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Baines had already taken the chair opposite the desk. His posture had altered almost imperceptibly. The lazy ease remained, but there was something beneath it now, a quality of attention that had not been present in the entrance hall.
There you are, she thought, the soldier beneath the peacock. She chose a chair near the window and folded her hands in her lap.
Sir Lionel removed his spectacles. “I suppose Renforth explained why you are here?”
“He explained sufficiently to make the journey interesting and insufficiently to make it easy.”
“That sounds like Renforth.”
Judith glanced between them. “Precisely why is Major Baines here?”
Her uncle hesitated.
Baines did not. “To enjoy Sir Lionel’s hospitality.”
Judith stared at him.
He smiled.
“Do you practise saying things no sensible person could possibly believe?”
“Constantly.”
Sir Lionel laughed and reached for the toast Judith had moved.
“Judy knows something of the matter,” he said. “At least she knows we have had concerns.”
Judith’s spine stiffened slightly. Concerns was a very mild word for what had occupied her thoughts for several months.
The first incident had been after Christmas, when an account of a private discussion concerning grain shipments had appeared in a reformist pamphlet in Newcastle scarcely ten days after Sir Lionel had entertained two MPs who had discussed that very thing. The information had been accurate enough to be troublesome but distorted sufficiently to inflame tempers among men already convinced that London intended to starve them.
The second occurrence had been harder to dismiss.
A conversation concerning troop movements in Yorkshire, spoken late at night in Blackthorn’s library, had appeared soon afterwards in correspondence circulated amongst reform societies farther north.
Judith had not told her uncle everything she had discovered. That knowledge pressed upon her now with uncomfortable force.
Baines turned slightly towards her. “What sort of concerns?”
She disliked the casual tone because she no longer believed it. “Guests speak too freely.”
“That is hardly peculiar to Blackthorn.”
“No, but Blackthorn appears particularly gifted at providing them opportunity.”
Sir Lionel frowned. “I do not invite traitors into my house.”
“No one suggested you did,” Baines said easily.
Judith watched him. He had not contradicted her uncle quickly enough to soothe him. He had allowed half a second in which Sir Lionel’s reaction could be measured before offering reassurance.
Sir Lionel drummed his fingers once upon the desk. “There are men on both sides of the border who are frightened half out of their wits,” he said. “Some believe the Scots will march south. Others think the mills will rise. Half the magistrates want troops, and the other half fear troops will cause the very rebellion they are intended to prevent.”
“That is generally the difficulty with troops,” Baines observed. “They are most effective once everyone has ceased pretending their presence is reassuring.”
Sir Lionel gave him a keen look. “You have Scottish blood yourself, I understand.”
“Enough to resent English cooking and Scottish weather in equal measure.”
