The Accidental Bride

Chapter 21

“Oh, I think we’ve landed.” Phoebe sat up on her bunk, keeping her head bent. Experience in the last week had taught her the danger of incautious movements in the upper bunk. It was early morning, judging by the pinkish light coming through the porthole, and the ship was no longer moving. The rattling release of the anchor chain, together with the changed bustle on the decks above, had woken her. There was more running, more shouting than there had been in the days at sea.

“Cato?” she said when there was no response from the bottom bunk. Leaning over, she peered over the edge of her own into the narrow space below. It was empty.

Phoebe wriggled out of her bunk and climbed down the ladder, unaware that her mouth was pursed in a little moue of disappointment. Cato, once he’d finally acquired his sea legs on the second day of the voyage, usually awoke her himself in ways that made her blood sing. But not so this morning.

She went to the porthole and gazed out. They were docked at a quayside thronged with sailors, stevedores, carriers’ wagons. Even at this early hour, the activity was frenetic, although her view was limited to a smallish stretch of cobbled quay and a red-brick, rather crooked building a few yards away.

At the sound of the cabin door opening behind her, she spun around. “We’re here.”

“A reasonable deduction,” Cato agreed with a slight smile. But behind the smile, Phoebe could detect something else, something that made her a little uneasy.

He closed the door and said calmly, “Sit down, Phoebe. There’s something we need to discuss.”

Phoebe looked at him uncertainly. “What kind of thing?”

“Sit down.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down firmly onto the stool, then leaned back against the closed door, his arms folded, his dark eyes, sharp and watchful, resting on her countenance.

He was dressed casually in shirt and britches, his doublet open, his dark brown hair ruffled by the wind. A streak of early sunlight coming through the small porthole caught the flicker of gold in the darker depths. Phoebe gazed at the pulse beating at the base of the strong column of his throat, and her belly jolted with familiar desire. She forgot the tingle of apprehension and made a move to stand up, but he spoke again and the gravity of his tone kept her seated.

“I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to consider very carefully before you make answer.”

Phoebe swallowed, disliking the tenor of this discussion.

“Will you give me your word of honor that when I leave the ship you will make no attempt to follow me?” Cato put the question in his usual cool fashion, but his eyes never left her face.

“Where are you going?”

It was a mark of how far he’d progressed along the road to understanding his wife that Cato answered without hesitation. “I have to go into the town to look for someone.”

“For Brian Morse?”

“No, no, indeed not.” Cato shook his head.

“But do you think he’s here?”

Cato shrugged. “Maybe. It matters not, but-”

“He’s a bad man,” Phoebe interrupted with some passion.

Cato frowned. “Misguided, untrustworthy, with an overweening ambition, certainly.”

“He’s evil,” Phoebe declared. “I know it and Meg knows it… and Olivia.”

Cato’s question seemed to have become lost. He was about to reiterate it when Phoebe said suddenly, “Could you not unadopt him? Disinherit him?”

Cato’s frown deepened. The question touched on an issue he’d considered too delicate to bring up. He said gently, “I had never considered it. I had assumed it wouldn’t be necessary.”

Phoebe flushed to the roots of her hair. She had somehow forgotten, as she posed the question, her own part in the situation.

As he saw her distress Cato regretted his observation. He was enlightened enough to know that it wasn’t Phoebe’s fault that she was barren; it was just one of those wretched quirks of fate. “Let us not talk about this now, Phoebe. Brian is the least of my concerns at present.”

“Yes,” said Phoebe in a low voice.

“So. Will you give me your word of honor you will remain on the ship until I return?” His voice was once more cool and brisk.

“When will you return?”

Cato controlled his impatience. It never did any good with Phoebe, whose thought processes followed their own road. “I don’t know exactly. I have to find this man… or discover what has happened to him. I may get news at the Black Tulip today, or it may take a week or so. Now, do I have your word?”

Phoebe stared down at her hands in her lap. She twisted her wedding ring, noticing absently that the circle of skin beneath was paler than the rest of her hand. Five days in the sun and sea air had given her a suntan.

Cato waited. Phoebe said nothing.

“Well, I commend your honesty,” Cato said dryly into the silence. “But I’m afraid it leaves me no option.”

He left his position by the door and reached for his sword-belt, which was hanging on a hook set into the bulkhead. He buckled the heavy studded belt at his narrow waist and settled the sword comfortably on his hip. He took his pair of pistols and thrust them into his belt and slipped a poignard into his boot.

Phoebe watched these preparations with sinking heart. She’d seen him dress for war before, but it never failed to fill her with dread. “Are you going to be fighting, then?”

“I’d be a fool not to be prepared,” he returned, swinging his short black cloak around his shoulders. He looked down at Phoebe, still on her stool, and said, conscious of its inadequacy, “There’s no need to be afeared, Phoebe.”

“Isn’t there?” Her eyes were bleak.

“I’ll send a message this evening if I don’t intend to return tonight,” he said, turning back to the cabin door.

He opened it and then paused, his hand on the doorjamb. “Phoebe, I’ll ask you once more. Will you give me your word you’ll not attempt to leave the ship without my permission?”

An agreement trembled on her lips, but it was an agreement she knew she would never keep. Phoebe remained silent. Proving herself untrustworthy was no route to gaining her husband’s trust, as she’d concluded long before.

Cato sighed. “So be it, then.” He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Phoebe heard the key grate in the lock.

She jumped to her feet and went to the porthole, her eyes fixed to the small piece of quay visible. Cato appeared in a very few minutes, striding briskly. She watched until he’d disappeared from view.

Phoebe remained at the porthole, her forehead pressed against the glass, staring out as if she might somehow will him back. Her eyes grew somewhat unfocused as the scene ebbed and flowed in and around her telescoped view, and when Brian Morse first appeared across the glass, she barely noticed. Then, with an exclamation, she blinked as if to clear cobwebs from her mind and eyes, and stared fixedly.

Was it truly him? But he was unmistakable. Dressed as elegantly as ever in a dark green coat and britches, lace at throat and wrist, sword at his hip, he was crossing her line of vision and going towards the crooked red-brick building at the rear of the quay. A door stood open at the front of the building. Brian paused, glanced around, then entered the building with the air of one who knew exactly what he was doing.

Phoebe’s heart begun to thud. He had followed Cato. And whatever Cato might say, Brian Morse had not come to Rotterdam with his stepfather’s best interests at heart. Cato was out there in the town somewhere, and Brian was on his heels. The sense of Brian’s malevolence chilled her anew. Cato might dismiss him as a threat, but Phoebe knew better.

She turned almost wildly back to the cabin. The Black Tulip. What was it? Where was it? It sounded like a tavern of some kind. She dressed, fingers fumbling in her haste, then paced the confined space between door and porthole, racking her brains for a means of escape.

She was staring desperately out of the porthole when the key turned in the lock and the door opened behind her.

“ ‘Ere’s yer breakfast.” The cabin boy entered with a tray. “Captain says as ’ow Lord Granville says y’are to stay in ‘ere.” He regarded her curiously as he set the tray down on the table.

Phoebe thought rapidly. Here was her only chance. The boy had helped her before; maybe the same inducements would work again. “D’you know what the Black Tulip is?” she asked.

“A tavern… in the town… up from the quay.”

“Good. Now, listen, there’s no time to lose,” Phoebe said urgently. “If you leave the door unlocked when you go, I’ll give you two more guineas.”

The boy’s jaw dropped. “I dursn’t,” he breathed.

“No one will blame you.” Phoebe reached under her straw mattress for her purse. She shook out two guineas and laid them on the table beside the tray. “All you have to do is leave, pretend to lock the door, and go on your way.”

The coins winked in the sunlight. The boy couldn’t take his eyes off them. “I dursn’t,” he repeated in a whisper.

“I assure you that if Lord Granville’s angry, his wrath will fall on my back, not on yours,” Phoebe said with perfect truth. “He’ll not blame you, I promise.”

“But the captain…”

“The captain will only blame you if Lord Granville complains,” she pointed out, hying to keep the desperation from her voice. Time was wasting. “He’s not going to complain about you.” She pushed the coins a little closer to the edge of the table.

The lad hesitated, thinking. It was true that there had been no unpleasant consequences after he’d let Lady Granville on board. The captain had offered no objections, no one had suspected his own involvement, and Lord Granville and his wife had seemed in perfect accord during the voyage.

And four guineas was unimaginable riches. Beyond the dreams of avarice. “I dunno…”

“Lend me your cap and your jerkin,” Phoebe said, reaching into the purse for a sovereign, which she laid beside the guineas. “I’ll return them to you as soon as I come back. I have to find my husband because there’s something I have to tell him. It’ll be disastrous if I don’t.”

The intense conviction in her clear blue eyes was utterly sincere and enough to persuade the already persuadable cabin boy.

He shrugged out of his jerkin and tossed his cap on the table. “You really wants ‘em?”

“Yes, they’ll make all the difference.” Phoebe scooped up the coins and held them out to him. “Here.”

He pocketed them and headed for the door. “I’ll jest turn the key ‘alfway. All you ’ave to do is give it a push.”

“Let me try it before you go.”

The lad pulled the door shut and turned the key a fraction. “Now,” he whispered through the door.

Phoebe gave it a hearty shove. It resisted for a moment, then flew open with a crack. “That’s splendid,” she declared. “Now you can say you locked the door without really lying.”

“Aye,” he agreed a mite doubtfully. “Still be best if nobody knows though.”

“They won’t,” Phoebe assured, pulling the door closed again, listening for the turn of the key. Once she heard it, she resisted the urge to test again that it could be broken open, and turned back to the cabin.

She threw off the skirt, shirt, and jacket of her riding habit and rummaged through Cato’s portmanteau for one of his shirts. Her fingers shook in her desperate haste.

Her close-fitting riding britches were not in the least like conventional men’s britches, but they would have to do. Cato’s shirt came down to mid-thigh and covered a multitude of sins. The cabin boy’s ragged, grimy jerkin over the shirt disguised its pristine laundering and the ruffled front. She rolled up the sleeves to hide the ruffled wristbands and tied one of Cato’s kerchief’s at what she hoped was a jaunty angle into the open collar.

Instead of strapping the britches beneath her boots, she pulled her boots on over them, and then braided her hair tightly. She pinned the braids on top of her head and crammed the boy’s greasy cap over them. Without a mirror, she had no idea whether she’d created an image that would pass muster in the streets of Rotterdam, but Phoebe was fairly certain no one would mistake her for Lady Granville, whatever else she might look like.

She felt both sick and hungry and as an afterthought swallowed a few spoonsful of breakfast porridge, hoping to settle her stomach. The she tackled the cabin door. It flew open with a shove from her shoulder, and she stepped out into the passage.

She had to find Brian and follow him. It seemed the most sensible course, rather than heading off blindly in search of the Black Tulip, where she might miss Cato. If she kept Brian in her sights, she was certain he would lead her to Cato. Surely then there would be an opportunity to warn Cato before Brian sprang any unwelcome surprises.

Phoebe climbed the companionway and emerged on deck trying to maintain the air of one who had every right to be where she was and who knew exactly what she was doing. But she needn’t have worried. No one had time to notice her. The deck was abustle as the cargo was unloaded from the hold onto wagons waiting on the quay, patient horses in the traces blowing steamy breaths in the early morning air. It was warming up quickly, though, as the sun climbed higher, promising a lovely spring day.

She glanced up at the quarterdeck, but there was no sign of the captain or the quartermaster, although the bosun was directing operations from the shore.

There was a secondary gangplank at the rear of the ship, and Phoebe headed to the far side of the ship, intending to approach the gangplank from the back. Two sailors on their knees were scrubbing the decking with the great holystones they called bibles. Phoebe slipped past them, and they didn’t so much as look up as the unremarkable pair of boots stepped delicately over their newly cleaned decking.

Phoebe jumped down the gangplank to the harbor and felt immediately more secure. No one would stop her now. Purposefully she approached the red-brick building. All around her she heard a harsh guttural tongue that increased her sense of unreality. Did Brian speak Flemish? Did Cato? Curiously the question had never occurred to her before.

The door that Brian had entered was ajar. Was he still inside? She hadn’t been able to keep the building under observation the whole time, so he could have left already. In which case she’d just have to find the Black Tulip.

Phoebe hesitated for only a second before she edged through the half-open door and into a dim square room lined with bales and crates. It was a warehouse of sorts, lit only by a couple of small unglazed windows high up on the walls.

She pressed herself against the stone wall and listened, ears straining to catch the slightest sound. Then she heard it. The low murmur of voices from the far side of the warehouse.

She couldn’t distinguish any words at this distance and cautiously slid around the wall until she could dart behind a pile of bales. It was like being in a maze, she discovered. She could thread her way across the floor, concealed by bales and cartons, using the sound of voices as a compass.

The voices became more distinct and now she could distinguish Brian Morse’s nasal tones. He seemed to be arguing about something. But he was speaking in English.

Phoebe stopped when she was as close as she dared, and quivered behind a bale of striped cotton ticking, barely daring to breathe. A mouse skittered across the straw-strewn floor at her feet, and she barely suppressed a startled cry.

“I want four men onto it,” Brian said. “I know this man, I tell you.”

“We got t’other agents with Johannes and Karl,” his interlocutor said, his voice thickly accented. “They’re good.”

“But not good enough to get Strickland as well,” Brian snapped. “This time we get Strickland as well as the agent. And there’ll be no mistakes.”

The other man only grunted and Brian continued in clipped and decisive tones, “You don’t know our quarry, my friend. Granville is as wily as they come. Get Pieter and you join us yourself.”

“Let’s see the color of your money.”

“There’ll be ten guilders for you, I told you!” Brian’s voice rose a notch. “You pay the men what you want and keep the rest for yourself. I’ll be asking no questions.”

“Let’s see your purse” was the implacable response.

“It’s on the ship. You don’t think I’d be fool enough to go on such an errand with that kind of money on my person?” Brian demanded angrily.

“Fifteen guilders, and half now, half when we’re done,” the other man said after a minute. “You fetch the money and I’ll send for the others.”

Phoebe could hear Brian’s noisy breathing as he wrestled with this expanded demand.

“Twelve,” he said finally. “Six now, six later.”

There was a short silence, then the other man grunted again and said, “Be back here in an hour.”

Brian turned on his heel, his boot grating on the stone floor, and strode from the building.

Phoebe settled down to wait.

Brian cursed as he returned to the sloop that had brought him in pursuit of his stepfather, but the vile mutter was more for form’s sake then from genuine annoyance. Twelve guilders was more money than he’d intended to pay, but it was worth it to achieve such a coup. The ever troublesome Walter Strickland eliminated; Cato dead, his stepson’s inheritance secured; the certain accolades of the king… Oh, yes, it would be worth it.

He glanced at the White Lady as he hurried up the gangplank of his own vessel. Where was Phoebe? He’d watched her dart on board at Harwich. Had she stayed? Was she even now below decks on the graceful three-masted schooner?

He’d find out later, once he had Cato spitted on the point of a sword. It would be done before nightfall. It was as certain as the sunset.

His hard little eyes narrowed as he counted coins out of his purse and dropped them into his britches pocket.

No, all in all, for twelve guilders the job was not overpriced. He hurried back to the warehouse.

Phoebe was still crouched behind the bale of ticking when Brian returned. In his absence three other men had arrived, but they were talking incomprehensibly in Flemish. From the tone it seemed as if the discussion was on occasion acrimonious, but the language was so harsh and strange that she couldn’t be sure whether she was interpreting the tone correctly.

“Is everyone here?” Brian spoke as he crossed the floor towards the group. “Good.” He shook hands with the newcomers before saying brusquely, “Granville will have gone first to the Black Tulip to try to get news of Strickland…”

“Strickland’s there already,” one of the men said.

Brian spun around on him. “How do you know, Pieter? The man hasn’t been seen in three months.”

Pieter shrugged. “He’s come out of hiding, then. He’s shown himself at the Black Tulip, according to my source.”

“Who’s reliable?” Brian snapped the question. It was received in sardonic silence that carried its own answer.

Brian controlled his anger. His companions were hired assassins who operated according to their own rules. If they decided they didn’t like him, or the job, they’d drop both without compunction. And he needed them. He needed to be able to trust them to watch his back. Their loyalty was given in direct proportion to its financial worth, and he considered he’d paid over the odds for it, but he still couldn’t risk antagonizing them.

“So presumably Strickland has some information to impart,” Brian mused as if the previous awkwardness had not occurred. “Important enough to let himself be seen by anyone on the watch for him.”

“It’s his way,” one of the others responded. “He goes underground for weeks until he’s acquired something of interest, then he pops up like a rabbit, just shows his head. That’s how we’ve managed to grab the last two agents. Strickland comes up for air, they move towards him, we snap ‘em up.”

“This time we get both of them,” Brian declared, then he couldn’t help adding, “What I don’t understand is why, when you all know so much about Strickland’s habits, he’s constantly eluded you. The bounty for his head would be tempting enough, I would have thought.”

“The man’s slippery as an eel,” Heinrich growled. “We’ve followed him often enough, then he goes to ground just as we’re within an inch of catching him.”

“Aye, but I’ll lay odds he’s not sent any dispatches off in a while,” the first man declared. “We’ve made it too hot for him.”

“A matter for congratulation,” Brian muttered, then recollected himself. “We’ll start at the Tulip. If Strickland’s not there, Granville will be trying to track him down.”

The five men left the warehouse, and Phoebe, after she forced herself to wait a few minutes until they were clear of the building, ducked out of hiding and sped to the door in their wake.

She stood blinking in the sunshine, looking around the quay, but there was no sign of Brian or of a group of likely-looking assassins. She went over to a carrier supervising the unloading of his cart.

“The Black Tulip?”

He frowned as if he didn’t understand her, but when she repeated the words, he nodded and jerked a thumb towards a narrow alley leading off the harbor.

Phoebe thanked him and ran for the alley. It was shadowed by the overarching roofs of the houses on each side, and the kennel was thick with refuse, the cobbles on either side slimy so that she nearly slipped in her haste.

The steep alley turned a corner and she saw her quarry way up ahead, the five men striding easily, purposefully. They had the air of men on a mission and were clearly unconcerned that any of the town’s inhabitants might take exception to their rule of law.

Cato leaned against the counter in the taproom, one hand circling his pot of ale as his deceptively idle gaze roamed around the dark room. The low rafters were blackened with smoke, and blue rings of pipe smoke wreathed heavily above the heads of the taproom’s occupants. This early morning it was a dour, generally silent crowd, but Cato was aware that he was under observation by more than one man.

A tavern wench threaded her way through the room, hefting her tray of tankards aloft, deftly sidestepping the streams of tobacco spittle that arched through the air to clot in the sawdust scattered over the floor. Boiling cabbage, smoking tallow, and stale beer mingled in a noxious melange.

Cato waited. He knew he’d been noticed and he hoped that someone in contact with Walter Strickland would pass on the news of his presence. Of course, there was another side to the coin. Not just friends, but enemies also would be aware of the Englishman’s arrival in town. But to catch Strickland’s attention, he had to make himself generally visible.

It was to be hoped Strickland would find him first, Cato reflected aridly as he called for a refill, his right hand tightening instinctively over his sword hilt.

The tavern keeper, a red-faced man with a sour and harried expression, refilled Cato’s tankard at the keg. “There’s a lad just come, sir,” he murmured. “Says yer ‘onor might want a word with ’im.”

Cato raised an eyebrow. “Might I?”

The tavern keeper shrugged. “That’s fer Yer Worship to decide.”

Cato drank his ale. He glanced casually around and caught sight of a small boy in the doorway. Cato set his empty tankard on the counter, tossed a silver coin beside it, and strolled to the door. He walked past the boy and went out into the alley.

The boy darted after him and kept pace, trotting at his heels. Neither of them spoke but when they reached a side turning, the boy tugged Cato’s cloak, gesturing that he should take the turning.

Wondering whether he was walking blithely into a trap, Cato followed the child. He could see no alternative to taking the risk. They were in the street of the cobblers, and shoemakers sat in doorways plying their trade. Several glanced up as the elegant gentleman passed, and a few exchanged looks.

At a house at the very end of the street, the lad stopped. He stood in the doorway regarding Cato with hopeful eyes.

Cato dug into his pocket and gave him a coin, wryly trusting that he was not paying an assassin’s lure. The boy grabbed it and took to his heels with an alacrity that increased Cato’s unease.

He glanced up and down the street. People seemed to be minding their own business, goodwives bustling with baskets and brooms, shaking mats from upper windows, calling to each other in a cheerful stream of incomprehensible chatter.

After a tiny hesitation Cato stepped through the doorway into the darkness beyond. It took a minute for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom after the sunshine outside. He was in a long, narrow passage with a door at the far end. A staircase rose to his right. It was very quiet and yet he knew he was not alone.

He glanced at the door behind him, half expecting to see his retreat cut off, but there was no one there, just a puddle of sunshine on the threshold. With another mental shrug, he headed for the stairs, climbing rapidly on the smooth wooden steps worn down over the years by the procession of countless feet.

The stairs emerged onto a small landing at the head. There were two doors, one of which stood slightly ajar. Cato pushed it open. The chamber appeared to be deserted. The grate was empty and the small window was unshuttered. He stood in the doorway listening intently. Then quietly he closed the door at his back and dropped the heavy bar across it, locking himself in. If there was danger, it was not going to come up behind him.

“A wise move,” a voice murmured.

Cato spun round, his sword already in his hand, and found himself facing a broad-shouldered man in rough homespuns who also held a naked blade in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Cato realized the man had stepped out of the fireplace. “Strickland?” he inquired calmly, sheathing his sword.

“Who wants him?”

“Cato, Marquis of Granville.” Cato held out his hand.

“Well, I’m honored indeed.” Walter Strickland sheathed his own sword and took Cato’s hand in a brief clasp. “It’s been the devil’s own job just staying alive in the last weeks.” He gave a short laugh and thrust his dagger into the sheath at his hip.

“We assumed so. All the agents we sent have disappeared.” Cato walked to the window and looked down onto the street. “Is this house secure?”

“No. I know of no such place,” Strickland responded. “I move constantly. You were lucky to catch me today. I’m heading for The Hague this evening. I thought to try to send my dispatches from there, since Rotterdam’s become so chancy.”

“You’ve heard that the king has gone to join the Scots?” Cato left the window and came into the middle of the room.

“No.” Strickland shook his head. “But that’ll set the cat among the king of Orange’s pigeons.” He went to a tall cupboard and opened it, taking out a bottle of some clear liquid.

“Genever,” he said, uncorking the bottle. “The Dutch distill it out of juniper berries.” He poured a measure into two cups. “Crude stuff but I’ve seen it put courage into many a craven heart.” He handed Cato one of the cups.

Cato drank it and grimaced. “Foul,” he pronounced.

Strickland grinned. “It’s an acquired taste.” He refilled his own cup and drained it in one. “So the king’s gone for a Scot, eh?”

Cato nodded, setting his cup down with another grimace. “And I’m sent to bring you back. Your work here is done and there’s a feeling that you’ve much you can tell us… the kind of fine details and opinions that don’t find space in a dispatch.”

“Aye, I reckon so,” Strickland agreed. “And I’ll not be sorry to see the green fields of home again.” He gave another short laugh. “Or do I mean the bloody fields of home.”

Cato’s expression was somber. “There’s been much of that, but we’re nearing the end.”

“Unless the Scots throw their weight behind the king?”

“All things are possible,” Cato said.

“But not probable?” Strickland heard the cynical note.

“The king’s never been a trustworthy ally. But we shall see.” Cato walked to the window again. He was feeling uneasy, superstitiously uncomfortable at the handy speed with which he’d accomplished his mission.

Something in the street below caught his eye. A figure in the most bizarre array of garments had darted into the doorway of the house opposite. It wasn’t the oddity of the boy’s clothing that caused Cato to knit his brow, however. It was the sense of something all too familiar about him.