Christian hid a smile, raised his glass to his lips, and sipped. Dalziel—he went by no other name or honorific—was the Foreign Office taskmaster who, from his office buried in the depths of Whitehall, managed His British Majesty’s foreign spy network, a network that had been deeply involved in handing victory to England and her allies, both in the Peninsula campaign and more recently at Waterloo. Together with a certain Lord Whitley, his opposite number in the Home Office, Dalziel was responsible for all covert operations both within England and beyond its borders. “I didn’t realize Tregarth or Blake were in the same boat as we two, and I know of the others only by repute.” He glanced at Tristan. “Are you sure the others are leaving?”
“I know Warnefleet and Blake are, for much the same reasons as we. As for the others, it’s purely conjecture, but I can’t see Dalziel compromising an operative of St. Austell’s caliber, or Tregarth’s or Deverell’s for that matter, just to pander to Prinny’s latest whim.”
“True.” Christian again looked out over the sea of heads.
Both he and Tristan were tall, broad-shouldered, and lean, with the honed strength of men used to action, a strength imperfectly concealed by the elegant cut of their evening clothes. Beneath those clothes, both bore the scars of years of active service; although their nails were perfectly manicured, it would be some months yet before the telltale signs of their unusual, often ungentlemanly erstwhile occupation faded from their hands—the calluses, the roughness, the leatherlike palms.
They and their five colleagues known to be present had all served Dalziel and their country for at least a decade, Christian for nearly fifteen years. They’d served in whatever guise had been required, from nobleman to streetsweeper, from clerk to navvy. There had, for them, been only one measure of success—discovering the information they’d been sent behind enemy lines to acquire and surviving long enough to get it back to Dalziel.
Christian sighed, drained his glass. “I’m going to miss it.”
Tristan’s laugh was short. “Aren’t we all?”
“Be that as it may, given that we’re no longer on His Majesty’s payroll”—Christian set his empty glass down on a nearby sideboard—“I fail to see why we need stand here talking, when we could be much more comfortable doing the same elsewhere . . .” His grey gaze met the eyes of a gentleman clearly considering approaching; the gentleman considered again and turned away. “And without running the risk of having to do the pretty for whichever toady captures us and demands to hear our story.”
Glancing at Tristan, Christian raised a brow. “What say you—shall we adjourn to pleasanter surrounds?”
“By all means.” Tristan handed his empty glass to a passing footman. “Do you have any particular venue in mind?”
“I’ve always been partial to the Ship and Anchor. It has a very cosy snug.”
Tristan inclined his head. “The Ship and Anchor, then. Dare we leave together, do you think?”
Christian’s lips curved. “Heads together, talking earnestly in hushed and urgent tones—if we make for the door unobtrusively but determinedly, I can see no reason we shouldn’t walk straight through.”
They did. Everyone who saw them assumed one had been sent to summon the other for some secret but highly significant purpose; the footmen rushed to get their coats, and then they strode out, into the crisp night.
Both paused, drew in a deep breath, clearing the stultifying stuffiness of the overheated Pavilion from their lungs, then, exchanging faint smiles, they stepped out.
Leaving the Pavilion’s brightly lit entrance, they emerged onto North Street. Turning right, they walked with the relaxed gait of men who knew where they were going, toward Brighton Square and the Lanes beyond. Reaching the narrow, cobbled ways lined with fishermen’s cottages, they dropped into single file, at every crossroads changing place, eyes always watching, searching the shadows . . . if either realized, realized they were now at home, at peace, no longer fugitives, no longer at war, neither commented nor tried to suppress the behavior that had over the years become second nature to them both.
They headed steadily south, toward the sound of the sea, soughing in the darkness beyond the shore. Finally, they turned into Black Lion Street. At the other end of the street lay the Channel, the border beyond which they’d lived most of the past decade. Halting beneath the swinging sign of the Ship and Anchor, they both paused, eyes on the darkness framed by the houses at the end of the street. The smell of the sea, the brine on the wind, the familiar tang of seaweed, reached them.
For an instant, memory held them both, then, as one, they turned. Christian pushed open the door, and they went inside.
Warmth enveloped them, the sounds of English voices, the hop-infused scent of good English ale. Both relaxed, an all but indefinable tension falling from them. Christian walked up to the bar. “Two pots of your best.”
The landlord nodded a greeting and quickly pulled the pints.
Christian
glanced at the half-closed door behind the bar. “We’ll sit in your snug.”
The landlord glanced at him, then set the frothing tankards on the bar, shooting a quick glance at the snug door as he did. “As to the snug, sir, you’re welcome, I’m sure, but there’s a group o’ gen’lemen in there already, and they might not welcome strangers, like.”
Christian raised his brows. He reached for the flap in the counter and lifted it, stepping past as he picked up one tankard. “We’ll risk it.”
Tristan hid a grin, tossed coins on the counter for the ale, hoisted the second tankard, and followed on Christian’s heels.
He was standing at Christian’s shoulder when Christian sent the snug door swinging wide.
The group gathered around two tables pushed together looked around; five pairs of eyes locked on them.
Five grins dawned.
Charles St. Austell sat back in the chair at the far end of the table and magnanimously waved them in. “You are better men than we. We were about to take bets on how long you’d stand it.”
The others stood so the tables and chairs could be rearranged. Tristan shut the door, set down his tankard, then joined in the round of introductions.