But Rupert kept darting glances at him. “You sound like a gentleman,” he mumbled.
“My father is a magistrate in Hampshire. Our family have been gentry there forever.”
“What are you doing here?” Stowe peered at him owlishly.
“Cataloging the late Roger Markham’s library.”
“I mean…working. Like…like…”
“Like a third son with no expectations. Though I do expect to be taken on as confidential secretary to a government minister in the near future.” He thought it unnecessary to be more specific, considering the amount of drink Stowe had taken.
“Oh. Well, a gentleman, anyway.” Stowe nodded.
In the dining room, the fellow uttered bursts of disjointed observations interspersed by periods of abstracted silence. The weather—a little cool for August? He’d been out of town for a few days. Devilish good to be back, even if not at home. Not a genteel area, this, but a comfortable enough house.
Whatever had brought him back to London, Stowe must be worried. He was drinking heavily and talkative.
“Jessup! Brandy in the drawing room.”
Jessup murmured, “Very good, sir.”
“We’ll sit there a while.” Stowe stood up, leaning on the table to steady himself, and shambled out of the room.
He cast himself into an armchair with a sigh as Jessup entered with a bottle and two glasses on a tray. Stowe tossed off half his glass as soon as it was poured but did not speak until Jessup had left the room, rolling the glass back and forth between his palms. Alex had said very little during the evening, only answering questions and occasionally making encouraging noises. His desire to spare Jane grief for her brother warred with his memory of Grandfather Gordon’s tales of the Highland Host of 1678, and the daunting prospect of a similar army supplied with 2500 muskets. Rupert might be beyond his aid. He asked sympathetically, “Troubles?”
“Oh, God! Yes!” Stowe burst out. He did not continue.
Alex waited until he was sure Stowe would not go on unprompted. “Would talking about it help?”
Rupert Stowe poured himself another glass of brandy. “I don’t see how. I-I lost some money.”
“Cards or dice?”
“Both.”
“And of course since it’s a debt of honor, you must settle up. I know it’s very hard to admit something like that to one’s father. They always roar so. But on the other hand, they always come through, in my experience.” Not that he himself had ever had to ask his papa to pay such a debt, thank God! “One can’t let one’s son be known for reneging on a gaming debt. Or sometimes it’s possible to borrow on the expectation of inheriting, though I don’t recommend it unless…ah, inheritance is imminent. The interest would be ruinous in the long run.”
Stowe gazed at him blearily. “It’s worse than that. Can’t tell m’father. Never understand. It’s not a gaming debt. Worse.”
“Extortion?”
Stowe shook his head and apparently found it a mistake. He looked so green, Gordon wondered whether he should help him to the window before he was sick. Happily, the queasiness seemed to pass off. After a moment, Stowe said, “I gambled with someone else’s money. I thought I was sure to win, and then I’d have the money he entrusted to me to…to…well, it’s not important. And I’d have some extra for m’self. Can’t go to m’father to make it good. I’m a dead man.” He dropped his head in his hands and groaned.
“Surely your friend wouldn’t challenge you? No doubt he’ll be angry but to duel over a monetary matter? No, really, Stowe, no gentleman would do so. He’ll simply have to give you time to pay him back.”
“Won’t be a duel. Worse. Much worse. ’M afraid he already knows. Saw a fellow following me. There’s no time, either. Need to have the money in…ummm…what day is this?”
“Tuesday. Almost Wednesday, now.”
“…three…four…five days. Have to have it by Monday night.”
“That’s not impossible,” Alex said. “It gives you a little time to raise the money.”
“No, because I have to deliver it in the north. Up in Scotland.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Alex took a slow sip from his almost untouched glass.
Stowe raised his head and muttered, “Don’t know what anyone can do.”
“Er…how much money do you need?”
“Eight hundred pounds.” He groaned again.
“Hmmm. It could be worse. I might be able to find a way to get it.”
“You?” Incredulously.
“I might be able to raise it. We could work something out. What’s it for, if it’s not a gaming debt?”
“Can’t tell you. Shhhecret. Need money to get there, too.”
“Ah. Well, even so. You should go to bed. In the morning, I’ll see what I can do.”
“No hope for it. Have to die, that’s all. Not as if I don’t have a couple of brothers.”
“Don’t die tonight. I’ll help you upstairs now. No, don’t take the brandy with you. You’ll need a clear head in the morning.” Or as clear as Rupert’s head ever was, he supposed.
****
“I believe I instructed you not to pursue the Stowe matter—the political Stowe matter, that is—any further,” Anthony Lattimer said austerely the next morning, when Alex told him he had additional information about Rupert Stowe’s activities. He had left Markham’s house early, to catch his father at breakfast. The footman had been dismissed when Alex murmured that he had a matter to discuss. He helped himself to cold beef and pickle and took a reviving draught of coffee.
“It was the purest chance that I encountered him, sir. He was worried, drunk as a sow, and fairly panting to pour it all out to a sympathetic listener.”
His father gave a bark of laughter. “It’s odd how often you find yourself in such situations, Alex. Is it the behavior of a gentleman to let another gentleman incriminate himself? It’s not as if you were a magistrate.”
“He’s Mistress Jane’s brother, and given the way his nerves were all to pieces and he was trying to settle them with drink, I supposed his trouble was what you’d expect of a man of three-and-twenty. Gaming debts or bills he couldn’t pay, even a predatory courtesan. The Stowes are not fabulously wealthy, after all. When I realized it appeared to involve that other thing, it was too late to extricate myself. Besides, can a gentleman stand by when he learns a crime is afoot? What were you and Mr. Markham doing in Scotland in 1715?”
“Never mind that now. I grant you it was a difficult position to find yourself in. You have now performed your duty, and we must let those who are paid to do it manage the rest. How did you happen to be at Markham’s anyway?”
“I was looking at some of the books in the library on Mistress Jane’s behalf. There might be some rare volume worth selling. Naturally, when Rupert came to stay—hiding from his creditors, as I believed—we met.”
“Naturally.” Dryly.
“Perhaps you know, sir. Was some government agent watching Rupert? Or can it have been someone of Pleasaunce’s? It affects what plan I suggest.”
His father gave him a satirical look. “I don’t know why you think your opinion will be consulted. Though since you have talked with the young viper…” After a longish pause, he went on. “As it happens, I knew Stowe was being kept under observation. They lost his trail the day before yesterday. They can pick it up again now, of course.”
“I think perhaps it won’t be necessary, sir. I have an idea.”
“When you were younger, I learned to dread that phrase. You never got into ordinary mischief. What is it this time?”
“I think I can extricate Stowe and prevent the delivery of the weapons—assuming this is about the weapons, for why else deliver money to Scotland?—if you can make certain arrangements, sir.”
“I would not give a groat to save Stowe’s soul. I suppose I can guess why you wish to do so.”
“It’s not because of Mistress Jane, sir. Not solely because of her, anyway. I think he’s too s
tupid to be a full partner in it. An innocent? No. Harmless without a stronger personality to push him? Yes.”
His father grunted. “I hope Mistress Jane appreciates your championing her scapegrace brother.”
“Only a half brother, sir. Thank God.”
It required all his arts of persuasion, but his father finally assented to his plan. Or plans: he had an alternative, in case the better of the two proved to be unworkable, though it seemed unwise to mention that possibility. “I will need to know as soon as possible if you’ve persuaded your friends in the government to agree. Because of the travel, you know.”
“Oh, they’ll agree.” His father smiled, but it was more than half a grimace. “Come, we will pay a call on those who can facilitate the matter.”
****
Alex returned to Wych Street in the early afternoon from a long and rather confusing appointment at Somerset House. There, his father had left him in a plain, scantly furnished room for near an hour. Then he was taken to another room where—of all things he had expected—a tailor took his measurements, mumbling under his breath, “It will do me no credit, nor you neither, but no help for it. Mind you bring another suit. You’ll need it, as this will never fit, after…” He had been conducted to another room to wait yet again. Finally, his father returned and bore him off, saying, “A case marked ‘books’ will be delivered to Markham’s house late this afternoon. Tell the servants to expect it. Open it immediately, in private. It will contain instructions, including your travel arrangements, and…er…other things.”
To his inquiry, Jessup reported Rupert had not yet left his chamber.
“Mr. Rupert does not possess a hard head for drink,” the butler observed dispassionately.
“When he stirs, let me know, please. Oh, and I’m expecting a delivery, and I’ll want that as soon as it comes.”
Gordon beguiled the time by repacking his valise, then attempting to continue his work in the library, though without much success. He began a letter to his father, leaving space to fill in the details he did not yet possess.
When Jessup came to let him know Stowe had rung for tea and toast, he hastily put the letter aside. He found Rupert sitting slumped in bed, wrapped in a banyan, dispiritedly nibbling toast between sips of tea.
“We must talk.”
Rupert raised bloodshot eyes. “Oh. It’s you…what’s your name, again?”
“Alexander Gordon, at your service. Ah…do you remember last night?”
“…did I talk? About anything?”
“You told me you’d lost the money a friend entrusted to you to pay for something.”
Something that sounded like a moan escaped him. “Oh, damn it all to hell.” Stowe closed his eyes.
“You were in despair. Does the situation look less dire this morning?”
Stowe pushed the tray aside. “No.”
“And you’re sure your father can’t help you?”
“My God, no. He’d disown me. And Ch—my friend will murder me. If I could borrow enough money to buy passage to the Colonies…but how would I live there? I haven’t a penny of my own.”
Stowe’s father had helped him hide, but if he were aware of the plot, and he’d had any suspicion of the kind of trouble Rupert was in, he would surely have paid the money to save the plan—if it were the muskets this muddle involved. Remember to add that to the letter.
“May I ask how your friend came to entrust this, ah, transaction to you? It seems a great imposition on a friend.”
“He had a…a family obligation that took him to Plymouth. The shipment was arranged before we left, but then the shipper wanted more money. Someone had to meet the ship and deliver the payment to the captain. As my friend could not leave his business in Plymouth, he asked me to act for him. And now I haven’t the money. He’ll kill me if I can’t get the cargo.”
“He may be very angry, of course, but he’ll hardly murder you,” Alex said bracingly.
“You don’t understand. I’m a dead man if he finds me, I tell you.”
“If that’s so, I believe I can’t let you be done to death. I may be able to help you.”
“Can you? How?”
“I think I can get the money.”
“If you could—!”
Alex saw the beginnings of hope, suddenly dashed.
“But I would still have to arrive in time to meet the ship. If I hadn’t lost the money, and my own, too, I would have had time to get there. Assuming I could afford to change horses, I still might not be able to make it before the cargo arrives.”
“I know of a skipper who intends to take his schooner north. If we went with him, we could be there in time. Faster to sail than to go by road.”
“You’d help me?”
“Yes.”
“You could arrange my passage as well as get me the money?” What a good thing Rupert was so gullible, he did not think to ask how a man who was cataloging a library might be able to lay hands on such a sum.
“I can. I’ve made provisional arrangements with the ship’s master. He’s almost ready to sail from a small harbor well downstream—to avoid the adverse winds often met with on the river. We will have to hire horses and leave early tomorrow morning.”
Rupert looked momentarily perplexed. Not sure whether he wants to prevent me from witnessing his very dubious business or wants me to go with him to hold his hand, Alex guessed. The latter won.
“But your work here? Can you leave it?”
“Oh, I think Mistress Jane won’t object, since I’ll be aiding her brother.”
“She must not know!”
“Then I’ll tell her I have a family crisis to attend to. There’s no great hurry about the cataloging.”
He left Rupert to his own devices then and wrote a carefully composed letter to Jane, to be left with the butler, of which the most important line was, “I have been called away to deal with that family problem of which we spoke, and I hope to have news of its satisfactory conclusion in a few days.” After a moment’s perplexed thought, he added a hasty postscript.
Chapter 15
As they ate dinner the first day, the Lark’s captain said, “Your friend is no sailor.”
“He’d had a bit to drink before we came on board,” Alex explained. Rupert was laid on his bunk recovering from both the brandy and the nausea that struck him almost as soon as they sailed. Alex chewed a mouthful of beef stewed with turnip and onion. “His stomach is a trifle uneasy.”
“Are you always this bad on the water?” Alex had inquired during one of Rupert’s periods of consciousness.
“Don’t know. Never been on a boat but to cross the Thames to Vauxhall Gardens. The last few days I’ve been dipping a little deep, too.”
“Sick as a wench who’s increasing, is he? Is it drink or the sea?” Captain Sykes asked.
“Both, I think. He was drunk to insensibility the day before yesterday, then fortified himself somewhat before we boarded today. The action of the waves has not helped.”
By way of comment, the table-sized board, suspended by ropes at the corners, swayed. Evidently, it could be hauled up to the ceiling to make more floor space when not in use, turning the officers’ mess into the officers’ common room. The captain and first mate sat at the head and foot of the table, on chairs. The second mate and Alex sat on sea chests at the long sides. The Lark, a small two-masted schooner, had only a captain and first and second mates for officers. The five crewmen and the cook had their own mess, but it would not be crowded, as one or two of them would be on duty while the others ate.
“He would be the better for food.” Sykes took a long swallow of beer.
“Stowe did not feel he could manage it, sir.”
“Too bad, for we’re eating like lords. That’s the advantage of coasting. We can take on fresh provisions in port, and it’s money well spent, for we sailors like our food. In the Navy and on long voyages, one lives on salt beef, salt pork, ship’s biscuit, dried peas, and oatmeal. Tomorrow, perhaps the m
en will catch a few fish for our dinner. For today, I will have the cook send Stowe a tumbler of brandy and some ship’s biscuit. That is always settling to the stomach.”
If they were not eating like lords, as the captain avowed, accommodations on the Lark were at least better than expected. He and Rupert each had a tiny cabin, barely big enough in which to dress, with a narrow bed against the bulkhead and cabinets above and below. The first mate had one, also, and the captain had a larger cabin. The second mate, cook, and seamen slept in hammocks in one room (if that was what one called a space on a ship) with their belongings stowed in sea chests. Below deck was confined and dim, illuminated only by whatever light came through the portholes and from candle lanterns. At least it was warm, compared to the deck, where the wind cut like a dagger of ice.
“When do you think we’ll reach St. Andrews, Captain?”
“We’re making good time. Sunday afternoon, as we’re going.” Alex was glad for the captain’s conversation, not that the man said more than he needed to. The crew were civil but discouraged conversation. However, they kept a very clean, disciplined ship. The Lark was fast, too, with a shallow draft for coastal waters, making it an excellent choice for a ship which might pick up freight or passengers at places not thought of as ports.
The instructions which had come in that crate innocently marked “books” implied they were simply a ship and crew for hire to carry whatever cargoes they could get. Discretion required him to pretend to believe it, though the instructions in the packet (conspicuously marked Most Secret) also advised him the captain was aware of their mission and might be trusted. Alex wished he had been able to question the source of the instructions about the latter, but there had been no time and no signature. The other letter had been sealed with a thick red wax seal. His instructions were to carry it on his person at all times, and “present it to any Lawful Authority in the event of serious Difficulties.”
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