As he turned his full attention back to Blackley, he heard Aldridge chuckle as he walked away.
Edward had made the effort to blend in.
Charlotte studied the rough trousers and coarse cotton shirt, over which he wore an ill-fitting jacket too heavy for the current weather, and admitted to herself he knew how to don a disguise.
He even sported a bruise on his cheek, and a tiny cut on his lip that had bled a little and then dried. The perfect Billingsgate thug. He wouldn’t be drawn on how he’d come by his small injuries.
His private coach had dropped them near enough to Billingsgate that they would not have far to walk, but far enough away that no one would see them arrive. They’d driven a fast and twisted route to their destination, and she decided Edward was taking no chance they would be followed.
She’d sat next to him, with Gary and Kit on the opposite bench, feeling the heat and the press of his body against her.
After the kiss he had given her that morning, it was a pleasant torture to be so close and sit with her hands primly on her knees.
Edward had said very little, but she thought he crowded her on the bench more than necessary, letting his leg rest against hers in a manner that would shock most of the well-bred ladies of the ton.
Gary and Kit said nothing to him at all, but the nod Gary gave Edward was friendly enough.
She was in Betsy’s clothes again, a full money bag hanging from her belt, and covered by an apron. As they approached Billingsgate, she had to walk carefully so it didn’t clink too much.
The men surrounded her, Edward and Gary on either side, Kit behind her, and she was glad to have them. The alleys they walked along were narrow and dark, and more than once a stranger had loomed out of the shadows, seen the three men, and thought better of his plans.
The stink of fish guts littering the docks hit her full force as they stepped into the open area where the daily trading was done.
The cobbles were slimy with scales and guts, and she walked carefully so as not to slip.
They found the Barking Ram right beside the docks, light spilling from the open doors and windows. There was a low murmur of voices, but no loud shouting or even much talking. A place where men came to drink seriously.
She wondered suddenly if they would allow her in—she had imagined a place full of women, singing, and laughter, not this grim, serious den. “Perhaps Gary should go in and get him, bring him out here? My presence may cause us to be noticed.”
Gary gave a nod and went inside, leaving them to wait in uncomfortable silence.
“Let’s ’ope this chap ain’t lapping the gutter,” Kit muttered, as the minutes stretched on. “No use to us if he can’t see a hole in a ladder.”
Charlotte had not thought of what she would do if Norris were blind drunk, but looked at Edward’s face, set and serious, and so different to how he’d looked this morning, and decided they would come away with something tonight. He would find a way to make it so.
When Gary came at last, it was with a steady-footed man in tow, and she relaxed.
“What’s this, then?” He looked from Gary to the three of them, standing in the shadows just outside the door.
When he saw her face, he tried to move back into the tavern, but his way was blocked by Gary. “I never seen ’er in me life. I swear. And I’m not responsible for any trouble she’s gotten herself into—”
Edward cut him off by grabbing him by the back of the collar and pulling him deeper into the shadows, away from the pub.
“She’s never seen you before, either, so you can relax. We aren’t her family, come to force you to marry her, or anything of the sort.” Edward’s voice was cold and hard.
Norris went limp in Edward’s hold, and Charlotte couldn’t help wondering if there was a woman he knew had a claim on him, somewhere.
“What do you want, then?” He drew a filthy sleeve under his nose and sniffed.
“We hear you were involved in a bit of smuggling for Luke Bracken. We’d like to hear about it.” Charlotte kept her voice low.
There was silence, and Charlotte shuffled her feet, trying not to breathe in the air too deeply. She’d forgotten how terrible Billingsgate stank. It used to be one of her favorite places to come on the rare occasion she had time off when she was young. She never noticed the smell in those days.
“You’ll pay?” He sniffed again, a gurgling, phlegmy sound that turned her stomach.
“We’ll pay,” Edward said. He spoke as he usually did, his vowels perfect and as polished as the silverware that graced his table, and Charlotte saw Norris eye him with suspicion. But perhaps he figured a nob dressed up as a dockworker might be good for a bit of cash, because he gave a quick nod.
“Not ’ere, though.”
“We could go to St.-Mary’s-at-Hill?” Kit whispered, and Charlotte became aware that two men stood in the doorway of the pub, looking out into the dark.
“Aye.” Norris agreed, his eyes on the men.
Kit led the way, melting into the darkness, and as Charlotte made to follow, she was almost startled into a cry as Edward took her hand.
She looked up at him, but his gaze was ahead, on Norris.
“He seemed ready enough to talk,” he murmured.
“You think too ready?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
It took them less than five minutes to get to the church, and Kit motioned them around the back into the small graveyard.
Despite the eerie light of the moon on the gravestones, and the strangers that surrounded him, Charlotte noticed that Norris was more relaxed here, away from the watchful eyes on the dock.
“Let’s see the money first,” he said.
Before Charlotte could reach for the bag of money at her belt, Edward raised a small pouch of his own, handed it over to Norris to feel the weight of, and then took it back. “Only if you have something useful to tell us.”
Norris gave a smile. “And how much trouble would I be in, say, if one of you worked for the Crown?”
“None at all.” Edward’s answer was immediate.
Norris looked at him for a long minute. “I’m down on my luck, as it ’appens. Came to London to cry off with Mr. Bracken nice an’ formal, like. So there was no misunderstandings. But I came on very sick, with fever and coughing. When I was halfway meself again, all me money’d been taken, no one could tell me when or how, and I’m stuck here, so to speak. Stuck and wanting a way ’ome. So you might say I’m in the right frame o’ mind to spill the beans.” He looked the rest of them over, but his gaze kept going back to Edward, and when at last he spoke, it was as if the rest of them weren’t there.
“It weren’t that I was opposed to the smuggling in this job. Done it all me life. But my boy …” Norris shrugged. “Idiot signed up for the army. Fell for a girl down Deale way, daughter of a customs officer, and couldn’t find a good job. Not as good as owling, anyway.”
He sniffed again. “So, while I’m happy to make money, even with the French, even while we’re at war, I had to draw the line somewhere, see? It’s all right if it’s private enterprise. That’s normal. But when it’s government enterprise—I was helping the men trying to kill my son, way I saw it. An’ no matter the blighter was daft to sign up, the fact is, he did. I couldn’t to be in any scheme that would ’elp the enemy. No matter Mr. Bracken shoutin’ at me that there is a greater plan, and me son will be better off in the long run. If he’s dead, the long run’s not much help, is it?”
“Are you telling me,” Edward said slowly, “that the shipping of guineas out of England is being arranged by the French government?” He was all but shouting by the last two words.
Norris drew a sharp, whistling breath through his nose. “I am.”
“What evidence do you have of that?” Edward looked like some dangerous beast, ready to spring, but Norris didn’t seem intimidated. Instead he started to laugh, slapping his thigh, and then suddenly began to cough and hack.
&
nbsp; When he at last had his breath, he was still smiling. “Perhaps it’s the small harbor where we take the guineas that was the clue.” He chuckled wickedly. “Gravelines, it’s called. Enough accommodation set up to take three hundred smugglers at a time, there is. They don’t like us to leave the harbor, scared someone might sneak spies in by posing as an owler, I s’pose, so we’re not allowed beyond the wall. And then out bustle the little French officers, with their papers and quills, counting the guineas, working out a rate for us, and letting us have the brandy and gin and silks, and whatever else they’re exchanging for the gold.”
“Do you bring anything else to exchange with them other than gold?” Edward asked.
Norris shook his head. “I speak a little French. Been owling since I was ten, and helped me father. Been to France more times than most, I’d say. I heard two of the officers talking in French, once, when a lad from my part o’ the coast asked if they’d accept wool, too. Said they had strict orders from the emperor himself to only take gold. Nothing else.”
“And this is all quite organized? Government run?”
Norris looked annoyed. “That’s what I’m telling you. Organized in every way. Housing, accounting, receipt and exchange of goods. They’re all business.” He broke off, and looked away, into the small graveyard behind the church. “Too businesslike, seemed to me. Too slick. They were rubbing their hands when we came in, and a few times I heard …” He rubbed his cheeks with his palms and sighed. “I ’eard them say that England’s economy must surely be close to collapse, given the number of guineas coming over.”
“They want to bleed us of our gold,” Edward said, and there was stunned wonder, absolute awe in his voice, “and they’ve gotten us to hold out our arms and slit our own wrists for them.”
Norris winced. “Aye. But don’t look to the owlers. We just do the dirty work. Get what comes to us an’ we takes it over. It’s the ones getting the guineas in th’ first place, they’re the ones you want. The ones Bracken wants, too, by the looks o’ things. But while he tries to catch ’em all in his net, more and more gold is leaving, and each time we help Napoleon, I’m betraying my boy a little more.” He hacked another cough and spat. Charlotte tried not to wince.
“Me wife was taken ten years back, an’ I raised my boy. All I got left, he is. I told Mr. Bracken. I can’t be having truck with this no mor’. ‘Specially since once or twice—not me, mind—but some o’ the others on the run, they didn’t just take guineas over. Escaped prisoners, they said, or French spies going back to report. Some get a little extra for bringing English newspapers over, too, for old Boney to read, and learn what our boys are doing. I can’t be havin’ truck.”
There was silence as Edward weighed his small bag of guineas in his hands. He seemed to be coming to grips with what Norris had told him, his face tight and closed off as he dealt with information that surely must tip his world a little on its axis. “Did you ever hear any names mentioned that might be significant? On the French side, or the English side?”
Norris shook his head. “Not on the English side. Only ever dealt with Mr. Bracken. On the French side,” he shrugged, “a few, but clerks, is all. No one who looked more important. They made sure to stay out o’ our sight.”
Edward handed him the bag and he weighed it with satisfaction.
“Think I’ll go back ’ome now. Wait for me son. Do me no ’arm to get out o’ London Town.” He spat again, lifted his hand to his cap, and, without waiting for a farewell, walked around the back of the church, slipping into the darkness as smooth and quiet as the smuggler he was.
31
Edward was still reeling at the notion of Napoleon’s plan, so he didn’t notice Luke Bracken was waiting for them at the carriage until they were almost upon him.
Luke leaned against the door with one shoulder, and Edward’s driver sat very still, as if afraid to move.
“Good thinking.” Luke straightened up as they got closer. “Leaving the carriage a little way from the docks. Took me ’n’ Sammy thirty minutes of circling to find it.” He tugged at his too-big jacket. “And we knew you were here.”
Since the moment she’d seen Luke, Charlotte tried to pull her hand from his, but Edward held on tighter, and after a brief resistance, she gave in. She made a tiny sound, as if in defeat, but Edward would not let her think he would hide anything from Bracken.
“Why are you here, Luke?” Charlotte asked.
“To stop you meeting Norris. I thought there was a danger you’d tell some of his story to your nob.” Luke jerked his head toward Edward. “I never thought you’d actually bring him along.”
Luke seemed to throw the mantle of calm he’d been wearing off with a flourish, and he went from lazy insolence to stuttering rage so fast, Edward felt Charlotte shrink back.
“Jesus, Charlie, how could you? You might not have known much about what’s been going on, but I told you the other night I had a specific plan. You knew Lord Nob here could ruin it. And what do you do? Bugger me if you don’t find a way to give him all the details. What do you think you’re bloody doing?” He jabbed his finger as he spoke, moving closer, his face red and his eyes wild.
Edward shifted, blocking Charlotte from Luke, at least partially, and dropping her hand at last so that both of his were free.
Luke looked at him, at the way he was standing, and drove his hands into his hair and tugged it straight up, spun away from them both. “Damn it to hell, Charlie.”
Charlotte closed her eyes and bowed her head, her hands clasped together before her. Then she moved a little to the side so she could see Luke again. She waited for him to turn. “I need to stop these men, Luke. And it seems the longer you look for your evidence, the bigger the hole you dig for England, and the wealthier these thieves get. Edward wants them stopped as badly as I do, so yes, I’ve shared my information.”
“I need more time, Charlie, before I can close ’em down.”
“But you’re betraying your country, same as them, while you try to trap them in, what? A hope that evidence of their betrayal will lead to the collapse of the whole system of government?” Edward ground his right fist into his left palm in frustration. It was a ludicrous plan.
“Betrayal? You want to talk to me of betrayal?” Luke reared back. “You want to talk about the thousands starving in the stews, while nobs like you ride past them in carriages that cost enough to keep them for life? You want to talk about the Hulks, and Old Bailey, where they lock up children as young as six years old, punishing them as if they were adults, all for taking a scrap or two to feed themselves or their families? You want to stand there and tell me I betrayed England? No, Lord Nob. England has betrayed me.”
There was silence for a moment. Edward looked at Kit and Gary, at Charlotte, and could see that in this they sided with Luke.
He thought of Harkness, lying in the gutter, and wondered if they didn’t have the right of it.
“So,” he said, slowly, “you can commit treason if you like? Because you aren’t considered a true citizen of the country?”
“Well put.” Luke smiled. “Until I am considered a true citizen, I’m at liberty to sell my country out, except, I never have. I only got involved with this to show as many as I could that even with their full citizenship, their full bellies, and their full bank accounts, the nobs are the ones selling England out, not us.”
Edward had no quick answer this time. “But it isn’t as simple as that, is it?”
“No.” Charlotte’s voice was hesitant, as if she were trying to think it through. “Edward, you ride that fancy carriage, and have more money than most will ever see, but I know you work for the good of England, you’re no layabout; and Luke, you can’t say you don’t profit as much from poverty as most of the nobs. And you give as little back to the community as the nobs do. I know—” She held out her hand when Luke tried to interrupt. “I know you’re giving the profits from this scheme back into Tothill Road, but that’s guilt money, because you know you’re
doing them down, eroding the whole system while you prove your point, and things will be worse for them before they get better, if they ever do get better.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and looked down at the cobbles before raising her head again. “And then there’s me, caught in the middle.” She quirked her lips in a twisted smile.
Luke stared at her, as if seeing in her something he’d never seen before. Then he shook his head. “Charlie, stop queering my pitch for another week or so. I need more time, as I said. They keep it all so close to the chest. They’re so scared of being found out.”
“So I discovered.” Charlotte’s words were dry. “In a very personal sense.”
“What do you mean?” Luke focused on her like a hound on the scent. He rubbed his hands along his arms, as if he were cold.
“They approached me. They’re trying to blackmail me into reporting what Edward knows about them.”
“Blackmail you?” Luke’s voice was very soft.
“They threatened to out me to the ton. To tell everyone I’m the bastard daughter of a whore.”
Gary and Kit had spread out a little when they’d seen Luke, readying themselves, Edward thought, for a fight. But at Charlotte’s words they drew closer, horror on their faces.
As servants of the upper class, they would know only too well the impact carrying out that threat would have on Charlotte’s life in the ton.
It would end it.
“Who was it threatened you? Exactly what did they say?” Luke moved forward, and Edward thought better of blocking Charlotte from him again, but he held himself loose and ready.
Charlotte looked away from them, and for that alone, Edward wanted to kill Tavenam all over again. “They said I was to tell them everything, copy his notes, report what he said. But Lord Durnham hasn’t told me anything. Neither of you told me anything.” The last sentence was spoken quietly, and Edward flinched at the guilt it laid on him.
Luke drew in a breath through clenched teeth, the whistle of it sinister in the dark silence. “How were you to get it then?”
The Emperor's Conspiracy Page 18
