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Organized dispatches lay abandoned near the hearth, accompanied by fresh reports from Scotland, Glasgow, and Stirling. Baines had ceased reading halfway through. England had become exhausting since peace declared itself. One could scarcely enter a coffee-house now without hearing either demands for parliamentary reform or predictions that the kingdom stood upon the brink of revolution, although the Cato Street Conspiracy had sobered somewhat.

The disturbances in Scotland had unsettled even the fashionable world. Men who had once spoken carelessly of reform now lowered their voices before servants; hostesses who had formerly prided themselves upon political boldness abruptly became loyal defenders of order. Yet the unease remained. Food prices climbed. Mills stood idle in the north. Labourers gathered in dangerous numbers. The government answered with soldiers because governments generally preferred soldiers to solutions.

“Do you know what the true difficulty is?” Baines asked.

“I suspect you are about to tell me.”

“No one requires me anymore.”

Renforth’s brows lifted slightly.

“It is true,” Baines continued. “Fielding has acquired domestic contentment, Stuart has acquired cheerful tyranny, and Manners now possesses a wife clever enough to conduct his arguments for him. Even Chum has become intermittently melancholy since Devonshire. I alone remain a public servant.”

“You speak of marriage as though it were a contagious illness,” Renforth said.

“Is it not?”

“No.” Renforth did not elaborate upon his answer.

Baines turned from the window and regarded the Colonel more narrowly. Renforth himself had altered little outwardly despite the succession of weddings among their circle. He remained immaculate, composed, and faintly forbidding, even at midnight in his own drawing room. Yet Baines, who had known him long enough to distinguish subtleties invisible to others, suspected the Colonel’s composure concealed its own species of solitude.

“You disapprove of all this happiness, surely?” Baines asked thoughtfully.

“I distrust sudden changes in the efficiency of my men.”

“There, you see? That is exactly my point. Matrimony has rendered us inefficient.”

“Matrimony has rendered us more vulnerable.”

“It is all of a same.”

Renforth reached at last for his neglected brandy, though he did not drink immediately. The firelight struck the severe lines of his face and deepened them further, so that for a fleeting instant he appeared older than Baines had ever permitted himself to notice. Their work had a curious tendency to age men unevenly. Some acquired grey hair at thirty. Others retained youthful appearances whilst becoming inwardly exhausted. The Colonel belonged decidedly to the latter category.

“Scotland has made Whitehall nervous,” Renforth said at length. “There are ministers presently convinced half the kingdom intends rebellion.”

Baines snorted softly. “Half the kingdom always intends rebellion. Englishmen merely object to exertion.”

“Scottish radicals appear less deterred by inconvenience.”

“That is regrettably true of my forebears,” Baines admitted.

The recent rising in Scotland had spread alarm far beyond Edinburgh. Industrial workers now struck in enormous numbers; rumours multiplied faster than facts; and every magistrate north of York now appeared determined to discover treason beneath ordinary discontent. Troops moved constantly upon northern roads. Even Ireland simmered restlessly again beneath agrarian violence. Britain had won the war against Bonaparte only to discover peace was considerably more difficult to govern.

Baines leaned one elbow against the window frame. “My dear Colonel, if I ever begin composing sonnets or wandering moonlit gardens, you have my full permission to shoot me.”

“I should prefer prevention to execution,” he said drily.

Before Baines could retort, a sharp knock sounded below. Both men became still at once. Years of habit erased indolence more swiftly than command ever could. Renforth was already rising as Baines crossed towards the door.

“At this hour it is either catastrophe or Chum,” Baines remarked lightly.

“It could not be Chum,” Renforth replied.

O’Malley, the butler, appeared moments later carrying a silver tray upon which rested a single folded note, rain-spotted and sealed in haste. “For you, sir. The messenger waits below.”

Renforth broke the seal while Baines watched.

The Colonel read once, then again. His expression did not materially change, which in Renforth suggested either mild irritation or imminent violence.