T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

“Not today,” Morton said jovially. “I don't feel that lucky.” Morton was quickly sizing the man up, wondering which approach would prove most profitable. “I'm curious about a wager, though.”

The man raised an eyebrow, and Morton quickly went on.

“To be perfectly honest, I'm worried about the degree of indebtedness of my… cousin. Though, of course, he'd be mortified to know I'd enquired.” Morton leaned close and spoke quietly, slipping the man some silver as he did so. “I might arrange to eliminate his debt for him, if I could.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I'm uncertain to whom we refer.”

“Lord Robert, son of Viscount Richardson.”

“Ah.” The man offered a relieved smile. “No need, sir, for he has no debt.”

Morton noticed the servant who had let him in hurrying past, clearly looking for someone. The Runner shifted a little, putting the servant to whom he spoke between himself and the door. “Why, you surprise me!” Morton said, and then quietly: “His debt was but recently substantial-or so I was informed by Lady Caroline.” Morton reached into his pocket for more silver.

“Yes, but it was paid in full two days past.”

“That is good news!” Morton responded. “I can't tell you what relief you have provided for my worries. I can hardly thank you enough. Odd, though-the viscount is travelling. But of course it was some other, was it not? Some other who paid down Robbie's debt?”

The man was beginning to look uncomfortable, as the cost of the information quickly rose. The footman passed again.

Encouraging nods, and what Morton hoped was a reassuring smile. The servant hesitated. The footman spotted Morton and set off across the room toward him.

Morton thrust his remaining coins into the man's hand.

“Mr. Wilfred Stokes, sir.”

“Of course it was!” Morton said with relief. “Who loves Robbie more than I, I ask you? Wilfred Stokes.” Then, conspiratorially: “But never a word of this. I won't have Robbie know I even enquired.”

The man nodded.

Morton managed only a few steps before he was intercepted by the footman.

“Ah, thank goodness,” the Runner said as the man caught him. “I'm completely turned around.”

“This way, sir. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Morton patted a pocket. “Indeed. I found it and more.”

Out on St. James's again, it occurred to Morton that there was another source of information on the French expatriate community that he had not yet consulted. And this gentleman was too close at hand to ignore.

Lucy Hammond stood in line trying to ignore the itch that tormented her right knee. Miss Cork, her teacher, was looking elsewhere, and Lucy began to inch her hand down her thigh, but she sprang back to attention when her teacher turned back toward the little muster of students.

They were on the Plymouth Hoe again, gazing out over the sound toward a ship of the line anchored there. Of course, Lucy had been up close to this very ship. Too close, by her estimation. She was not really interested in seeing it again, but she'd never looked through a field glass and was anxious to give it a go.

The brass instrument was mounted on some kind of tall stand, so that the girls had to stand on a wooden crate to reach it. The young first lieutenant, who Lucy noticed was sweet on Miss Cork, stood by protectively, clearly a bit apprehensive about the fate of his glass.

Lucy thought he was a fair-looking cove, but then she'd seen such men in the Otter House, and they were anything but fair. She closed her eyes a moment at the thought. The Otter was the place Mr. Morton and Mrs. Malibrant had rescued her from. It was gone now, burned down, but before that it had been a nanny-ken-to put it more bluntly, a brothel. A brothel that specialised in little girls of Lucy's age.

The girl behind gave her a push. The line was moving again as another student took her place upon the box and put her eye to the brass-ringed lens.

Lucy's turn came finally. The lieutenant glanced briefly through the lens to be sure it was still focussed on the ship and not some empty blue expanse of water.

Lucy looked, and she heard herself laugh with delight. Look! There it was! Like a little ship caught in a glass bottle. But upon this one she could see men moving about, and all around in the waters crowded the flock of boats, the people all waiting.

“Give another a turn, there's a girl, Hammond.” Miss Cork put a hand gently on Lucy's shoulder. Miss Cork was the youngest teacher at the school and the most well liked by the girls. Lucy stepped down from the box and curtsied to the young lieutenant.

“Did you see the Corsican?”

Lucy shook her head. “But I did when we went out to the ship!” she added.

“You were out to the Bellerophon ?” the young man asked, bending down a little to be closer to her height.

“Yes. And a woman drowned!”

“My dear-”

“But she did, Miss Cork. Her boat was overturned by the sailors trying to force everyone back from the ship, and she sank down before any could come to her aid. I saw it.”

“Well, it is one thing to see such a tragedy and another to talk about it. That will be enough.” Miss Cork turned back to the students. “Bell. Step up, now.”

“Did you really see him?” the young officer asked quietly.

Lucy cast a sly glance at her teacher and then nodded quickly. “A chubby little cully,” she said, causing the young man to laugh with delight.

He wiped a tear from his eye. “Do you want to know something funny about him?” he asked.

“Lieutenant,” Miss Cork warned, but Lucy could see that she was charmed by the man.

“He speaks French with a thick Italian accent!” the lieutenant said.

The girls all laughed.

“But he's French,” one of the girls protested. “He was even their emperor once.”

“Indeed he was, but on the island of Corsica, where he was born and raised, the people speak Italian. And so did the ‘chubby little cully. ’ ” He laughed again. “An officer of my acquaintance serves on the Bellerophon , and he swears that Bonaparte's French is not as good as his!”

Lucy wondered if this was true, or if it was one of those stories adults told to see how foolish children were. You had to be wary of some of them, who were always up to tricking you and telling you lies-which was somehow not naughty when a grown-up did it but terribly wicked when done by a child. She would ask Lord Arthur or Mr. Morton how Bonaparte spoke. They could be trusted.

A sound hissed over the waters then, and it took Lucy a moment to realise it was a distant huzzah from the people gathered about the Bellerophon .

“Oh, there he is! There he is!” cried Miss Cork, bouncing up and down a little like an excited girl. She shaded her eyes and gazed off over the sound.

“Where?” said Katherine Bell as she stared into the field glass. “Where is he?”

“He's difficult to see,” Lucy informed her. “He's very small.”

But you must at least try mes petites canetons !” Marcel Houde entreated him.

Houde was the head chef at Boodle's, which stood on the same street as Westcott's club, White's. Of all the famous clubs in the neighbourhood, Boodle's was the least political and, traditionally, the most resistant to foreign innovation. Its members were mainly foxhunting men, country gentlemen, and landowners who haunted the place on their visits to London, and their tastes, left to their own devices, would probably have run to beefsteak, port wine, and… more beefsteak. But management had decided that Boodle's was not to be left behind by such establishments as White's and Brooks', at least in matters culinary, and had acquired their own Frenchman. Houde's pedigree was good, if not quite so stellar as the famous Careme, who had cooked for Talleyrand and the Russian tsar and now the Prince Regent and was rumoured to be headed for the Pulteney Hotel. But Marcel Houde had learned his art in the employ of Laetitia Bonaparte, the mother of the emperor, and since coming to England, he had developed a dedicated following. Among whom was Henry Morton.