Page 63
Judith looked at the paper beneath his arm. “What have you found?”
His brows lifted. “There you are, you see. Curiosity.”
“You are carrying a political circular.” Her attention sharpened. “May I see it?”
Baines hesitated.
Judith extended her hand. “Do not be absurd.”
“I was considering whether my showing it to you would violate Colonel Renforth’s increasingly impossible instructions.”
“Does Colonel Renforth know you spend your mornings drinking ale with villagers?”
“He would be more concerned if I had failed to learn anything whilst doing it.”
“Then perhaps your instructions allow you to share useful information with the woman whose house is apparently leaking it.”
He hesitated.
“Baines.”
His expression changed slightly at the use of his name, although Judith had not intended anything by it. At least she had not intended very much.
He unfolded the paper. Judith took it from him.
The coarse paper had already been folded several times and smelled faintly of smoke and ale. Her gaze moved over the columns until the heading caught her eye.
NO MORE PIECEMEAL ARRESTS!
Her stomach tightened, but she read on.
The language was inflammatory without being openly seditious, accusing nervous magistrates of planning to lure reform leaders into gatherings and seize them together rather than warn them through individual arrests. Judith might have dismissed half of it as the usual exaggeration of political papers, if not for the sentence near the bottom.
The authorities mean to wait until the principal men gather and take the lot of them in a single night.
Judith stared at the words. The village street seemed suddenly too quiet. “That is what Sir George said.”
“Yes.”
“Almost exactly.”
“Yes.”
Judith looked up. The amusement had disappeared entirely from Baines’ face. She read the sentence again. “He said it at dinner.”
“Three nights ago.”
“There must have been twenty people present, if one includes servants entering and leaving.”
Judith folded the paper carefully. “Whoever sent this did so quickly.”
“That troubled me too.”
“When was it printed?”
“Yesterday morning, according to the date.”
Judith calculated the passage of time. “Then the information must have left Blackthorn almost immediately.”
