Although she was sick with worry about Nick, Anne couldn’t help but enjoy what happened once they arrived at Horse Guards.
It wasn’t merely the fact that he was six and a half feet tall and burly; Michael really did have a special talent for looming. He employed it to its full effect upon the hapless clerk.
“Lord Morsley!” the clerk said upon their entrance, brightening. “How can I be of assistance?” Anne marked the moment he noticed that Michael was flanked by the very pair he’d turned away earlier in the day. His smile froze, and he began to physically droop.
“Is this the man you spoke with this afternoon, darling?” Michael asked, speaking at full volume. “The one who refused to assist you?” Around the room, multiple men looked up from their work, craning their necks to see.
“The very one,” Anne confirmed. “Mr. Thackery.”
Mr. Thackery gulped. “Is… is there a problem, my lord?”
Michael began to loom. “That depends. Do you consider it a problem that my betrothed was dismissed, and was therefore unable to obtain the help she needed?”
“I… I didn’t realize she was your betrothed—”
“Not that it should matter,” Michael snapped. “Anyone of Lady Anne’s unimpeachable character should always be granted the basic courtesy of a hearing. To say nothing”—he placed his hand in the center of Samuel’s back and drew him forward—“of my personal barrister.”
Mr. Thackery narrowed his eyes at Samuel, then turned to Michael. “Your personal barrister? I was unaware your lordship had business with the Admiralty.”
Michael froze for a second, but he recovered quickly. “As it happens, I have been assisting the Royal Navy, sending them shipments of raw materials from the Canadian frontier.”
Anne made a point of laying her hand upon Michael’s upper arm as she smiled up at him fondly. “Did you not tell me that you received a letter of thanks from Lord Nelson himself after the first delivery of mast poles?”
“Why, yes. Yes, I did.”
Samuel pressed a hand to his heart. “It is an honor to act as Lord Morsley’s liaison.”
The clerk’s face had taken on a greenish cast. “I… I see.”
“But let us return to the matter at hand,” Michael said, looming even harder. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Mr. Thackery’s posture by now was what Anne would describe as cowering. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord—”
“It is not I who am owed an apology.”
“That is—my lady. And Mr. Branton. I… I should’ve let you speak to—er—someone.” Anne didn’t feel quite ready to offer her absolution, and apparently Samuel felt the same way, because they both maintained a stony silence. After a moment, Mr. Thackery cleared his throat awkwardly. “Shall I tell Lord Hobart you’re here, then?”
“You should’ve done so four hours ago,” Michael said. “So yes.”
The clerk led them back to Lord Hobart’s office. The baron scowled as he looked up from the piles of papers that littered his desk. “This had better be important, Morsley.”
“It is,” Michael replied. “Allow me to introduce my betrothed, Lady Anne Astley—”
Lord Hobart barked out a laugh. “You work quickly, Morsley. So that’s why you came back.”
Michael cast Anne a quick smile. “Indeed. And this is Mr. Samuel Branton, a barrister working primarily in the Admiralty Courts. He will explain.”
“Very well,” Lord Hobart grumbled. “I suppose I should ring for some tea.”
Samuel held up both hands. “That is very kind of you, my lord, but it is not necessary. We will not take up one minute more of your time than we absolutely must.”
Samuel launched straight into the case, laying out the facts clearly but concisely. Anne knew Samuel had a knack for reading people and tailoring his approach to the person to whom he was speaking, but she was accustomed to seeing him begin with more of an effort to charm his audience. As Lord Hobart listened in stony-faced silence, she could not help but wonder if Samuel’s tactics were sound.
Once he finished his account of the malfeasance taking place at the R.M.A., Lord Hobart rose and went to the door. “Get in here, Thackery.”
Anne’s heart kicked up a notch as the clerk entered the room. “I’ll be dictating a letter,” Lord Hobart informed him.
“Yes, my lord,” Mr. Thackery replied, hurrying to a writing desk in the corner and pulling out a sheet of paper. “To whom shall I address it?”
“To the Chief Magistrate at Bow Street,” Lord Hobart said.
“Is—is there a problem?” Mr. Thackery asked.
Lord Hobart rounded on him. “Five thousand pounds of the army’s money has been stolen. Does that strike you as being a problem?”
Anne was careful not to let her face fall at the baron’s concern for the embezzled money, but not for the children in harm’s way. But her smile felt tight. Lord Hobart must have noticed, because he hastily added, “And the children. Absolutely deplorable, what’s being done to those children.”
Lord Hobart proceeded to dictate a note that was inescapably clear, for all that it was only four sentences long. “If I find out that you did not deploy every resource available to you in order to get to the bottom of this, I will not hesitate to bring the questionable circumstances under which your investigation has been conducted to the attention of Mr. Addington,” he concluded.
There was a scratching sound as the clerk’s quill skidded off the edge of the page. “Mr.—Mr. Addington?” he asked, eyes huge. “You don’t mean the prime minister?”
“Of course I mean the prime minister,” Lord Hobart snapped. “And the next time someone comes to tell us that five thousand pounds of the army’s money has been stolen, don’t send them away. Now get out of my office, all of you.”
It happened that Samuel was happy to wait for the clerk to finish transcribing the letter. “I cannot wait to see the look on their faces when I walk into the Bow Street offices with a letter from the secretary of state himself,” he mused.
“We’ll all go together,” Anne said, squeezing Michael’s arm. “That way you can loom some more. You’re so good at it.”
Michael puffed out his chest. “At the risk of sounding like an outrageous braggart, I also have an innate talent for glaring and shouting, should the situation require it.”
Such a brief missive took very little time to transcribe, and within a quarter hour they were climbing out of Anne’s carriage at Bow Street. The reaction at Bow Street closely mirrored that of the clerk at Horse Guards. Cowering gave way to outright panic after Lord Hobart’s letter was read.
“A thousand apologies, Lord Morsley,” the clerk, whose name was Mr. Hewitt, said. “We will make sure this is thoroughly investigated going forward.”
Mr. Hewitt began shuffling through some papers, apparently assuming this reassurance was sufficient and the conversation over.
Samuel leaned his elbow against the counter. “Excellent. When will this thorough investigation begin, and what will it entail?”
Mr. Hewitt bristled. “What did you just ask me?”
It turned out that Michael could loom quite effectively even when separated from his quarry by a counter. “What my personal barrister just asked is what you’re going to do to about Lord Gladstone. Tonight. Because, in case it didn’t penetrate your thick skull, a boy’s life is in danger.”
“This is the same boy who caught a glimpse of the baron’s face?” Mr. Hewitt asked.
“The very one,” Anne said.
Mr. Hewitt shook his head. “He’s probably dead already. The whole reason Gladstone took him was to eliminate a witness.”
Anne felt her chest constrict. This was precisely her fear, that she was already too late.
But she could not give in to that despair. She lifted her chin. “We must try. There is still a chance that Nick is—”
Mr. Hewitt cut in. “Although a tender heart is a credit to a woman—”
Michael leaned forward. “Did you just interrupt Lady Anne?” he all but shouted.
Mr. Hewitt physically recoiled. “I… I’m sorry, my lady.”
“So what you are arguing,” Michael continued, “is that there is no need to act tonight because Nick has already been murdered. Refresh my memory, what entity is responsible for tracking down and apprehending the murderers of children?”
“That would be the Bow Street Runners,” Samuel said conversationally.
“That’s what I thought,” Michael said. “So. What’s your plan?”
Mr. Hewitt looked taken aback. “It will take time to formulate a plan, to find the manpower to—”
“What were Lord Hobart’s exact words?” Michael asked.
Samuel made a show of scanning the letter. “Let’s see. Ah, yes, here it is. ‘If I find out that you did not deploy every resource available to you—’”
Michael shook his head. “What a shame I’ll have to tell Lord Hobart his instructions were ignored.”
Mr. Hewitt scowled. “Be reasonable. Lord Gladstone’s current whereabouts are unknown. We don’t even know where to begin looking.”
“How marvelously convenient,” Samuel said. “In our earlier interview, both Nick and Johnny reported that, based on the smell, the house where Lord Gladstone was keeping the boys was near a kiln.”
Mr. Hewitt threw up his hands. “Who even knows how many kilns there are in London, or where they are!”
Samuel reached into his breast pocket. “Fourteen. That’s according to my friend over at Exchequer. I have a list of them right here.”
The clerk glared at him. “So you’re suggesting we just send men out to these fourteen kilns, and check the surrounding buildings for a bunch of kidnapped orphans?”
“Precisely,” Michael said. “Finally, you’re catching on.”
“And who is going to check these kilns?” Mr. Hewitt asked.
“Forgive me if I’ve been misinformed, as I’ve spent the past four years in Canada,” Michael said, “but does Bow Street not employ a Foot Patrol? What for, if not tasks of this nature?”
“It is a wild goose chase—” the clerk began.
Michael gave him a hard look. “Better than sitting around doing nothing.”
Anne stepped forward and took Michael’s arm. “Did Lord Morsley mention that he’s going to be the next Governor General of Canada?”
“Hand-picked by Lord Hobart himself,” Samuel noted.
Mr. Hewitt gave an aggrieved sigh. “Fine.”
In the end, ten pair of men from the Foot Patrol were mustered to initiate the search. “I’ll take Pottery Lane in Notting Hill,” Samuel offered.
“Give the rest to me,” Anne said. “I’ll divide it up amongst my footmen.”
As they left the Bow Street offices, Anne still felt sick with worry about Nick.
But at least she now had the tiniest sliver of hope.