Page 45 of King's Man

A metallic click from the strongbox startled him and he saw Sam smiling, reaching for another tool before inserting it into the lock and bending to his task once more. The moonlight spilling in through the window turned him to silver and black, his hair steely and his face shadowed. But Nate could hear his soft, measured breathing as he concentrated, and it amazed him to realize that he remembered the sound. He’d heard it many times, in the quiet of the fireside as they read together. In bed while they drowsed in each other’s arms.

It was quite a thing to know the sound of another man’s breathing.

And standing there in the dark room, it struck him painfully that, once this brief interlude was over, he’d never hear that sound again. He’d never see Sam again. Their reunion was inescapably fragile and fleeting.

“Got it!” Sam’s quiet exclamation jerked Nate from his unhappy thoughts, and he watched carefully as Sam turned the large locking mechanism on top of the strongbox. It moved with a gentle cascade of clicks before Sam, grinning, lifted the lid. “There you go.”

“Impressive.”

Rising to his feet, Sam stepped back. “Find what you’re looking for and be quick about it.”

Nate crouched, wishing he had a lamp but not daring to light one. The strongbox was well organized, at least, and he picked carefully through ledgers and papers, lifting them into the moonlight to read. Meanwhile, Sam went to stand sentry by the door. What they’d do if he heard someone coming, Nate couldn’t imagine. Climb out the window? They were two floors up!

He shook the thought aside, refocusing on his search. Shipping manifests, correspondence with creditors and debtors — Nate noticed Rowsley’s name cropping up frequently among the latter. Setting them aside, he discovered another batch of letters and shuffled quickly through them, skimming for anything of interest. And perhaps he wouldn’t have recognized the letters for what they were had his eye not been snagged, as if by a fishhook, by one name:Samuel Hutchinson, Rosemont, RI.

Nate’s breath caught, gaze shooting up to where Sam stood listening at the door. For an instant their eyes met and held before Nate looked down sharply. Pulse racing, he scanned the rest of the letter.

Samuel Hutchinson, Rosemont, RI. — Estate confiscated, tarred and feathered, imprisoned at Simsbury Mine (8 months, escaped). Evacuated to London. Impoverished. Open to financial inducement?

It had been sent by a man called Edward Cavendish in March of that year and contained a list of several men under the title:Refugees sympathetic and potentially useful.

Potentially useful for what? He remembered suddenly that MacLeod had told Farris of men in London keen to strike a blow against the government that had stripped them of everything. But not Sam. Surely not Sam.

Hurriedly, he looked through the rest of the letters in the bundle. Sure enough, they contained similar lists, some from this man Cavendish but many from other men. All naming names — known Loyalists, King’s Men, and Tories. Men deemed sympathetic to MacLeod’s cause.

Shit and damnation, was his network of subversives real after all? Only now, when he held the evidence in his hands, did Nate realize how much he’d hoped MacLeod’s brags had been empty.

“Are you nearly done?” Sam hissed from the door.

With a jerky nod, Nate rolled the letters together and rearranged the inside of the strongbox to disguise their absence.

“Can you lock the lid?” he asked Sam. “The longer he’s unaware they’re missing the better.”

Sam crossed the room and bent to relock the box, casting a curious glance in Nate’s direction. Not knowing what to say — hell, not knowing what tothink — Nate busied himself bundling MacLeod’s letters into the protective oilcloth pouch in his haversack.

What did it mean that Sam’s name was listed among these potentially useful contacts? He watched as Sam stood up, the moonlight casting stark light over his face. Had the war made him so bitter that he’d do harm to his country? That he’d be part of an insurrection against its duly elected government?

No. Impossible.

There was no world in which Sam would be part of any such scheme. Nate couldn’t believe it. Sam hated violence; it wasn’t possible that he’d do now what he’d sacrificed everything to refute five years ago.

Sam cocked his head. “I take it you found what you wanted?”

Hardly that. God, he almost laughed at the irony; this was the last thing he wanted. Out loud, he said, “I did.”

Sam’s gaze lingered, considering, but he didn’t ask more. Nate was grateful. He didn’t want to lie, but telling Sam he held a list of suspected Tory subversives in his hands — Sam’s name among them — was unthinkable. It would endanger every tentative step toward reconciliation they’d taken, and Nate dared not risk it.

Saying no more, Sam touched Nate's shoulder as he moved around the desk, leading him back to the door. After listening carefully, Sam opened it and slipped out into the corridor. Nate followed. He took a moment to close the door behind them and spared a grateful thought for the servants who oiled the hinges so assiduously.

But just as he was hurrying to catch up with Sam, he heard the cold click of a door opening behind them. He spun around in fright, his breath hot and panicked beneath the scarf covering his face. Shit.Shit.

John MacLeod, Baron Marlborough, stood in the doorway to his room, backlit by a dazzling array of lamps, sans wig and wearing nothing but a shirt and breeches. Behind him, the wide-eyed woman in his bed gathered the sheets around herself. MacLeod’s face purpled apoplectically. “What in the devil’s name — ?”

Nate bolted.

Ahead of him, Sam, white-faced with alarm, stumbled briefly but recovered himself and sprinted out onto the landing. He didn’t bother with the cramped servants’ stairs, instead flew down the grand staircase. Still ten yards behind him, Nate’s boots skidded on the slick marble floor of the landing as he tried to catch up, MacLeod’s bellow chasing him down the corridor.

“Thieves! Stop them!”

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