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Sir George knew radical publications.

Lady Beckenham recognized leaked phrases.

Pembroke knew far too much and possessed far too little discretion.

Servants moved between every room.

Somewhere amongst all of it, was a traitor. He wanted the clean satisfaction of certainty, the moment the scattered pieces finally became one pattern and the individual responsible realized that the frivolous major he had dismissed had been watching all along.

Baines needed to catch them now.

CHAPTER 10

Lady Dunsmore and Lady Beckenham were breakfasting with Sir George, who held aloft a copy of the Edinburgh Evening Courant bearing the headline: 60,000 WORKERS STRIKE!

Judith stared at it. She had known it was coming. Will had warned her; Baines had confirmed enough of the rumours to make disbelief impossible; and during the past several days, every post from Scotland had carried increasingly frantic reports of meetings, placards and men preparing to lay down their tools. None of that made the printed number less appalling.

It was one thing to speak of discontent over dinner, with silver laid upon polished mahogany and servants moving soundlessly behind one’s chair. It was quite another to imagine sixty thousand men refusing work at once, whole manufactories silent, furnaces cooling, looms stilled, employers furious and magistrates terrified.

Sixty thousand men meant considerably more than sixty thousand lives affected. There were wives, children, mothers, younger brothers and elderly parents who depended upon those wages. There were shopkeepers who depended upon their custom, landlords who expected rents, bakers who expected coin, and magistrates who would see not hunger or desperation but disorder.

Judith’s stomach tightened. Troops would inevitably be employed.

Sir George shook the newspaper as though the entire affair had occurred chiefly to vindicate him.

“There, you see. That is precisely what I said would happen.”

Lady Dunsmore lowered her coffee cup. “You predicted that sixty thousand men would cease work?”

“I predicted widespread disorder.”

“Yesterday, you predicted rain. It did not rain.”

“That is hardly comparable.”

“I should think rain to be considerably more predictable than revolution.”

Lady Beckenham concealed a smile behind her cup.

Sir George ignored the interruption and returned to the paper. “Glasgow, Paisley, Kilbarchan, Johnstone—the thing is spreading everywhere. Men have abandoned their employment at the command of this so-called provisional government.”

“Have they abandoned it at command, or because they agreed with the men issuing the command?” Lady Beckenham asked.

Sir George frowned. “What difference does that make?”

“A substantial one, if you intend to understand why sixty thousand people have done something.”

“They are being manipulated.”

“Sixty thousand of them?”

“People in crowds are remarkably stupid.”

Lady Dunsmore sniffed. “Whereas people at breakfast are paragons of reason.”

Judith nearly smiled, but Sir George’s next words prevented it.

“The authorities will have little choice now. They must act before these fellows imagine themselves rulers of Scotland. There are already troops enough within reach, and once the principal routes are secured, the rest becomes a matter of breaking communication between the towns.”