, even claimed that the spy, George Edwards, had instigated the entire plot and enticed the rest of them into it.

The idea of a government agent exciting ordinary, if disaffected, Englishmen into sedition and rebellion had caused an uproar, and some Whig politicians had called for a Parliamentary committee to investigate. The government responded by helping Edwards flee, which only reinforced the appearance of criminality.

No, announcing himself an agent of the Home Office wouldn't have the exculpatory effect Julia might expect.

"I can't, Julia," he said at last. "There are things I don't know myself. I swear to you I never dealt with the French. But the rest of it. . . " He lifted one hand and let it fall. "It might not comfort you as much as you think."

Her face grew wooden. "No," she said, her voice tight and clipped. "I see that now. Forgive me for prying into your affairs." She snapped the reins and the horse leapt forward.

Alec watched her go. Perhaps that had been another wrong decision. He felt as though he’d been boxed into several of them lately. Or perhaps there were no more right decisions for him anymore. Perhaps it was no longer possible for him to be anything but a spy, keeping his troubles to himself and fading from sight when his job was done.

Except Stafford had sent him home, thrusting his true name and old disgrace back upon him, and he no longer had the luxury of fading from sight.

With a sigh he started toward Penford. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Chapter Nine

June 1816

London

* * *

The man he had come to meet was late.

Alec took a swallow of ale and scanned the room again. This fellow, Mr. Phipps, was supposed to be here by seven o’clock. Alec had arrived half an hour before that, and waited close to an hour now. If he hadn’t been reduced to desperate measures, he would have been gone before the clock finished striking the hour.

He sighed and gazed into his tankard. That was a lie. If he weren’t in this position, he wouldn’t have come here at all, let alone still be waiting for a man who might have nothing to offer him. He didn’t even know what the offer would be, since James Peterbury had told him little when he arranged this meeting.

“Just listen to him,” James had urged. “I think he could help us.”

Alec hadn’t believed it then, and he still didn’t. The first anniversary of Waterloo, as the battle was now dubbed, had passed with a great fanfare of patriotic pride just last week. A year had gone by. A year in which Alec had learned precious little about his fall from grace, but all of it was bad. There were incriminating letters, supposedly found in his belongings after he went missing and sent up the chain of command until Wellington himself saw them. The general had lost his famously sharp temper and declared Alec was better dead than alive.

James Peterbury had tried to locate those letters, but without success. His every move, Alec realized, was constrained by the fact that no one else knew Alec had survived the battle. A living traitor could be tried and executed; a dead traitor was simply reviled, the less said about him the better. No one was interested in digging it up again, no matter how cleverly Peterbury pressed.

Perhaps he should have taken that as a sign to disappear for real. It would be all too easy to take advantage of that disregard, and leave England and accusations of treason far behind, emigrate to the American wilderness and begin a new life.

But Alec couldn’t bring himself to do it, not yet—even though staying in England risked a date with the hangman. He was not a traitor. Leaving would look like guilt, and he refused to do it, even if he was the only one who ever knew. He preferred to remain, but to remain presumed dead.

So he’d spent the year in hiding, recuperating from his wounds, working odd jobs and moving around every few weeks. With Peterbury’s help he came back to England, and finally to London. As the peace held, the army contracted, disbanding regiments and furloughing officers. He was just one of many unemployed army men filling England’s towns and cities, all at loose ends now that they were no longer needed.

Alec understood the despair and anger rising in the country, as a cast-off soldier himself and as a gentleman who should have had some power to help. He had sworn to look after his friend’s widow, but could not. He might have offered employment on his family estate to some of his men, but could not. He would have contributed to the Compassionate Fund for widows and orphans, but he could not. It had been a year of infuriating frustration.

The door of the tavern slammed, and Alec took a quick glance. A bland, doughy little man stood there, his eyes flicking over the room. Without hesitating he came directly toward the small corner table where Alec slouched.

“Brandon?” It was barely a question, but Alec nodded once. The colorless fellow pulled out the chair across the table and sat down, leaning forward on his elbows. “Phipps here. You know what I’ve come about?”

“Not precisely. Peterbury said you might have something of interest to offer me.”

“Perhaps.”

Alec bristled. “And perhaps not.”

Mr. Phipps’s mouth pulled into a thin, straight line. “All I can offer is an opportunity. Should you accept, it would be up to you to distinguish yourself.”

“Is it legal?”