Page 76 of Immortal Rose

He suspected that was how Gallia was paying Glenmoor for his services and intelligence, allowing the duke to pass off the finer Gallian silk as having come from the silk mills he owned. The connection had to have been made a year before, when the duke’s private secretary had gone to Gallia for some unknown end. Hugh had chased that lead for six months before Angelson’s name emerged in connection to it.

“No, no—” The man shuddered, spittle and sweat spraying from him. “Wine, artwork . . .”

“Perfume?” Hugh asked, and was surprised when the man shook his head.

Interesting. He was getting the DeForest perfumes another way, then.

“He—he mostly—” Angleson shuddered again. “The secretary, he uses the ship mostly for passage to Gallia or to hold meetings.”

“Meetings, eh?” Stratford said. “Did you hear any of their names?” He began to list off courtiers and known Gallian spies. “Debelle? Chalier? Jouve?”

“DeForest?” Hugh interjected.

The man’s eyes widened. “Yes—that one—one of the cabin boys, he accompanied him to a meeting with a DeForest.”

There were only a handful of DeForests left, as far as Hugh knew. And none with the fairyborn magic. Rosebourne had been thorough in that matter. “To one of their estates?”

“No—they went to the Archives Nationales,” Angleson said.

Hugh and Stratford exchanged a speaking glance.

“What were they looking for there?” Hugh demanded.

“I don’t know,” Angleson said. “Records of some kind. A store of old perfumes. Please—you must believe me. I didn’t want to bring in his contraband, I would never have avoided the duties owed. It’s only, he—the duke—he found out about my desertion in the war. He said he’d arrest me, hang me. He’ll do it if he knows I told you any of this.”

Glenmoor would, and gladly. Still, there had to be more to the shipments themselves. He wanted his own eyes on them.

“I can protect you,” Hugh told him. “But I need to know when the next shipment of goods for Glenmoor arrives.”

Angleson wheezed out a pained breath, still foolishly fighting the perfume’s thrall. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”

Stratford gripped the man by the waistcoat, shaking him. “You do know.”

Sweat or tears slid down the man’s full cheeks, indistinguishable from each other. “Th-the Cecilia. She’s expected tomorrow at half past midnight. M-moored at East Basin Dockyard.”

Hugh asked him a few more questions, but by the man’s paling color and the unhelpfulness of his answers, the tap of useful intelligence had run dry. But this was something. His heart kicked in his chest as he gestured toward Stratford, leading him away from Angleson.

“You making for the ship tomorrow, then?” Stratford asked, lowering his handkerchief now that they were at a safe distance.

Hugh nodded. “Do you have plans?”

Of course not. Stratford was one of the few spies who hadn’t shifted their allegiance to Glenmoor at Uncle Giles’s death. He was everything his great-uncle had valued, packaged in a short, dour-faced man: unflinching loyalty to Albion, no emotional attachments to friends or family, and dogged in the pursuit of intelligence.

He was everything Hugh ought to have been. What he could still be.

“I’ll be in touch,” Hugh said, heading for the delivery door. “Douse him with Spring Renewal and cut him loose where you found him.”

The second most useful perfume in his arsenal: it would leave the man’s memory muddled on where he had been, what he had said, and whom he had seen.

Stratford nodded. “Off to the next?”

“Always,” Hugh confirmed, turning back suddenly. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Reddy lurking about?”

“Not tonight,” Stratford said. “But he’s been hanging about Fenwick’s lately.”

Hugh sighed, making for the door again. That was what he’d been afraid of.

Two streets up to the east was Fenwick’s, his own gentleman’s club, which would no doubt be starting to shed its lords at just this hour. Hugh felt reasonably confident in his disguise—the night beard he’d grown in would be more than enough to outwit the foxed lords stumbling out to their coaches. It was a risk . . . but it seemed the night for them.