Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

to make his way to his room with no one the wiser, but the murmur of voices, the sound of footsteps scraping across the stone floor, and the flicker of light from the massive hearth warned him that there were others about.

Colin frowned. He’d spent over half the night slipping in and out of the cobweb of narrow alleys and closes that made up Edinburgh’s inner city, trailing two well-dressed French agents as they made the rounds of every alehouse and brothel in Old Town along the way from the Blue Bottle to the castle at the top of the Royal Mile. He had left one of the French agents snoring heavily, sleeping the sleep of the thoroughly debauched in an upstairs room in the White Lily Tavern at the end of Queen’s Close, then followed the other to the harbor and watched as he was ferried out to a merchant ship anchored in the firth.

The merchant ship was familiar to him. Less than a fortnight ago, Colin had sailed into the Firth of Forth aboard an identical ship. But the ship from which Colin had disembarked had sailed under a British flag and been named The Lady Dee. The ship docked in the firth tonight bore Dutch colors and was called The Diamond Princess. Colin wondered at that. Why would a ship of the same line bear Dutch colors while docked in Edinburgh? It seemed an odd thing to do, but Colin was in no condition to worry with the puzzle. He was bone weary and eager for a warm bed and a couple of hours of dreamless sleep.

The Frenchman at the White Lily was no threat. He was under constant surveillance—sharing a bed with one of Colin’s most trusted informants. He wasn’t going anywhere, and the Frenchman on The Diamond Princess would sail with the tide. The only thing left for Colin to do was make it to his bed unseen before the rest of the inn’s occupants began stirring.

Unfortunately, that was harder done than said. He pressed his back against the kitchen wall, blending into the darkness, concealing his face in the shadows, remaining hidden as he eavesdropped on a conversation that had begun in the corridor and continued into the kitchen.

It was Douglas, the innkeeper, and his wife.

“What are we goin’ to do about the young lassie?” the innkeeper asked.

“Send her packing,” Mrs. Douglas answered.

“We canna turn her out,” Douglas protested. “We told the man we’d keep her. Besides, she hasna coin to go elsewhere.”

“Then he should have paid more. If she has no coin, she cannot stay here.”

“Och, Tillie...” The innkeeper sighed.

“Well, she cannot,” Tillie protested. “So dinna start feeling sorry for the lassie.”

Colin clamped his jaw shut against the sudden urge to join the innkeeper as he championed the young woman’s cause. He pressed his back closer against the wall, willing himself to become a part of it and remain undetected. He didn’t much care for the innkeeper’s wife, but she had taken a fancy to him. And since Colin had been sent to Edinburgh for a reason, he wouldn’t jeopardize his mission by alienating her.

Passengers from The Diamond Princess and The Lady Dee and the other ships in the firth, routinely sought bed and board at the Blue Bottle, and someone frequenting the Blue Bottle was in league with Bonaparte and his network of spies. Colin’s mission was to find out who that someone was and stop the flow of information from England, through Scotland, and back to France. He had been tracking the source of the information for nearly a year, posing as a businessman with special interests—smuggling interests—in France. It had taken him months to become a familiar face and earn a measure of trust from the men who frequented the Blue Bottle and who worked along the Edinburgh waterfront.

Colin needed to stay on good terms with the innkeeper and his wife. He couldn’t risk losing his room at this particular inn. Because the Blue Bottle Inn was conveniently located beside the docks, served hot food, whisky, wine, and ale, and was fairly clean, it was the favorite meeting place of the men he shadowed, and Colin knew from experience that it was easier to track his quarry if he slept where they slept, ate where they ate, drank where they drank.

But Colin was rapidly losing patience with the innkeeper’s wife. He could never abide hard-hearted women who nagged at their husbands and children and relished pointing fingers at their shortcomings. Unfortunately, Mistress Douglas was proving herself to be that sort of woman, and that did not bode well for Colin’s future stays in Edinburgh. Or the job he’d been sent to do.

“I canna help feeling sorry for the lassie,” Douglas argued. “She’s alone and frightened and far away from everything that’s familiar. Anyone with half an eye can see that she’s accustomed to far better than what we have to offer.”

“She’s lucky to have a roof over her head.” Tillie gave a derisive snort. “Any roof. Even one that’s not as fine as the one she was accustomed to. She’s lucky I agreed to keep her here at such a low price. The rotter who left her won’t likely be returning any time soon. Not after getting what he came for.”

“Aye,” Douglas murmured. “That appears to be the way of it.”

“It’s always the way of it,” Tillie told him. “Any whore on the street can tell you that”

“Her eyes are always red and swollen. No doubt her puir heart is broken.” The innkeeper made a sympathetic clucking sound.

“You’ve always had a kind heart,” his wife told him. “That’s why we never have enough coin to keep us in a comfortable old age. You’re always taking in strays and giving our hard-earned gold away.”

Douglas bristled. “The stray cats I took in earned their keep. And I won’t be comfortable in my old age knowing we took tainted gold from a man we knew was up to no good.”

“I only took the gold because I feared he’d smother her in her sleep and leave her body here and us to answer for the killing.” She looked at her husband.

“We’ll be lucky if he doesna come back and smother all of us in our sleep. You took his money, Tillie, and promised to watch the girl. You made us his accomplices. He no doubt thinks he paid you enough to make certain the girl stayed put. And what’s more, he probably thinks he purchased our loyalty.”

“My loyalty costs a lot more than he was willing to pay,” she said. “I ain’t going to smother her. But I don’t intend to keep her on charity, either. If she stays here, the young lass will have to earn her keep,” his wife pronounced. “And we’ve plenty of dishes she can wash and floors she can scrub.”

“You’ve grown hard, Matilda,” Douglas replied. “The Bible says that we should help the needy.”

“That’s all well and good so long as ye don’t fall for every hard-luck story that comes along.”

“I never gave a brass farthing to anyone who didn’t need it worse than we did.” The innkeeper sighed. “I think she knows he’s not coming back for her, but she waits at the window just the same. Every time I take her tray, she asks if her husband has returned. It breaks my heart. She’s such a pretty thing. What if the young lady were our little lassie?”

“If she were our little lassie, she would’ve known better than to run away with a pretty fellow who’d abandon her to the mercy of strangers.”