Free Falconer's Quest by T. Davis Bunn Page A

could watch young runners carry sheets of wet typeface from the journalists to the printing shops. Matt was so enthused by it all that he scarcely blinked. He kept a twofisted hold on the carriage window the entire way home. But when the carriage turned back into Grosvenor Square, he promptly fell asleep. Falconer easily carried him upstairs and put him to bed.
    At dawn the next morning, they were off again for Portsmouth.
    They ate an early meal from hampers supplied by Lavinia Aldridge and Erica Powers. Gareth Powers, a former army officer, had desperately wanted to join them on their rescue mission. But his pamphleteering efforts, raising public awareness of slavery’s inhumanity, had grown into a daily newspaper, one with a national readership. He chafed at his desk and complained loudly at the unrelenting responsibilities, even though all could see he was a man born to the task.
    Portsmouth lay at the base of the South Downs, a series of steep hills that rose a few miles inland. The air was clear the morning of their return, the fields emerald and afire with spring blossoms, the sunlight gentle in a very English manner. Church spires and ships’ masts heralded their arrival. And beyond the harbor’s rocky arms, beyond the lighthouse and the harbor fort, the sea beckoned.
    When they arrived alongside the ship, a thoroughly unexpected scene came into view. The midshipman assigned duty at the top of the gangway was stubbornly refusing entry to a very agitated woman. The middy stood with the sullen frown of a young man whose temper was held in check only because he was so ordered. The woman’s voice carried down the plank walkway and about the stone jetty. Crewmen wrestling hogsheads of fresh produce cast wry grins in the direction of the middy. Falconer did not need to hear their chuckled comments to know they were very glad not to be on the receiving end of this tirade.
    “Make way, I pray, madam.” The middy did his best to motion the woman aside. “Officers coming aboard.”
    “I will do no such thing.” She wore such a tangled assortment of garments it was hard to judge her stature or her age. A dress, frayed and stained, was topped by unkempt red hair spilling in a tousled mass from beneath a bedraggled hat. Her shoulders were wrapped in a shawl as discolored as a captain’s sea coat. Her face was so tanned she might have been mistaken for an Arab or Indian, save for her hair, voice, and eyes. When Falconer grew near, he thought they were the lightest blue he had ever seen, a color one shade off the sky at high noon.
    And she was very angry. “There is not one soul upon this earth who has a more vital business on this vessel than I!”
    Not even the day’s urgency to launch could keep Reginald Langston from offering her a courteous greeting. “Madam, I beg your forgiveness. Might I ask your name?”
    “She won’t say, sir,” the middy replied. “Which is half the problem.”
    “My name is my own, and my business is with the captain!”
    “He’s been sent for, sir,” the middy added. “But he’s been tied up with the chandlers since dawn.”
    “Then I insist upon waiting in his quarters,” she announced in tones boding no argument.
    “Madam,” Reginald said soothingly, “I fear that is impossible.”
    “By whose orders?”
    “My own. No women except passengers are allowed on board one of my vessels. You must understand—” Reginald stopped because the woman’s mouth had fallen open.
    She faltered momentarily, her face pale. “You are Master Langston?”
    “I am.”
    “Your wife, she is the former countess, mother to the young man named Byron?”
    It was Reginald’s turn to grow ashen. “Who are you, madam?”
    “Thank God, oh, thank the Lord.” Her strength dissipated with her ire, such that only the railing kept her from collapsing to the gangway flooring. “I am Amelia Henning.”
    “Ma’am, forgive me, but your name—”
    “I was the first to bring word of your stepson’s