Page 71 of Go, Rogue

Chapter

29

Catherine finds Rogers and McNeil on the quarterdeck, planning their next steps. “Good morning,” she says and both men turn to her, acknowledging her greeting while she squints into the bright morning sun.

“There’s no tea,” Rogers says, “but we’ve jerky for breakfast if you’d like it.”

“I would, thank you.” She takes the sliver of chewy, hard meat, and when she’s finished eating, she motions Rogers over to a quiet corner where they can speak privately.

“Well then,” she says. “I presume you’ve recovered?”

“I have, thank you.”

Catherine nods. “Good. Then I believe you’ve some explaining to do, Rogers. Or do you prefer some other name?”

“Rogers will do. And the Home Office begs your pardon,” he begins, much as he had yesterday, such that she wonders how many times he’s said that exact same thing before. And to how many people he’s said it. “But there are reasons for the obfuscation.”

“I’m sure you think so,” she replies. “And we’ll get to that. But first, let’s discuss the state of this ship. With the damage to the berthing, we don’t have enough room for the men to sleep.”

She noticed when she woke that the crew had laid their heads down anywhere they could find, littering the damp passageways and decks with their shivering bodies. “And from my breakfast, it appears we’re low on food.”

Rogers nods his assent at both statements. “We’re low but can ration ourselves to get to Boston. If we can fix the steam pipes this morning, we’ll be at port in four more days. Perhaps five. As for berthing, these are seasoned men. Farmers if not sailors. It won’t be the first time they’ve slept on the floor.”

“That may be true,” she says, “But I’m certain it will be the first time they’ve slept in pools of cold seawater. I’d like to extend the captain’s cabin to them. It’s spacious and drier than the rest of the ship.”

“It’s kind of you, Mrs. McGann,” he says, and her heart thrills a little bit at his use of that name, even if it is a fake one, “but they won’t take it. As far as they know, you’re the captain’s wife. They won’t displace you, even if you asked them to. They may even be offended that you would ask, that you thought them weak.”

Catherine mulls this over for a moment. As much as she might not want to, she suspects that Rogers is correct, and the last thing she wants to do is insult their honor. Men, she knows, are often prickly about that sort of thing.

“Fine,” she agrees. “As for Boston, how will we find McGann when we get there?”

Rogers looks at her sharply. “We won’t,” he says. “We head to Boston because it’s the closest port. We’ll moor there as intended and re-stock. I have no intention of going on a rescue mission.”

“You can’t mean to leave him. Isn’t the Home Office…” she waves her hand in the air, “...heroic?”

He gives her another shrewd look and she’s struck by how different he is from Andrew. McGann is tall and muscular and warm, whereas this man is much smaller, with a wiry strength and a calculating demeanor that nearly causes her to shiver, and not in the delicious way that Andrew does.

“The Home Office is meant to gather information,” he says. “We are the instruments of politicians, and politics is a chess game, Mrs. McGann, not a brawl.”

“So, you’re a spy then?”

“I do what is asked of me,” he replies, “by queen and country.”

“And what exactly has the queen asked you to do with Andrew McGann?”

Rogers pauses for a moment, as if deciding what he might say. “This may be hard for you to hear,” he says finally, “but my presence here has nothing to do with Captain McGann, except in a peripheral sense, and everything to do with the East India Company. He’s had certain dealings with them in the past. It’s a long, and frankly somewhat sordid, story that—”

“He told me,” she cuts him off. “About the ship in Jamaica and the deal for the insurance payout. What I don’t understand is why they would be after him now. Or what any of it has to do with the Home Office. And who is James, exactly? It’s quite clear he’s no moderately incompetent helmsman.”

She watches him absorb her words, although his face gives away no indication that she’s said anything at all except for the slightest flash of surprise in his eyes. She’s reminded of those awful moments during the season when one of the crueler debutantes would land a particularly sly or vicious public barb and the recipient had no choice but to act as if nothing at all were amiss. But one could always tell where the barb landed if one looked hard enough.

She feels, frankly, this whole conversation is far too close to the battle of wits and secrets and cruelty that is London’s season. She squelches her sigh.

At least she was good at navigating a season, so she’s not utterly out of her depth here.

“What you may not know,” Rogers is saying, “is that there’s been a movement to disband the East India Company building in Parliament for several years, and it’s come to a head. The time is ripe to bring about their downfall, if we have the evidence to see it done. A smoking pistol, you might say, to once and for all turn the tide of public opinion against them. The East India Company has overstepped its bounds one too many times, and each time it does, it costs the Crown both coin and credibility. The Home Office would like to have that pistol, Mrs. McGann.”

Catherine thinks of the key in her pocket and the lockbox it opens, filled with a daguerreotype that’s just the kind of evidence he says he needs. “And you believe Andrew has the evidence you want?”