Hardly a Husband (Free Fellows League 3)

"Thank you, sir." The desk clerk gave Jarrod a bland smile. "If you will be so good as to entrust the note to my care, I will see that it is delivered promptly."

"I'll require pen, paper, and wax," Jarrod said, in a deceptively soft tone of voice. "In order to write and seal the note you are to deliver."

"Very good, sir," the clerk replied. "But because you are not a registered guest, I am afraid I must charge you another sixpence. In advance."

Jarrod placed another sixpence on the desk, grabbed the paper, pen, ink, and wax, carried them to the small vacant table, and sat down to write his note. He ordered coffee from a passing waiter and wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that a single cup of coffee for an unregistered guest cost sixpence.

He wondered how much more it would cost him before he set eyes on Sarah Eckersley once again.

* * *

Chapter Eight

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A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

"What do you mean he's late!" Colin, Viscount Grantham, demanded when Griffin, first Duke of Avon, announced that Jarrod had sent a note saying he might be delayed. "Jarrod is never late."

Griff cupped his hand around his ear, exaggerating the motion as the casement clock chimed the half hour. "There is always a first time. And today is Jarrod's. He's late."

"He's not the only one." Colin glanced around. The Free Fellows were meeting in their customary meeting room at White's. The room was set with enough coffee, spirits, and cigars for six men: the three original Free Fellows — Griffin, Colin, and Jarrod — and the three newest ones — Daniel, Duke of Sussex; Jonathan Manners, the Earl of Barclay; and Alexander Courtland, the Marquess of Courtland. Barclay had settled onto a chair near the fire and Courtland sat at one end of the massive leather sofa. But Sussex's habitual place was empty. "Where's His Grace? Hasn't he returned from the coast yet?"

Griff nodded. "He must have returned late yesterday because I saw

him last night at his mother's gala. I didn't get the opportunity to speak with him in the crush of people there, but I saw him."

"So did I," Barclay added.

"Then where is he?" Colin asked.

Courtland shrugged his shoulders, then leaned forward to pour himself a cup of coffee from the silver coffee service on the low table. "I was at the duchess's ball last evening, but I arrived later. I didn't see Daniel."

"This isn't like Sussex," Colin said. "He knows we're meeting this morning. He's supposed to brief us on the progress of his mission."

"Shepherdston is late and Sussex is missing," Barclay added. "It's a most unusual morning already."

Although they'd originally begun as a secret group of schoolboys, the Free Fellows League had grown and changed as its members had grown and changed. The members had put their secret league to work against Bonaparte, working very closely with the Foreign Office and the War Office.

The secret work that Colin and Jarrod and Sussex did came under the auspices of a staff of graduates of the Royal Military College and Lieutenant Colonel Colquhoun Grant. While Grant gathered battlefield information on the Peninsula, Jarrod, Colin, and Sussex gathered information on a much larger field of battle and all of it was analyzed, enciphered, deciphered, and included in the constant flow of military dispatches overseen by Griffin's father, the Earl of Weymouth.

When Griffin became a national hero, the prince regent and prime minister had asked that he retire from active duty in his cavalry regiment and he'd agreed. But retirement from the regiment hadn't kept him from engaging the enemy. And when his role as a national hero had become public, the Free Fellows League, and each member's connection to it, nonetheless remained secret to all but a handful of close associates.

Griffin and Jarrod and Sussex's positions in society made them subject to more social obligations and more scrutiny than the other Free Fellows. They were limited, in many ways, to planning, arranging, and financing the clan-destine war against Bonaparte, but they were still very much a part of it. The three continued to engage in the occasional secret smuggling holiday, but Colin, as a relatively unimportant and poor viscount, had been the primary foot soldier in the field and the Free Fellow most at risk.

But that had all changed when Colin married an heiress. With two of the original Free Fellows married, more help was needed. Jarrod and Colin had already recruited Sussex while Griffin was serving with his cavalry regiment on the Peninsula. Later, while Colin was on his honeymoon, the others had approached Barclay and Courtland.

The number of close associates had expanded slightly with the addition of Sussex and the two newest candidates for admission into the Free Fellows League — Jonathan Manners, the eleventh Earl of Barclay; and Alexander Courtland, second Marquess of Courtland — but Jarrod, Griffin, and Colin were satisfied that their secret was safe and that the associates close to the three newcomers were entirely trustworthy.

As the newest members of the League, Barclay and Courtland had gradually assumed Colin's role as primary foot soldiers in their clandestine war with their French counterparts. And Sussex and Jarrod had undertaken more smuggling missions so the married members of the League could stay close to London to fulfill social and business obligations and to spend more time with their wives.

Sussex had spent the past two days on a smuggling mission to France. He had been scheduled to return in time to attend his mother's annual gala ball and Griffin and Barclay had seen him there, but neither Sussex nor Jarrod had yet arrived at White's.

Jarrod had sent word that he would be late. But they had heard nothing from Sussex. And that was unprecedented and very troubling.

"You're certain you saw Daniel at the duchess's party last night?" Colin asked Griffin.