A Seditious Affair(9)

Cruel to be kind. Damn his eyes. It was true, though, and they both knew it.

Dominic flexed his fingers. They’d hurt tomorrow. Quite a lot of him would. Some Thursdays he could hardly move, and he’d often had clear finger marks on his wrists. His hands were the worst though. They cramped.

The brute insisted on that. Hands on whatever he was ordered to hold, at once imprisonment, obedience, and silent consent. They both knew what it meant, but the brute never spoke of it, never gave the slightest indication, because he understood what Dominic needed. He understood.

Heaven knew how, when his own dearest friend, the love of his life, had not.

I don’t want you to stop, Dominic had said. Even if I should say I do. And Richard had stared at him as he would at some monstrous thing and said, But I love you. How could I hurt you? How could you ask me to?

Dominic had had broken bones that had hurt less. And one forgot the reality of pain once the bones healed. He had a superb memory, and he did not forget words.

He very definitely didn’t feel like pleasuring himself now. Thoughts of that conversation always had a quelling effect. Not that it would last until the evening.

Wednesday. At last.

—

Dominic was working through a pile of reports, mostly notable for their uneducated hands, poor spelling, and obvious spite, when there was a rap on his door.

“Mr. Frey.” It was Thaddeus Skelton. A little older than Dominic and a colleague he respected, although Skelton was of the lower orders. He operated with a ruthlessness that was outside what Dominic, as a gentleman, could stomach—which was why they had different sorts of men here, of course—and got the work done with pleasing efficiency.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Skelton?”

Skelton smiled at the form of address, a little twitch that made his long whiskers ruffle. Not all the men of Dominic’s standing bothered to give him that courtesy. “I wondered if you’d like to come along with me tomorrow.” His smile broadened. “I’ve got a line on Jack Cade.”

“Have you, by heaven?” Dominic sat upright. “Have you indeed. Tell me all.”

Skelton swung in, closing the door behind him. The pamphleteer who wrote sedition under the pseudonym of Jack Cade was a big enough fish that he wouldn’t want him poached by one of their colleagues. “It’s not certain. But I’ve a man in among the radical scum and particularly the Spenceans.”

Dominic snorted. He did not like the Spencean philosophy, a chatter of rights and equalities mouthed by gutter revolutionaries. They intended to steal land from its rightful owners and share it out among what they called “the people.” Dominic did not share their idealistic views of mankind and had a fair idea of what would happen to their utopia of property in common after a couple of years. “Go on.”

“My man has nosed out that the Cade pamphlets are coming from a political bookshop owned by a Spencean type. There’s gossip it houses a hand press. Now, here’s the meat of it, Mr. Frey.” Skelton’s eyes gleamed. “This man, the owner, used to be known as a pamphleteer in his own right, a free-thinking Benthamite, but he’s not produced anything in the last two years—”

“The period Cade has been writing. And we know from his work that Cade holds Spencean beliefs. You think this man is Cade, printing his own works?”

“It would explain why we’ve not found his printer.”

There were plenty of hand presses in London, plenty of angry radicals, plenty of printers who could keep a secret. Still, it was a good lead, and Skelton was no fool, and if they could snap up Cade, that scabrous treason-monger who wrote too well, that would be a solid blow to the seditionists. “Excellent. Yes, I’ll be there with pleasure. I’d like to see you bring Cade in.”

Skelton’s smile showed they understood one another. Many Home Office senior men liked to claim credit for underlings’ triumphs. Dominic’s presence would prevent anyone else taking Skelton’s glory, and he would ensure that the man received full recognition. That modest supportiveness had won him a great deal of loyalty and meant his name was attached to a great number of successes.

“Tomorrow then, Mr. Frey. Bright and early.”

Dominic had a strong suspicion he would not want to rise early, after a Wednesday night with the brute. Still, Jack Cade would be worth it. “Very good. Where’s the place?”

“Ludgate. The shop is called Theobald’s.”

Dominic felt a cold sensation crawling up his neck. “Theobald’s. Theobald’s Bookshop?”

Skelton raised a brow. “Aye, that’s the one. You know it?”