As the pale-haired officer stepped back without looking, he struck the edge of the small side table. A silver salver tipped. The spoon atop it slid, clattered, and skidded across the table toward the floor.
Without thinking, Anna caught it before it struck the boards.
Every man in the room looked at her, and for one terrible second, no one spoke.
Anna lowered her eyes at once and placed the spoon back on the salver. “Forgive me, sir.”
The pale-haired officer stared at her. “I say, quick hands.”
“Well done,” Whitby added.
Nathaniel’s eyes flicked to her. His expression changed, but it didn’t fill with suspicion as she thought it might. Instead, it filled with something like recognition.
Oh, dear. That was worse. She curtsied again and left the room before anyone decided she’d looked too interested.
Anna didn’t stop until she reached the servants’ hall. There, she drew one careful breath.Mr. Sloane. Major Ellis. Harbor note. Someone who understands discretion.Good. She had it all.
Nathaniel Reed received two messages from Captain Whitby and asked, “Have couriers been stopped of late?”
Anna closed her eyes. If couriers were being stopped, did that mean he’d use force to get past them? She’d hoped the encounter in the sewing room made him less dangerous.
It hadn’t. If anything, Nathaniel Reed had become far more so.
Nathaniel learned long ago that the easiest way to be invisible was to look useful.
Important men were watched. Idle men were suspected. Useful men, on the other hand, came and went with papers, packages, ledgers, and instructions. They were told by other men where to stand, where to wait, what to carry, and when to come back. Thus, they were given access because denying them access was horribly inconvenient.
Captain Whitby had made Nathaniel very useful indeed.
He rode to Mr. Sloane’s counting house with Whitby’s packet tucked safely inside his coat. As he rode, Anna Turner’s face flashed through his mind far more than he liked.
She’d stood in the dining room with her eyes lowered and her hands folded, the picture of a properly obedient maid. Until the spoon fell. Or rather, nearly fell.
She’d caught it before it struck the floor, quick as a cat pouncing on a mouse. The men in the room saw a servant save a spoon. Nathaniel saw a woman who missed very little and moved before thought could slow her down.
That sort of quickness got noticed. Worse, it got remembered.
He turned his horse down the street that led toward the water. The air smelled of salt, damp rope, fish, and smoke from kitchen fires. A few boys loitered near a stack of barrels, pretending not to watch a pair of British soldiers arguing with a wagoner. A fishwife stood near the corner with a basket on one hip and an expression that promised misery to anyone foolish enough to cheat her.
Setauket looked ordinary, which of course meant it was full of secrets.
Mr. Sloane’s counting house sat near the road to the wharf. A square, respectable building with clean windows and a front door painted a light shade of blue. Nathaniel dismounted and tied his horse to the rail.
When he entered the building, a clerk inside looked up from a ledger.
“Message for Mr. Sloane,” Nathaniel said.
The clerk, a thin young man with ink on two fingers, held out his hand.
Nathaniel didn’t give him the packet. “Captain Whitby requested I deliver it directly.”
The clerk gave him a bored look. “I’m afraid Mr. Sloane is occupied.”
Nathaniel smiled. “That’s all right. I’m paid to wait.”
“Fine,” the clerk said. “Then wait.”
“I intend to.” Nathaniel took a step back, spotted a chair, and sat. The clerk glared at him, then returned to his ledger. Nathaniel settled his hat on his knees and took in the office.
