Live and Let Spy (The King's Rogues Book 1) Read online

  The compartment on the left with pull out shelves and drawers was also empty, apart from the faded rose-colored linen paper that still faintly smelled of the distilled essence of that flower. The compartment on the far right of the wardrobe was similarly appointed, except it contained two large drawers at the bottom.

  Olivia pulled out one drawer and then the other. Both empty. But on closing the bottom drawer, she felt resistance and found it refused to close fully again. She withdrew the drawer completely and bent down to peer inside the void. That’s when she spotted it, a desiccated bundle of paper held together by a black ribbon. It looked as if it had fallen back there and been compressed against the backboard of the compartment for years. She reached in and pulled it out.

  The breeze from the window lifted one yellowed corner of paper. She saw a name written with an unschooled hand – Constance.

  Bang!

  Olivia jumped and dropped the papers. A door had slammed somewhere within the house. It took a moment to still her racing heart.

  Wind. It is only the wind. There must have been an open window somewhere else in the house she had overlooked. She went in search of it.

  By the time she returned to Lydia’s old bedroom, the sun had moved fully to the western part of the sky and the glare from the undraped windows was nearly unbearable. She retrieved the letters and retreated to her own room which was cooler and where the sunlight was less intense.

  She sat at her small writing desk and worked the knot of old ribbon that held the papers together. They were letters and, in the end, only six pieces of paper – little more than notes really. All were written by the same hand which she concluded was that of a male with only a modest education.

  My darling Constance,

  My words cannot do justice to what my heart said to me when I received your letter. It was as though you had reached into my very soul to see what was written there.

  I love you.

  Knowing that you share my desire makes our fleeting times together all the more precious to me.

  Meet me by the old ruins in the woods this Wednesday at noon.

  Your beloved Adam.

  The other notes expressed the same ardor and invitation to an assignation.

  Olivia smiled to herself as she wrapped up the letters and folded them into her own diary for safekeeping.

  Perhaps Constance and her lover had eloped.

  She liked that idea. Her own experience of romance was limited to reading novels. Few opportunities for flirtations came to a governess in this part of Cornwall.

  An elopement…perhaps, that was why Constance’s name was never spoken, although it was odd that some of the servants would hold a vigil for her on All Souls’ Day if she were not dead.

  A darker thought emerged. What if she was dead? Why and how? What if the thwarted lovers died together in a suicide pact? That could be the reason why Constance was not buried in the churchyard.

  She could go and ask Reverend Fuller if she could search the parish records. It was a pity the old priest and his curate had long since passed away. They would have known Constance’s story.

  The late squire would have known…

  Beaufort Denton had been a hard man, not given to sentiment or emotion, but surely he didn’t completely expunge his daughter from his life.

  The study. It might tell…

  Olivia could count on one hand the number of times she had set foot inside the room. It was Squire Denton’s domain; no one entered without permission. And when he was absent, the room was locked.

  The light in Olivia’s room turned gold and then pink, as the sun descended toward the sea. But late spring evening light meant she still had a little time left to explore.

  She made her way down the stairs but hesitated at the entrance to the study, even though the door was ajar and in the coming days she was to assist with the papers in here. The habit of a decade was hard to break.

  There were ghosts here, too. Their voices were heard in her memory – violent outbursts, tears, oppressive silences to which all the servants had been mute witnesses.

  “Pull yourself together!”

  It seemed to help to say the words aloud.

  “Mistress Caroline and Mr. Fitzgerald asked you especially to help set the estate papers in order. You have the run of the house. You have permission to enter.”

  On hearing no dissenting voices, Olivia stepped across the threshold.

  Chapter Three

  Truro

  Early June 1804

  ADAM EXAMINED THE card given to him by the mysterious Sir Daniel Ridgeway.

  Charteris House stood in the middle of a whitewashed terrace row of shops. Unlike the ironmongers to one side and the bank on the other, there was no indication what business might be transacted behind the bright red door. It carried no shingle and no awning outside under which a passerby might linger.

  He had positioned himself in sight of it an hour ago and perused at his leisure over a pint and a meal at the pub on an opposite street corner. In all that time, no one went in and no one came out.

  It would be just his luck for the place to be deserted.

  Well, if nothing else, he still had forty pounds in his pocket and that might give him a chance to start life over somewhere.

  He wiped his mouth and rose from the seat. He dropped some coins on the table, left the tavern and crossed the street.

  He opened the red door and a bell over it tinkled brightly. The place seemed to be some kind of chandlery or perhaps a cartographer’s. Large maps of the Cornish coast lined the walls, showing Portsmouth to Bristol and every town and hamlet in between, right down to every islet that made up the Scilly Islands.

  Every conceivable surface was occupied by navigation equipment of various types – sextants, magnetic compasses, mapping compasses, a bell, deck pumps, cleats and chocks, chains and anchors. And on one wall, an eccentric set of ship’s clocks – all accurately keeping the time. When he entered, he noted every single one read ten after ten.

  He politely and disinterestedly examined the navigation items, waiting for the shopkeeper to emerge. At the sound of the quarter chime on two of the clocks, he decided he had been patient enough.

  “Hello?” he called.

  There was no response other than the metronomic ticking of the timepieces.

  He walked behind the shop’s counter and called again. Still no response.

  He squatted and rummaged the shelf underneath the counter. No strongbox, no ledgers. Odd…

  “May I help you?”

  Adam raised his head slowly and somewhat sheepishly. Across the other side of the counter where he should have been, was a small man – just five-foot-two by his reckoning. He had appeared there silently and from nowhere. His black hair was slicked back revealing a pronounced widow’s peak. Owlish eyes peered out from thick, round glasses.

  Adam decided charm would be his best defense. He stood to his full height and moved around to the correct side of the counter.

  “Forgive me, good fellow,” he said. “I came in and I didn’t see anyone here so I thought…”

  “…You thought you’d steal my till.”

  “No!”

  “Then state your name and business, sir,” the little man demanded matter-of-factly.

  “I’m here to see Sir Daniel Ridgeway.”

  The shopkeeper looked about as though searching for a peer of the realm amongst the flotsam.

  “Well, he’s not here.”

  Adam closed his eyes and counted to ten, feeling sick to the gut. He’d been made a fool of once more.

  “Then I am mistaken,” he ground out. “Good day, sir.”

  He surged forward, almost colliding with the man on his way to the door.

  “Did you have an invitation?”

  Adam’s hand reached the door handle and stopped there. The brass was cool under the palm of his hand.

  “An invitation,” the man intoned once more.

  “If you mean this,”
Adam said, retrieving from his pocket the plain white card with black type and holding it up, “then yes, I have an invitation.”

  The little man held out his hand for it. Adam all but threw it at him. The shopkeeper examined it closely.

  “We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Hardacre,” he said with a direct look. “Return tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Behind the map behind the counter is a door. Go upstairs and everything will be explained to you.”

  “You wouldn’t care to explain things to me now, would you?”

  “No, Mr. Hardacre, I would not. Remember, nine o’clock—”

  “—The door behind the map, go upstairs…yes, I got all of that.”

  “In which case, we shall see you then.”

  IT WAS EARLY afternoon by the time the passenger coach had almost completed the twelve-mile journey from Truro to Falmouth, but Adam’s foul temper had not abated one iota. In fact, a mile out from his destination, before the coach had made its descent into the town, he banged his hand on the roof of the carriage and demanded it stop.

  He answered the coachman’s sour look with one of his own, hoisted his pack over one shoulder, and watched the carriage trundle along the country road until it disappeared into its own dust.

  From here, Adam could see the harbor below and amidst the forest of masts he picked out the vessel he knew was the Andromeda.

  The journey here was additional insult to injury.

  A letter from the Navy had found him at his temporary lodgings to say his resignation had been accepted, but he would have to see the paymaster from his own ship to collect his wages due and savings made.

  Bastards.

  At least a walk would burn off the some of the roiling resentment that lingered. He loved the Andromeda. He loved the crew on board and respected her captain, and he would miss her as much as a man would a retiring mistress, but there was a principle to stand on.

  He paid for lodgings overnight at the Red Lion and booked passage on the early morning mail coach back to Truro. He would return to Charteris House simply because, if nothing else, Sir Daniel had gotten one thing right – he was a curious man.

  “Adam! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Harold!”

  Adam forced down the reflex to salute his senior officer. He had to remind himself that he was a civilian now.

  “Good to see you, man. I take it you’re here to see about your pay.”

  Adam confirmed it with nothing more than a nod and continued toward the ship. Harold Bickmore fell into step. “I should tell you your resignation has been the talk of the ship for the past fortnight, so be prepared to stand drinks at the pub tonight.”

  A wry smile in response was the best Adam could manage at the moment. He was conscious of how shabby he looked in his traveling clothes compared to the crisp uniform of the lieutenant.

  “Officer aboard!”

  Adam cast his eyes across the deck, watching the sailors as they worked, repairing parts of the rigging and polishing the brass trimmings to remove signs of corrosion. He couldn’t help ask the question. “Have they replaced me as bosun?”

  “There’s a new man starting next week.”

  “Do I know him?”

  Harold shook his head and escorted Adam down to the Master Secretary’s room. The ship’s purser, a man in his forties without a single strand of hair on his head, rose from his seat and extended his hand.

  “Ye’ll be missed here, Hardacre, that’s for certain.”

  Adam shook the man’s hand and thanked him quietly. The purser rummaged through his papers and found what he was looking for – a ledger account for Adam Christopher Hardacre.

  “That’s a decent payout, if ye don’t mind me saying so Mr. Hardacre. A very tidy sum to retire on.”

  And, indeed, it was, nearly five hundred pounds. It was enough to buy a small working farm – which would be fine if he was a farmer, but he was not.

  You could always go back to Ponsnowyth and buy back the old man’s carpentry shop.

  That didn’t have much appeal either. Too many bittersweet memories.

  “Now, I take it the captain knows ye’re here? He asked me special like to let him know because he wanted to say farewell.”

  Adam nodded an acknowledgement, then shook his head. “I didn’t write ahead, but I’m hanging around the area for a bit. I’ll make sure I see Captain Sinclair before the Andromeda next ships out.”

  The purser signed several documents and then turned them around for Adam to sign. One of them was a cheque from the Bank of England – which could very well have been given to him back in London.

  Bastards.

  On top of the cheque was a cash amount of eleven pounds, ten shillings, and thruppence-ha’penny.

  Accounted to the last ha’penny. Adam would have laughed if he wasn’t still angry.

  Once the business was concluded, Harold slapped him on the back.

  “Let’s get drunk, like we were supposed to in London.”

  This time, Adam was hard pressed to disagree.

  THREE HOURS LATER, a dozen crew from the Andromeda were gathered in a private room in the back of the Red Lion. Adam didn’t consider himself drunk – he was far too cautious to let himself get so inebriated as to be an easy mark for some footpad – but still, the beer and rum he had consumed had left him feeling more merry than choleric.

  So much so, he joined in a spontaneous chorus of Heart of Oak.

  Come cheer up my Lads, ’tis to glory we steer,

  To add something more to this wonderful year.

  To honor we call you, as freemen, not slaves,

  For who are so free as the sons of the waves?

  Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,

  We always are ready, Steady, boys, steady,

  We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again!

  We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay,

  They never see us but they wish us away.

  If they run, why, we follow and run them ashore,

  For if they won’t fight us, we cannot do more.

  “Damned bloody shame what the Navy did to you,” said Harold for at least the tenth time this evening.

  Adam’s friend had been less moderate in his drinking than he. Already, Harold’s face was red and his forehead drenched with sweat.

  He swung an arm around Adam’s shoulder and exhaled boozy breath into his face.

  “If we were different sorts of people, old chum,” he whispered, “we’d teach them a thing or two, wouldn’t we?”

  Adam threw off the arm and pushed Harold away.

  “You’re making no sense, you teasy git.”

  But the young man would not be deterred.

  “That’s ’cause you’re not listening to me, me old mate,” Harold punctuated his statement by jabbing his finger into Adam’s chest, “I mean, a bit of turnabout has got to be fair play, right?”

  “You’ve gone soft in the head.”

  “No, no, no, I mean it,” Harold leaned in closer. Adam wrinkled his nose and pushed him an arm’s length away. “There are people who think that French had it right all along.”

  Adam sobered right up.

  “What exactly are you trying to say, Harold?”

  The young lieutenant’s eyes widened as though he’d suddenly become sober, too.

  “What?”

  Adam shook his head and shoved his friend back. Harold almost toppled off his chair. “Your head is going to rue your tongue, you daft bugger.”

  He got to his feet – more or less steadily – and called out to the assembled gathering.

  “Next round is on me boys, but I’m off. Some of us have got to find a job in the morning.”

  A cheer went up. Adam threw a handful of coins on the table, bade the group goodnight and made his way out of the tavern.

  Outside, he stopped and breathed in the summer night air mingled with salt from the sea and the scent of honeysuckle from one of the nearby cottages.
He looked up at the near cloudless sky and examined the stars above, the constellations as familiar to him as the scars he wore, or the crossed anchors tattoo on his right hand that branded him – condemned him – to rising no higher than society allowed him.

  He needed the bracing cold night air and sober, solitary reflection, not drink or company. He walked down to the water and looked across the estuary of the River Fal, fancying he could see the Ponsnowyth village church over there. He found himself a position on the sea wall and sat down to think.

  Now, now, now…whatever happened to Constance Denton? It was a question he’d asked himself every so often over the years. No doubt, she’d be a grandmother by now, or nearly so. He smiled to himself trying to imagine how twenty years might have aged the fair-headed girl of eighteen he once knew.

  Ah, there was no doubt he was nothing more than a summer fancy for the squire’s daughter to console herself over her unhappy and unsuccessful first season. But, oh how he fancied himself truly in love as only a callow sixteen-year-old youth could be.

  It would have been about this time of year twenty years ago that Adam first encountered her in the woods near Kenstec House. She was weeping alone by the banks of a stream that ran not far from the ruins of an old priory.

  On that first occasion, he’d shared his lunch and made her laugh, cheering her up by telling funny stories about some of the villagers. When they parted, it was early evening and he summoned up the courage to tell her she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

  The next week, she had left him a note tucked into the hollow of a tree, asking to meet the following day, and he was only too happy to oblige, once he’d been released from his duties as his father’s apprentice.

  Their romance had been chaste at first, both of them only too aware of the difference in their ages and stations. But after they had shared their first kiss, a passion between them burned hot.