Page 72 of Go, Rogue

Rogers raises an eyebrow. “I couldn’t say for sure.” He pauses and turns that cold, assessing look on her once more. “Could you?”

She raises an eyebrow in return and holds his gaze, but she doesn’t answer. Not yet. That’s another trick she’s learned in the ton: silence is often necessary to force others to speak.

“It is rumored, of course,” he goes on as she hoped he would, “that Captain McGann had enough evidence of their wrongdoing to cut a deal with them in the first place and to hold them at bay for four long years. It’s unusual, you will agree, that they just let him go the way they did. After he scuttled their ship. He must have something rather spectacular over their heads for them to agree to that.”

She’d thought much the same when Andrew had told her that story, but she doesn’t mention it to Rogers. Instead, she concentrates on the question she’d asked earlier and noticed he hadn’t yet answered. “Who is James?” she asks again. “And why now? It can’t be so much more convenient to kill a man at sea rather than on land.”

Rogers slides his eyes to her. “I don’t suppose you’d buy that he was a disgruntled sailor?”

“Not in the least.”

He turns his back and walks to the railing, gazing out at the sea before answering.

“It’s true,” he says, “that McGann being at sea, where accidents happen away from prying eyes, is reason enough to provoke the attention of the Company now instead of before, when he was in London or even Kent. Should something befall McGann at sea, it might draw a little attention but certainly not the way an accident on English soil might, given his family.”

“Who is James?” she asks once more, but not before she makes a mental note of his phrasing. Given his family.

“I’m getting to that,” Rogers says. “Forgive the long-winded route, please. What I mean to say is that McGann being away from his brother is fortuitous to the East India Company for a great many reasons, unwanted publicity being one of them. And the fact that we believe James is working on behalf of McGann’s brother and not the East India Company is another.”

“I beg your pardon? Why would his brother have any interest in this at all?”

“Did he not tell you?” Rogers asks, not sounding surprised in the least that Andrew hadn’t shared this information with her. “McGann’s brother is Barclay.”

“Barclay,” Catherine says, trying to still her features and her increasingly rapid heartbeat. “As in the Duke of?”

“The very one.”

“That’s preposterous. The duke has no brothers.”

“I assure you, it’s not. Although it is a rather well-kept secret, given McGann’s… parentage.”

Catherine keeps her face blank. McGann is the brother of a duke, and he’s never mentioned it. More than that, he purposely kept it a secret, even after she’d told him everything—about her father and the ton and her engagement.

His secrecy hurts, but she isn’t about to let Rogers see it play out on her face. Not now, when the man is staring at her and clearly trying to gauge her reaction to the news.

“I’m not sure I understand,” is all she says. “What does the Duke of Barclay have to do with all of this? Piracy and sabotage and the East India Company and what have you. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“The Home Office quite agrees, Mrs. McGann. That’s why I’m here. I know why the East India Company would go to these lengths. If Parliament changes their charter, or revokes it, fortunes will be lost. Barclay is something of an unexpected development, however. His role here isn’t yet clear.”

“McGann could certainly tell you more,” she says. “If you rescue him.”

Rogers glares at her, but she thinks her point landed nonetheless.

“As I said, the man himself is of little importance. The East India Company is what we’re after, and any involvement of Barclay’s will make this messier. So, we’ll proceed to Boston and contact the Home Office for further orders. Jamaica is ten days away,” he goes on, “if we’re exceedingly lucky, which I will remind you we have not been to date. A fortnight or more if we’re not. We don’t have the food nor a stable enough ship for that length of journey. I won’t risk it. Not to mention the crew signed on for Boston, not Jamaica, and a mutiny is the last thing we need.”

“You know where they’re going,” Catherine says. “They’re taking Andrew to Jamaica. How did you know that?”

“It’s only conjecture, not a certainty.”

She sizes Rogers up for a moment and feels a strange swell of confidence in her chest. The marriage mart really has trained her to be good at something other than being a debutante or a wife.

“What if I told you,” she says, “that I know why they’re going to Jamaica and that what they hope to find there is exactly the kind of evidence you’re looking for. Your smoking pistol, as it were.”

Rogers raises that stupid eyebrow at her again. “Then I’d be listening,” he says.

“Wonderful.” She smiles. “I’ll be glad to tell you more on the way to Jamaica. Surely there is somewhere to stop for food and supplies along the way.”

“On the way to Jamaica?” McNeil’s voice cuts through their conversation. She hadn’t noticed when he rose from the charts and made his way toward them. “We could stop in Bermuda. She’s only a day or two away. I was going to suggest it, to shore up the repairs.”