He ordered an ale and sat there nursing it for a good hour at least. Then Dick appeared at the door to the lodging house and nodded toward him.
Pulling down the brim of his floppy hat, Joshua slipped out into the street just in time to see Malet leave the lodging house. Joshua hesitated only a moment. The way Malet was scanning the road told him that the man wasn’t just headed off to Covent Garden for an entertaining evening.
No, the only reason Malet would be careful not to be followed was if he were off to commit some villainous act, either treason or the kidnapping of Gwyn. Either way, Joshua wasn’t going to waste time searching the man’s room and risk missing Malet’s rendezvous with the enemy . . . or Gwyn. Better to follow the bastard.
As Joshua made his deliberately slow way behind Malet along the road, he paused to tell Dick, “Here’s the first part of your pay, lad,” and press a guinea into the boy’s hand. “You know what you have to do for the second part.” Then Joshua continued on.
He was careful not to follow Malet too closely. The man was definitely behaving suspiciously—stopping every block or so to glance around as if looking for anyone after him. Fortunately, it was dark in the streets of Chelsea.
Besides which, Malet had a way of hunching his shoulders as he was about to stop that warned Joshua to duck out of sight or pretend to be looking in a shop window just as the bastard looked back.
Nor did it hurt that they were within a stone’s throw of the Royal Hospital, where aging and severely wounded veterans were housed as in-pensioners or treated on an out-pensioner basis. Chelsea pensioners were everywhere, making the sight of a man using a cane even more common than usual.
Eventually, Malet halted at a tavern and went in. Joshua looked through a window just in time to see the fellow take a seat at a table with another man. Joshua went inside and found a table next to theirs that was empty. Then he held up one finger to the barmaid, who nodded and brought him a mug of ale.
As he hunched over it, he strained to hear the conversation at the next table.
“What happened to you?” the stranger asked Malet. His accent was faint, but unmistakable. French, for certain.
Excitement rose in Joshua’s blood. Fitzgerald had been right, after all.
“Got into a fight earlier today,” Malet said offhandedly. “Had to show a fellow I wouldn’t tolerate his nonsense.”
Joshua downed some ale to keep from snorting.
“Judging from your black eye and badly swollen cheek, you were on the worse end of that fight,” the Frenchman said.
“Do you have my money?” Malet asked in an icy voice.
“If you’ve brought what I asked for.”
“I have. But it took some blunt to get Wellesley’s memorandum. I had to pay off servants in two households.”
Twohouseholds? Castlereagh and Wellesley’s, no doubt.
The Frenchman slid a purse across the table. “There is plenty in here to compensate you for whatever expenses you incurred.”
Malet picked it up and looked inside, then smiled as he tucked the purse into his coat pocket. He removed a thin sheaf of papers from his other coat pocket and set them in the center of the table. “Then this is for you, monsieur.”
“Don’t call me that, you imbecile.” The Frenchman cast a look about the tavern, then leaned forward to hiss, “I don’t need a mob of angry Englishmen chasing me down the street.”
That was Joshua’s cue. He rose and took a few steps to the empty chair between them at their table. As they looked up, startled, he sat down and said, “I hope you’ll settle for one angry Englishman, sir. Mobs are so unwieldy.”
Malet gaped at him. “Wolfe? What the—”
“Happy to see you, too, Malet.” While he still had the element of surprise, Joshua pulled both his loaded pistols out of his greatcoat pockets, pushed the barrel of one against the Frenchman’s knee and the barrel of the other against Malet’s.
Smiling the whole while, he said, “Now, you gentlemen have one of two choices. The first is that Malet retrieves that purse from his coat and passes it to me, while you, monsieur, slide that sheaf of papers to me. The second is that I, in an instant, make you both as much invalids as the pensioners hereabouts, and then scoop up the documents and money on my way out while you’re both writhing on the floor. A fate you both richly deserve, by the way.”
The Frenchman glared at Malet. “You damned imbecile. You were followed!”
“Personally,” Joshua continued, “given the treasonous nature of your transaction, I would prefer the latter choice. But the ball might go through one of you and hit an innocent individual, which would be troublesome for me. So I’ll leave the choice up to you.”
Malet glowered at him. “You wouldn’tdare, Major.”
Joshua fixed a deadly gaze on Malet. “I believe I’ve already proved once today that I will dare a great many things.”
The Frenchman reached inside his coat. Without even turning his head from Malet, Joshua half-cocked the pistol he held to the Frenchman’s knee. “That would be unwise, monsieur.”
