Rebel Magisters (Rebel Mechanics #2)(2)

What I wrote was a short news article speculating on the departure of the British troops and what it meant for the rebel movement. It was close to the deadline for the next day’s edition, but I thought I could make it if I hurried. I finished the article while absently sipping lemonade and nibbling cake, gave it one last read, and folded it up, placing it against my palm as I put my gloves back on.

Now all I needed to do was drop it off and then I could return home before the girls were through with their art and music lessons. I left the café and turned toward the hat shop that was the nearest drop-off point for the rebels.

Before I reached the end of the block, I had the strongest feeling that I wasn’t alone. Although I had that itchy sensation between my shoulder blades that told me someone was watching me, I didn’t dare turn around to look. It was absolutely imperative that I gave no one any reason to suspect me. I was merely an anonymous young woman, out running errands. Now I regretted my impatience to write the article. If I’d waited until I was home and left it at the nearest drop, the article might have been delayed a day, but I wouldn’t have had anything incriminating on me.

I stopped at a street corner and waited to cross to the opposite side. Looking both ways for oncoming traffic allowed me to see whatever—or whomever—was behind me. The sidewalk wasn’t so crowded that any one person could blend into the background, and there was one person who didn’t quite fit in this part of town, which was mostly populated by students, and lately by soldiers. He had the look of a government functionary: gray suit, bowler hat, nondescript face. I thought he might have been in the café, but he was so unremarkable that I couldn’t truly be sure. He stood nonchalantly against a lamppost, but I’d have bet he was the one watching me.

But why would he follow me? I hadn’t done anything suspicious. All I could think was that one of my contacts was being watched, and therefore anyone else who dealt with her would also be watched, at least for a little while. Had he followed me to the café, or had I only come to his attention there? My real worry was that he had followed me from the laundry. If he knew what was in that bundle, I couldn’t let him connect me with my employer.

To throw him off my trail, I darted across the street at the first sign of a clear path and entered the first shop I encountered. It was a candy store, which seemed innocuous enough, and the shopgirl wasn’t part of my network. I bought a couple of pennies’ worth of candy for the children and left the store. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted that the man in gray was still there.

There was a ribbon shop nearby, but I was known there, for my employer rather than my covert activities. I passed the shop, going instead to a different one that the Lyndon family didn’t patronize. There I bought a yard of blue ribbon I thought might look nice with my hair, if I ever wore it down rather than in a no-nonsense bun.

As I came out of the shop, before I could look for the gray man, I thought I saw another familiar face—or, rather, familiar hair, a shock of bright red curling out from under a shabby top hat. Colin? I wondered. But he was out of town with the rest of the Rebel Mechanics. I walked right past him without a second glance, hoping that if it was, indeed, Colin, he would get the message and not speak to me.

At the next intersection, I found that the gray man was still there. I didn’t dare drop off my article or go home while I was being watched. Ahead of me I saw a shop that I thought might do the trick. No gentleman would follow a lady into a lingerie shop. To be honest, I was a little bashful about entering such a place.

The air in the establishment was lightly scented with lavender, which calmed my nerves somewhat. All around me were concoctions of lace and silk. There were corsets and petticoats, as well as nightgowns that made my serviceable muslin gown look rather dowdy in comparison.

The shopgirl approached me with a grin. “Let me guess, you’ve got a man problem, and you want something to make you feel better.”

She was one of ours, so I said, “It’s more like I want to get rid of one.”

“He won’t dare come in here, so have a seat, and let me show you our latest range of silk stockings.”

I wasn’t sure how much time I spent looking at stockings I would never buy, but I thought that anyone waiting for me would be bored by the time I decided on a new pair of wool stockings. When I left the shop with a ribbon-wrapped parcel, the gray man was nowhere to be seen.

I made haste for the hat shop, where I slid the article out of my glove and passed it to the milliner. “I suppose I’d better buy something for show. I’ve been followed,” I said. “I think I lost him, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll fix that right up for you,” she said, removing my hat. She put a new ribbon on it, with a curling bow to the side. “There, that should be an obvious enough difference that even a man will notice it.”

There were more soldiers outside when I left than there had been before, but they didn’t seem to pay any attention to me. I passed the gray man on the next corner. I was a little safer now that I had nothing incriminating on me, but I still preferred to get away without being questioned. If they got my identity, that would lead them to Henry, and his clandestine activities were far more dangerous than mine.

Then I noticed that there were a lot of other young women on the street, all dressed similarly to me. They came from every angle, shopping baskets like mine over their arms. There weren’t so many that it looked like an organized meeting, but as I moved toward a more crowded neighborhood, it became slightly more difficult for anyone to tell exactly which soberly dressed young woman was which.