Darius had thought of everything.
If they took Bartolini, it would be a straightforward, clean arrest. Andrew would have to endure the man in the carriage with him, but if he wanted, he could travel on the box with the coachman. He might do that, despite the cold. He stamped his feet against the growing chill. At least it wasn’t raining.
Recalling what he’d done before appearing at Bow Street, Andrew took a few deep breaths and clenched his fists, relaxing them deliberately to dissipate some of his tension. A little was good. It kept him on edge, alert, but too much blunted his resolve and his reactions.
All this for a simple exchange, but he couldn’t help it. The purse of gold coins weighed down his breeches pocket, much as the pistols in his greatcoat dragged him down. He was not used to this town or this situation. He had faced murderers before but not like this.
After passing a couple of taverns, their doors open, filled with laughing, shouting clientele, Smith stopped before a narrow alleyway between two houses. They were no longer in a well-lit, comfortable part of town. Instead, the houses were smaller, their facades streaked with soot, gaps in the plaster work revealing the crumbling bricks beneath. Not quite a rookery, though. The shops had shutters closing their frontages, not iron bars. The horse dung was swept into the middle of the road, ready for the night soil men.
Smith simply jerked his head. “It’s not that bad,” he murmured, and led the way.
The alley barely took Andrew’s breadth, and his two companions had to shuffle their way in. Andrew didn’t like this one bit, but he clamped his jaws together and carried on. Ten paces from the road took them into a small courtyard, lit only by the half moon and starlight. The clear night proved fortunate in that case.
The courtyard was a smallish space formed from the backs of four houses. No larger than fifteen feet square, with another alley opposite them offering another way out.
A shadow detached itself from one corner. Smith strolled to the other side of the alleyway, where another passageway led away. Houses framed the courtyard, mean but like the ones facing the road on the respectable side of the poverty line.
Bartolini stepped forward. His neat society demeanor had melted away, replaced by a dark coat that had seen better days and a pair of breeches tucked into scuffed boots. Despite the evening chill, he wore no heavy overcoat against the chill and no gloves on his hands.
“Did you bring it?”
Andrew didn’t move. “Possibly. Did you bring the paper?”
The two men behind Andrew stood perfectly still when Bartolini opened his coat and groped inside, coming out with a folded piece of parchment. Stepping forward, Andrew took it and deliberately stepped back before unfolding it.
He glanced down the list of names. “Tell me who is on this list.”
Bartolini shrugged. “I never looked. If I open it, I know. If I know, they will kill me. I do my job, collect my money, and leave. Which is what I intend to do now.”
The trouble was Andrew didn’t believe him. The man shifted from foot to foot, gazing down at the packed earth beneath his feet. Everywhere but at Andrew’s face.
“Look at me.” He wasn’t deluded enough to think that a trained spy could not meet his eyes and lie, but he knew what signs to look for. “Now tell me some names on this list.”
Bartolini blinked and slid his gaze past Andrew once more. It was no use. They’d have to take him and question him later. “I might have let you go, had you told me the truth or made a better job of doing so.”
He glanced at the two men. They stepped forward. Bartolini lunged, leaping for the far alleyway, but Bull merely moved to one side and blocked his exit, catching him in his arms.
Bartolini sobbed, “Let me go! It is not me you want. I swear it!”
A smooth voice behind him said, “Green apples aren’t easy to come by at this time of year.”
“My father sent me,” Mr. Court said when Andrew spun around to face him. “I am to collect the paper and take it back to London. The code words are to reassure you.”
Andrew regarded him with suspicion. Court had an unsavory reputation, but then many people did, and they remained patriotic. He knew the code words.
Handing over the paper did not sit well with him. At the very least he wanted to keep hold of it until he knew more. He needed time. “Do you have proof? Written orders or some such?”
Court scoffed. “Of course not.” He glanced at Bartolini. “You can let him go now.”
“I’d rather not,” Andrew said mildly.
Court’s thin mouth curled. “Fancy some fun, do you? I can’t blame you. If you want that kind of thing, he’s a pretty boy. It’s not for me. I did hear rumors about you.”
“Did you?” The caricature. He would not bother to refute or admit it. He had no way of proving anything, any more than Court had any way of proving his claim. “You listen to rumor and innuendo? Or do you create it?”
Court shrugged. “I do not have to like you or what you do. It’s an abomination.”
“So is defiling your hostess’s house with whores and debauchery.”
“She deserved it. She refused my perfectly civil offer to marry her. You’d think a dried-up spinster like that would be grateful for some attention from a real man.”
Andrew tried hard not to allow his personal dislike—no, make that detestation—of the man to get in the way of the job he was supposed to be doing here. But he could not. Nor would he hand the list over to him.
“And the caricature?” He might as well hear the worst.
Court shrugged. “Your lover spoiled my fun. Why should I not spoil his?”
Andrew had no inclination to deny that Darius was his lover, especially to someone like this. “Even though it could send him to the gallows?”
“Oh, it won’t. His family would take care of him. Maybe he’d end in Rome with his perverted cousin.”
“A son of the Duke of Kirkburton,” Andrew reminded him mildly. Paying for the print and caricature merely for petty revenge struck him as somewhat extreme. Especially when— “Are you short of money?”
“Isn’t everybody?” he shot back but then bit his lip and glanced away.
He had not meant to say that. Why not?
“I’m not.” Or he was not at the moment, though when he got back to London, he did not know what he would find waiting for him. The gold still weighed down his pocket. It did not belong to him, though he could use it on this mission.
“Then you can give me some, can’t you?” Court taunted, sneered. Someone with that attitude would not consider anything sacred. Even a list that could result in the deaths of so many people.
A movement behind them took Court’s attention, his gaze going past Andrew to the two footmen and their prisoner. In the next breath, he’d lifted his pistol and fired.