Page 8 of The Truth Serum
“I think everything means something.” Nate sighed. “Plus, I’ve heard things.”
Lord Benedict arched a brow, and Nate struggled to find the right words. The man wanted to hear every vague supposition, every whispered possibility. If someone, somewhere, didn’t seem exactly honest, then Benedict wanted a report on it.
None of this would hold up in a court of law. Hell, none of it was anything more than guesses and gut feelings, but Natefelt sure that someone in London was shipping English rifles to Napoleon.
And that had to be stopped.
“Someone is running guns here? In London?” Lord Benedict was quick. He’d also switched to Greek which was not Nate’s strong suit. He answered in English.
“I don’t know.”
“But you waited at the docks. You didn’t come straight to me.”
“I wandered. I loitered. I watched.” He sighed. “I was clubbed from behind and they stole my boots.
“Did you black out?”
“No. I pretended to be unconscious. There were five of them. I’m good, but not that good.” Not after getting clubbed. His head had been reeling as he stumbled before getting knocked again. That time he’d just collapsed, only half on purpose. He’d thought it best to fake being out cold and wait for his head to clear. But that had cost him his boots and the few coins he had on him. And several kicks to the ribs as he realized they meant to beat him to death.
Then it had been an effort of discipline to remain still, as if he were still unconscious. He’d had to wait until a couple of them got tired. And then one of them had slammed his heel down straight on Nate’s right foot. The shock of having his toes crushed had him abruptly howling, which set his attackers back a step. It was only for a second, but Nate took the chance and bolted straight for the Thames.
Thank God he could crawl quickly. Better yet, he was a good swimmer, even with broken bones. But damn, it had been a near thing. If the water hadn’t been so cold, he might not have made it. But the bracing shock of the water focused him enough.
Meanwhile, Benedict looked steadily at him. “That was too big a risk on so little information.”
“It’s how all my information comes. By wandering and making friends.”
“Those weren’t friends.”
True enough. He wasn’t sure if he’d been careless or wandered into something truly nefarious. He’d been too busy trying to survive to figure much else out. And then, once he’d swam far enough away, he still had to limp his way across London back to his rooms.
It had been one hell of a night.
Benedict studied him in silence, obviously calculating something in his massive brain. The man played the movement of nations the way card sharks played idiot boys. But that didn’t mean he understood how Nate’s information was acquired. Benedict’s strengths were in using knowledge to England’s benefit.
Nate’s job was to get the information to him in the first place.
Fortunately, Benedict understood who was better at what. He rocked back in his chair and leveled Nate with a hard stare.
“What do you want to do now?”
“I need to get back out there. I have friends. If someone is shipping Black Betties through the London docks, I’ll find ’em.” Part of his training as a young man had been to work as a London waterman, manning the little boats that ran back and forth between the London “stairs” and the ships too big to settle on the shore.
It had taken some time for those rough men to accept him as one of their own, but once included, he had lifelong friends. And not a one of them would support gun running to the French.
Naturally, Lord Benedict saw the obvious problem. “How are you going to do that with your feet cut to hell?”
Good question. “They’re getting better,” he said as he flexed his toes. They moved with minimal pain, but the bones in his right foot would take much longer to heal. He could manage alimping kind of walk, but he couldn’t run. He might never run again.
Benedict came to the same conclusion. “Don’t go anywhere until you’re healed. You’re no good to me dead.”
That last was spoken in a coarse French that was equal parts curse and admonition. Nate understood it, but he doubted he could comply. This was what he could do for his country—lurk in shadows and listen to gossip. He hadn’t expected to grow up into such a patriotic soul, but over the years, he’d seen the damage that war did to ordinary folk. Not just the people of France and Spain, though that was horrifying enough, but the English boys lost on the battlefield.
He vowed young to do what he could to end the war. It turned out that his greatest skill was in being a jolly good fellow. People assumed he was completely harmless as they chattered around the docks, in taverns, and in the ballrooms. Everyone knew something, and Nate had good ears, a good memory, and several good aliases.
But he couldn’t hear anything while laid up in Ras’s ducal mansion.
“I’ll find a way,” Nate promised.
