Friends and Foes (19 page)

Ol’ Rob had come through again. Six well-trained, able-bodied men had arrived in Ipswich that afternoon in response to messages sent out to their nearest contacts. Grimes would be descending from Bow Street in the morning. Would it be enough, though?

Philip had no way of knowing for sure how many men Le Fontaine might have with him, whether or not it was a simple one-on-one exchange or something more involved. He reminded himself, tensing his fists, that they still had no idea where the meeting was to occur, nor at which of the “double twelves” it would take place. A bustling city like Ipswich would be sufficient cover for a midday meeting. An exchange on open land, on the other hand, would almost require the cover of darkness only midnight could provide. Worst of all, they couldn’t even guess at a day. The meeting might have already passed for all they knew.

Philip paced to the window of his bedchamber, the floor cold beneath his bare feet, and stared out into the inky black night. Clouds had darkened the sky the past three mornings and had brought a light dusting of snow. If the clouds ever dropped their weight, the snow would decidedly complicate an already desperate attempt at intercepting a dangerous enemy.

When he thought of how close Sorrel had come to someone connected to the infamous informant, his blood chilled. If either man in that taproom had realized she’d overheard their conversation . . . It didn’t bear contemplating.

Lives hung in the balance. Every time Le Fontaine passed information, there inevitably came word of British casualties. Just the morning before, he and Garner had received word from the Foreign Office that the British agent who’d gone missing in Kent weeks before after an apparent confrontation with Le Fontaine had been found. Dead.

The murderous spy had to be caught! If only Sorrel could remember the blasted location!

Philip ran his fingers through his hair and let out a strained breath. The weight of the approaching meeting was getting to him. It seemed to be gnawing at Sorrel as well. Philip had brought up the topic as seldom as he could manage over the past two days, but time was not on their side.

He’d stopped Sorrel just that night on her way up the stairs, pressing her again for anything she could recall, anything at all.

“It is all I think of, Philip,” she’d replied plaintively. “I’ve gone through that conversation in my mind at least a hundred times.”

“We have to know where they are going to be and, more importantly, when they’ll be there,” he’d insisted. On reflection, he knew he’d been too brusque, but he was getting anxious.

“I do remember he said it would be north of somewhere.”

“All of England is north of somewhere.”

He’d missed it at the time, but recalling the moment, Philip could clearly see that Sorrel had flinched at his curt response.

“This could be happening any day. It could be tonight. Tomorrow.”

“I know,” she’d whispered. “I will let you know if . . .” But her words had trailed off.

Philip had trudged away, lost in his own concerns. Looking back after hours of quiet reflection, he wished he could relive those few moments. He’d have been more understanding, more comforting. The burden of attempting to recall what had seemed at the time an insignificant conversation was obviously taking its toll on her. He couldn’t remember seeing Sorrel smile even once in the past twenty-four hours.

A faint scratching at his bedchamber door caught Philip’s attention. “Probably Charlie,” he muttered.

With Layton gone, the bedchamber on one side of his sat empty. Corbin had actually once slept through a small tornado, so Philip wasn’t worried about waking anyone.

“Come in.”

Philip rubbed his eyebrows and let out a long breath as he listened to the door open, not bothering to watch Charlie bound in. He could only imagine what coil his youngest brother had gotten himself into this time.

“Be quick about it, Charlie.” Philip leaned his head against the window frame. “I am in no mood to preach like Holy Harry.”

“I’d rather not be preached to, and I will be quick.”

“Sorrel!” Philip turned and faced her before she’d uttered the last word. He’d expected a story of youthful mischief, not a ravishing beauty, glossy black hair falling around her shoulders. “What the devil are you doing in here?”

“Blast it, Philip, keep your voice down,” she whispered harshly, pushing the door closed behind her. “Do you want all sixty-seven of your brothers in here?”

“Not a one of them will hear a thing,” he answered. “Which is all the more reason why you shouldn’t be in here.”

“I had to come before I forgot.”

“Forgot what?” Philip asked anxiously. He wouldn’t muddy Sorrel’s reputation for the world but was, at that moment, finding her far too attractive for either of their well-being.

“Brownlow,” she said in a slurred rush. “Brownlow.”

“You are making absolutely no sense, I’m afraid.”

“I thought—you said—you seemed so insistent.” Her expression clouded with obvious doubt and disappointment. “I didn’t want to risk . . . forgetting . . . again.”

She seemed to lean more heavily against the door.

“Where is your walking stick?” He crossed closer on impulse before stopping himself at a safe distance. The fact that she was still dressed precisely as she’d been at supper did not detract from the inappropriate intimacy of their situation. He himself was hardly dressed to receive female company, being only in his shirttails and breeches.

“I was afraid it would make too much noise,” Sorrel said.

“You came down a flight of stairs without your cane?” Lud, she was lucky she didn’t break her neck.

Sorrel nodded. Strain showed in her eyes. “It took an hour on the stairs alone. I’m not certain the banister will ever recover.”

The tiniest of smiles escaped and flitted across her face. How he wanted to reach out for her, hold her close to him, tell her what a wonder she was.

“As impressive as that is”—he couldn’t help a chuckle of amazement—“what could possibly have been important enough to endure all of that?”

She suddenly looked exasperated. “I have been trying to tell you. I remembered it. Where they are meeting.”

She had his whole attention.

“Brownlow.” Sorrel had said that a few times since coming in, he realized. “‘North of Brownlow,’ the man said. Then the second man complained that there was nowhere to make port. So the first man told him to make port somewhere else and row down to the meeting place.”

“All he said was north of Brownlow?”

Sorrel nodded.

A beach meeting if Philip didn’t miss his mark. That most assuredly meant midnight. But “north of Brownlow.” That could easily refer to miles of coast. He’d have to consult a map, perhaps ask Crispin about local inlets and small ports.

“I am sorry I didn’t remember sooner. And I’m sorry you still don’t know the date.” Sorrel watched him with a pained expression. “I hope I’m not too late.”

“Actually, you are here far too late,” Philip said. “Which is precisely why I am going to insist you return to your own room.”

“Telling you seemed important.”

“Crucial,” Philip reassured her. “I am not sending you away for lack of appreciation, but because I am a gentleman and you are a lady.” He picked up his own walking stick and crossed closer to her. “And it is quite late, and we are alone
together.
In my bedchamber.” He eyed her as pointedly as possible. A slight blush spread across her face. “Despite your doubts when we first met, I am not a rake.”

“Obviously I didn’t think this through very well,” Sorrel muttered. “I am sorry.”

She looked so forlorn. So adorable. So . . .

“You need to go,” Philip insisted, placing his walking stick in her hand and opening the door behind her. “Now, in fact.”

She took one step, and Philip instantly realized her hour-long descent of the stairs had taken a heavy toll. Her right leg, even with his walking stick, refused to hold any of her weight. She all but dropped to the floor with the next step she took.

Philip snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her upright once more.

“I will have you know, Sorrel,” Philip said, helping her out his door and closing it silently behind them, “I do not approve of torturing prisoners of war.”

“Tor—”

He swept her into his arms in as businesslike a manner as humanly possible. “Yes, torture,” he said gruffly, ignoring the tantalizing scent she exuded and the warmth of her in his arms. If he hadn’t been entirely convinced she’d tumble down the stairs on her own, he’d have locked himself in his room until his heart rate slowed significantly.

The woman was torturing him. He only maintained a hold on his thoughts and reactions by remaining silent until the moment he deposited her outside the door to her room.

“I am sorry, Philip.” Sorrel looked decidedly uncomfortable and a touch guilty.

He just shook his head. “If you think of anything else from that conversation, let me know.” He hastily added, “In the morning. Somewhere other than my private chambers.”

If he’d thought carrying her, flowing hair and all, back to her room had been torture, he dismissed the task as easy the moment he discovered the difficulty of walking away from her when she smiled at him the way she did just then.

“Brownlow?” Crispin repeated. “It’s not a town at all.”

“But you’ve heard of it?” Philip had cornered Crispin in the library late the next morning, having searched the atlas to no avail.

“I grew up here, Philip. Of course I’ve heard of Brownlow. It is one of the Hartley holdings.”

“Is the Duke in residence?” Philip asked, quickly registering the manifold complications His Grace would add to the operation if it occurred on his land.

Much to Philip’s relief, Crispin shook his head. “The property stands empty most of the year. The family occasionally descends in the summer months.”

“Good. Good.”

“What is this all about, Philip?” Crispin eyed him with obvious curiosity. “And don’t say you are looking to share fashion advice with the Duke of Hartley. Your dandy mask has slipped lately. As glad as I am to see it, I’d like to know what you’re about.”

A twisting of the locked knob halted their conversation. “Philip?” He recognized Sorrel’s voice immediately and felt himself smile.

“For a couple of sworn enemies you two have become rather friendly.” A smile tugged at Crispin’s mouth.

Philip ignored the implied question and unlocked the door. A pair of midnight eyes greeted him as they’d done every time he’d closed his eyes the night before. She smiled uncertainly, almost timidly. She was ridiculously lovely. How had he ever thought of this woman as the enemy?

“I wanted to apologize,” she said, little louder than a whisper. “Looking back, I realize I should have come to . . . shouldn’t have been in your . . .” She shifted awkwardly.

“No harm done, my dear,” Philip whispered as he motioned her inside. In reality, her presence in his room the night before had done considerable damage to his peace of mind, bringing an awareness of his growing attraction to her.

“I feared you would think me a complete hoyden. I didn’t—” Sorrel stopped short as her eyes fell on Crispin. “Oh.”

“If
she
starts asking about Brownlow, I am going to get suspicious.” Crispin eyed Philip with a lighthearted look of warning.

Sorrel turned her questioning eyes on Philip, seemingly unsure what could be revealed in front of their host. So Philip locked the door once more and sat in a chair across from his oldest friend and beside Sorrel. He looked Crispin in the eye. “I have a story you might be interested in hearing.”

How he’d thought Crispin would respond to his confession, Philip couldn’t say. But when he admitted to inventing his guise as a Town Tulip in order to glean more information for the Foreign Office, Crispin unexpectedly grinned.

“All these years, Philip, I wondered if you’d been thrown from your horse or something drastic like that. You were so completely changed and so suddenly, too.”

“I appreciate that you never cut me,” Philip said quite seriously. “There were many who did.”

“So what does all this have to do with Brownlow?” Crispin never had been comfortable with overly sober discussions.

Philip took a deep breath and explained their suspicions that a meeting of a French spy and his contacts would occur on an undisclosed night around midnight somewhere along the coast north of Brownlow. Crispin’s eyes grew wider with each revelation.

“Kinnley is north of Brownlow, Philip.” Crispin was on his feet pacing the room. “Is there danger? I did not extricate my wife from the grasp of one madman only to have her endangered by—”

“Covertness is key to Le Fontaine’s operations,” Philip said. “He’ll not come two miles inland to a house where he would be outnumbered by footmen alone. Keep the guests inside and lock the doors, and everyone will be fine.”

“I don’t like this happening so close.”

“Neither do I, Crispin. Nearly every person I care about is here at Kinnley. I would be far more at ease over this if it were occurring in some remote corner of the kingdom.”

“At ease?” Crispin eyed him with exasperation. “You
have
been at this a while. I couldn’t imagine being at ease with this sort of thing
ever
.”

“Like it or not, assuming the meeting has not already occurred, ‘this sort of thing’ has dropped into your lap.”

“And you’ve no way of knowing the day?”

Philip shook his head. “The men were speaking in code. The first number would have been the date. The second, ‘double twelves,’ indicates the time. Without that first number, we simply don’t know.”

“So you are operating under the assumption that it has not yet taken place.”

“Precisely. I need to know the nearest inlets or coves north of Brownlow.”

“There are quite a few.” Crispin continued pacing.

Sorrel joined the conversation. “They would need to be within rowing distance of a port of some sort.”

“Unless the ship simply dropped anchor offshore,” Philip said.

Sorrel shook her head. “The moon is full tonight. The next few nights will be quite light. A ship of any significant size would hardly go unnoticed.”

“She has a point,” Crispin said. “Felixstowe could certainly dock a ship, but it is considerably far to the south of Brownlow.”

“Something more remote.” Philip rubbed his face with his hands. “Abandoned, even.”

Crispin’s face grew immediately grave. “The north end of Brownlow has something of a dock. Ancient almost but probably sufficient for something like this.”

“But with a docking point so close,” Sorrel said, “that would most likely put their meeting place—”

“—at Kinnley,” Philip finished the unsettling thought. “Probably the tiny inlet at the southern tip of the property.”

“That’s quite a distance from the house,” Crispin said as if reassuring himself.

“Five miles, at least.” Philip did not want Crispin’s panic added to his current load. “There is another more secluded cove up the beach. Several good rowers could get that far. So we can’t rule that out.”

“How will you know which one?” Crispin asked.

“We won’t. Both locations will have to be watched.”

“For how long?” Crispin looked more uneasy by the moment. “Are the grounds of my home to be under constant watch for weeks on end?”

Philip heard Sorrel’s sudden sharp intake of breath. “Twenty-nine, Philip.”

He couldn’t say what she meant by the remark.

“Those were the other numbers. I’m certain of it. ‘Twenty-nine. Double twelves.’ That’s what the man in the inn said.”

A mere moment passed before the weight of that struck him. “Today is the twenty-ninth. That means their meeting is tonight. Tonight.”

No one spoke. Philip’s mind spun with the implications.

“I need to send word to a contact in Ipswich,” he said. “I’ll need your swiftest horse and most trustworthy servant, Crispin, one who can be counted on not to read the letter I send with him nor fail in his assignment.”

“There’s a lad in the stables who can be counted on. You’re sending for the others, then?”

Philip nodded. “They’ll need to take positions tonight and watch for Le Fontaine’s men.”

“A word of warning, Philip.” Crispin stopped his pacing. “I have tenants who have been known to walk the coast on nights with a full moon. The cloud cover we’ve been under the past two days has finally broken. I’d hate to have any of those good people scared out of their wits by a gathering of Bow Street.”

“And I would hate to have them come to an even worse end at the hands of Le Fontaine and his seedy associates,” Philip said.

Tonight.
The realization repeated endlessly in his mind. He had mere hours to prepare for what could prove to be a violent encounter.

“How do you plan to tell the difference between simple people and these spies?” Crispin resumed his circuits.

A very good question, but one to which he had no answer. “I don’t know. No one has ever seen any of the men involved.”

“But you will approach cautiously?”

“Actually, I planned to run screaming and waving my arms up the coast. In my lemon-yellow waistcoat, of course. I would hate to look ridiculous.”

Crispin smiled and shook his head. “I will have Hancock double-check all the locks tonight, though how I am going to explain my absence to Catherine, I can’t say.”

“Your absence?” What was Crispin talking about?

“You don’t think I am going to suck my thumb in my bedchamber while the beaches of Kinnley are inundated with spies and agents, do you?”

“You were not trained for this, Crispin.” Philip hadn’t anticipated unwanted assistance.

“Bl—” He abruptly stopped as he seemed to suddenly remember the presence of a lady. “I know Kinnley lands better than anyone, Philip. If you are going to locate anything out there in the dark, you are going to need someone who knows where he’s going.”

“You forget how much of my life I have spent here, Crispin.” Philip had spent many a school holiday at Kinnley. “I think I know the south end as well as you.”

“But you have to watch two different locations.”

“Grimes will take one.”

“If he can find it.” Crispin gave him a look of pure stubbornness. “I am not backing down, so you might as well accept.”

“A guide, then.” Philip knew Crispin’s willfulness well enough to not fight. “You can get Grimes’s men to the southern inlet, but let them handle the confrontation if there is one.”

“Agreed.”

A tense silence hung over the room. Philip practically held his breath, planning out the uncertain night ahead of him. Crispin would be out in the middle of it all.

“If nothing else,” Crispin said out of the blue, “I can let Grimes know if anyone we encounter is a local. I can recognize them.
You
won’t have that.”

“Will the beach be so inundated, do you think?” Philip doubted it. Surely the Kinnley tenants didn’t make a festival of late-night beach combing.

“The possibility alone will make identifying your criminals more chancy.”

“If only I knew what they looked like. Even just one of them.” Philip knew all too well what was generally said about wishes and beggars.

“I do,” Sorrel said.

Philip had almost forgotten she was in the library. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I know what one of them looks like,” she said. “I saw him at the Dove and Crow. I would recognize his face anywhere. And his voice. I could pick it out, as well.”

“That would be helpful if you were going to be with us.” Philip rued the lost information.

“Then let me come.”

“No.” He spun around to face her, his heart lodged in his throat by her unexpected request.

“Philip.” She rose awkwardly to her feet. “Crispin can let the other group know if he sees someone he doesn’t know. I can let you know if I see the man from the inn.”

“No.” It was all Philip could do to keep from yelling. “You will stay here where you will be safe and leave this to Bow Street and the Foreign Office.”

“You are allowing Crispin to go.”

“That is different.”

“How is it different?” The belligerent Sorrel he remembered from their first few encounters reemerged with a vengeance. “I am not asking that I be permitted to march onto the beach and challenge the lot of them to fisticuffs. Nor do I plan to run up and down the beach waving my arms like a lunatic—I leave that entirely in your capable, trained hands. I could hide in the bushes, like Crispin.”

“The picture you paint is not very flattering,” Crispin said dryly.

“Recognizing them would be invaluable.” Sorrel sounded too calm. If she fully understood the danger, she’d be far less determined. Or would she? This was
General Sorrel,
after all.

“They might not be at the location you would be watching.” How on earth was he going to steer her from this disastrous course of action?

“Then I would hardly be in any danger, would I?” She looked almost menacing with her walking stick in a death grip and her mouth set in a stubborn line.

“You want to back me up here, Crispin?” Philip said.

“Who me? The chicken-hearted man hiding in the bushes?”

No help from that quarter. “Sorrel—”

“I will ride out there on my own, Philip,” Sorrel cut in. “It would be far simpler if you let me come.”

“Suppose things turn violent?” Philip said. “You want to be in the midst of that with little but foliage to hide you?”

“My land agent’s cottage is a little more than five hundred yards from that cove, Philip,” Crispin said. “It would be a safe place for her to stay once she’s offered what help she can.”

“I did not ask for your opinion.”

“Actually, you did.”

Philip rounded on Sorrel, physically shaking. “I will lock you in your bedchamber if I have to.”

“I understand bedsheets can be tied into a rope,” she said. “There are ways to escape.”

“From two floors above ground level?”

“Quite a few bedsheets, then.”

“I will let you two work this out.” Crispin unlocked the door. “Once you’ve written that letter, let me know and I’ll send Jimmy from the stables with it to Ipswich.” He stepped out, closing the door once more behind him.

Sorrel didn’t waste a minute. “Hear me out on this.”

She got no further. Philip stepped to her the moment the door closed and, taking her face in his hands, kissed her almost desperately. How could she even think of putting herself in danger? How could she expect him to do so? He could not. She’d become too important to him. Somehow he felt as long as she was there, at that moment, as long as he could touch her, hold her in his arms, that she would be safe.

“Philip,” she whispered as he pulled back from her. “Let me help.”

“I will not risk your life,” he countered. “I will not.”