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Renforth followed his gaze. “Does that trouble you?”
“Not as much as it should.”
For once, Renforth did not smile.
Baines rested one shoulder against the door-frame. “She passed on some information because she believed people were hungry and those with influence did not care to hear about it. The moment she understood the same route might carry intelligence that could get men killed, she stopped. She told me what she had done when concealment would have been easier, and she has done nothing since except help me find the person who is using this house for something far worse.”
“That explains why you trust her.”
“It ought to be enough.”
“It is enough for me.”
Baines looked at him.
Renforth pulled on his gloves. “I was not questioning her, Baines.” Renforth left him there and crossed towards his horse.
Baines watched him disappear through the trees before joining Judith. She did not ask what Renforth had said, for which he was grateful. They mounted and turned back towards Blackthorn at an easy pace, the mist finally lifting enough to reveal the distant line of hills.
After a time, Judith spoke. “I had imagined your troop in a different guise.”
Baines looked across at her. “More impressive?”
“No, more severe. Colonel Renforth certainly satisfies that expectation, but Major Stuart was not at all what I had anticipated.”
“Stuart is severe when necessary. Unfortunately, necessity rarely survives more than an hour in my company.”
“You are very fond of them,” she remarked, without mockery.
Baines considered denying it and found that he did not wish to. “We have known one another a long time. There are some friendships which grow from shared tastes and others which arise because one man has dragged another out of a ditch while someone shoots at both of them. Ours tends towards the latter.”
Judith smiled faintly. “Is Colonel Renforth a friend too?”
“He has spent years preventing the rest of us from killing ourselves through stupidity, enemy action or our own excessive confidence. It has made him age prematurely.”
“He is not old.”
“Precisely. The man is unnatural.”
Her laugh drifted across the quiet road.
Baines looked ahead again. “You will like all of them. Fielding is friendly but reserved. Chum is more intelligent than he lets on, and Manners will probably decide within five minutes that he understands you perfectly.”
“And will he?”
“Probably.”
They rode another few yards before Judith said, more quietly, “It must be good to have them near again.”
The remark struck closer than she could have known. Baines had spent the early days congratulating himself upon being free of Renforth’s supervision and the others’ interference. Yet the knowledge that they now surrounded the estate had restored something he had not realized was missing.
“Yes,” he said simply, “it is.”
Judith looked at him, and he saw understanding rather than curiosity in her face.
They reached the rise from which Blackthorn first became visible, its grey stone walls standing against the green countryside. Somewhere inside that house sat the person they had been seeking. By tomorrow, that person would believe Renforth intended to conduct a secret meeting beneath Sir Lionel’s roof. If the bait worked, information would move, and this time Baines would have men waiting along every road.
For the first time since his arrival, the investigation felt less like reaching into darkness and more like tightening a net. He turned towards Judith.
