Page 99 of Marry in Secret
“Hush, Rose, you’re all right.” His voice seemed to soothe her. She turned her face to him.
“Thomas?” But her gaze was blank, unseeing.
“I’m here.” He kept wiping her down.
The door opened. “I heard voices. What’s happening?” It was Emm. She took one look at Rose and said, “She’s delirious,” and reached for a cloth.
Thomas caught her hand. “I can manage.”
“But—”
“You need your sleep.” His gaze dropped to Emm’s swollen belly, and he added gently, “You’re sleeping for two, remember?”
“Thank you, Thomas,” Ashendon said from the doorway.“She’d take on the world if she could, my Emm.” He held out his hand. “Come to bed, my love. Thomas will manage.”
Thomas sponged and soothed Rose through the night, giving her the medicine the doctor had left, and sips of the willow bark tea they had brewed in case it was needed. And finally, just after dawn, she started to sweat. The fever had broken.
When Ashendon and Emm looked in that morning, Rose was peacefully asleep, her head on Thomas’s chest, his arms around her. Thomas was fast asleep, dried tear tracks on his cheeks.
***
Several days later, when it was clear that Rose was well out of danger, Ashendon approached Thomas after breakfast. “That fellow I said who might know someone? Turns out, he does. Want to meet him?”
“The fellow who knows people, or the someone who might go to Mogador?”
“Both. He’ll see us at eleven.”
The “fellow who knows people” turned out to be the Honorable Gil Radcliffe, a man who’d apparently attended their recent ball, though Thomas couldn’t recall meeting him. His office was at Horse Guards, which apart from housing the Household Cavalry also acted as military headquarters. Ashendon led him through a labyrinth of corridors with a casual familiarity that was revealing.
Radcliffe was a tall, saturnine gentleman who dressed with a careless elegance. The other gentleman had already arrived before them. He sat quietly in a corner seat. Radcliffe introduced him as Wilmott. From the exchange between Radcliffe, Ashendon and Wilmott, it was clear they knew each other from school.
Radcliffe rang for tea and a few minutes later an assistant brought in a heavily laden tea tray. Radcliffe poured and invited them to help themselves to milk, sugar and ginger biscuits. It was all very chatty and friendly and polite, Thomas thought sourly. Lady Salter would have enjoyed it.
While everyone was fussing over tea, Thomas inspected the man who was supposed to solve his problems. He wasn’t impressed.
Everything about Wilmott looked... moderate, Thomas thought. Mild of manner, bland of appearance. Of medium height, he was slender, with dark hair and dark eyes. Conservatively though expensively dressed, ordinary and totally forgettable. Not at all the kind of man Thomas had expected—or hoped for.
Radcliffe added milk and stirred sugar into his tea. “Now Lord Brierdon, tell Wilmott about your little problem.”
Little problem?Five enslaved men was hardly a little problem.
Thomas explained the task and described what he knew of each man’s situation. “But it’s been several years—anything could have happened to them: sold on, traded, died. Tracking them down won’t be easy. And then once you find them, you will need to negotiate for their release—in effect, to buy them from their current owners.”
He looked doubtfully at Wilmott. “You’ll need to be a skilled and cunning bargainer. Or find a trustworthy local agent who can do it for you. But I warn you, they’re sharks.”
Wilmott nodded placidly. “Understood.” He took another ginger biscuit.
Thomas could hear him crunching it. He clenched his jaw. This fellow would not do at all. He had no idea. “What do you know about that part of the world?”
Wilmott smiled. “Enough, I assure you.”
Thomas doubted it.
Radcliffe pulled out his fob watch. “Well, then, that’s settled. Sorry to hurry you along, gentlemen, but I have another appointment in ten minutes. Brierdon, if you could give Wilmott the details of your men, and make arrangements for the transfer of the money—”
“No. This is not going to work,” Thomas said abruptly. “I need someone streetwise and tough, a man who can handle himself in a fight if necessary, someone who’s well acquainted with the culture and the region and the language,not a well-intentioned tea-sipping Old Harrovian. So thank you, but no thank you.” He got up to leave.
“So you doubt me, you son of an English dog?” said a voice in fluent Arabic from behind him.
