So the vessel hadn’t vanished. Only the cargo failed to move cleanly.
Sloane wrote a reply, sanded, folded, and sealed it, and pressed it into Nathaniel’s hand. “Tell the captain I will attend to the matter myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also tell him this. There are men who survive by carrying messages, and men who die because they learn what those messages mean. Be the first sort, Reed.”
Nathaniel tucked the packet into his coat. “I have always had a fondness for surviving, sir.”
“So have rats.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “Useful creatures, rats. Hard to catch.”
Sloane didn’t smile.
Nathaniel left before the man decided to test the theory.
Once outside, he mounted his horse and headed toward the lane that would take him past the mill. He could spare only a few minutes, but those minutes might save lives.
A scrap of paper waited inside a split rail near the old stone wall. Four words only.
More watch. Girl named.
Nathaniel closed his hand around the paper until it crumbled.
So, Caleb and the network knew.
Rothborne had spoken Anna’s name in a house full of ears, and now the warning had already traveled.
Good. But not good enough.
He tucked the scrap beneath his saddle and turned his horse back toward the road. Anna believed invisibility would save her, while Mrs. Pembroke believed management could. Nathaniel feared both were wrong.
By the time he returned to Pembroke House, he’d made one decision with absolute certainty.
Whatever else happened, Anna was not going to become the next person everyone regretted failing to protect.
Nine
By the following afternoon, Anna decided there were worse things than carrying a secret.
One of them was waiting to see if the secret came back.
Since the ball, Pembroke House had settled into a peculiar sort of quiet. Even Mercy, who usually filled silence the way a kettle filled a kitchen with steam, spent most of the morning speaking only when spoken to. Mrs. Fenwick said it was because everyone was tired.
Anna knew better.
The British had been in the house twice before noon. Captain Whitby had been all tight smiles and clipped words. When Lieutenant Rothborne showed up, he looked at every servant as if he could see treason hiding beneath their caps. Major Ellis arrived later, asked for Captain Whitby, and said nothing to anyone else.
That made his presence worse. He moved through the front hall like a man measuring it for a gallows.
Nathaniel hadn’t returned, but Anna wasn’t thinking about that. She absolutely was not wondering whether he’d ridden out again, or carried another message, or been stopped, questioned,or caught between British officers and whichever side he truly served.
She was also not thinking about the way he’d stood in the hall during the ball and told her she needed to be careful, nor the way he’d drawn attention away from her when Rothborne began asking questions. And especially not the way his eyes seemed to find her, even when she was doing everything possible not to look for him.
No. She was polishing candlesticks. That was all. Everyone knew candlesticks required the utmost concentration.
“Anna,” Mrs. Fenwick said from the kitchen table, “if you polish that stem any harder, it will beg forgiveness.”
