‘Not in front of our house, dear,’ said Faith, when she saw what her employee was doing. ‘Walk across the street and dump it outside the Golden Lion instead. They will never notice.’
Metje screwed up her face in the endearing way she had when she had made a mistake. ‘I am sorry,’ she said in her melodic English. ‘I keep forgetting swill always goes outside the tavern.’
‘It does not matter,’ whispered Temperance. A delicious smell of smoked pork and new bread emanated from the house as she opened the door. ‘The maids do it all the time – just make sure no one is looking.’ She shot Metje, then Chaloner, a conspiratorial grin before going inside.
Metje reverted to Dutch. ‘I was right,’ she said when they were alone, referring to a topic they had debated at length the previous night. ‘She does have a hankering for you.’
Chaloner thought she could not be more wrong. ‘I am neither rich nor Puritan enough to catch her eye. Will you come later?’ It was not just a selfish desire to lie with her that prompted the question: he did not want her to spend the night in North’s house.
‘Yes, but do not fall asleep before I arrive, like you did yesterday. And do not fall out of any carriages, either.’
She shot him an arch glance as she went inside, to let him know she had not been entirely convinced by the tale he had invented to explain his sore leg. She knew he had an old war injury, but she also knew it plagued him only when he had been doing something unusually taxing. It was becoming increasingly difficult to deceive her, and he sensed yet again that it would not be long before he was forced to admit he had been living a lie for the past three years. He saw her inside the house, then climbed the stairs to his attic next door – quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the landlord.
He was halfway up the second flight when Daniel Ellis appeared on the landing. Ellis was a short man with straight silver hair that fell in a gleaming sheet around his shoulders. His dark eyes were beady, and he had an annoying habit of entering his tenants’ rooms when they were out. Naturally, Chaloner had assumed he was a spy, paid to send information to the government about his lodgers, but the traps and devices he set to catch Ellis out quickly proved he was just a man who liked to indulge in superfluous – and usually inconvenient – ‘home improvements’.
‘Mr Heyden,’ Ellis said, clasping his hands in front of him. ‘A small matter of the rent.’
Chaloner passed him two crowns, everything left from Thurloe’s advance with the exception of a shilling and a few pennies. ‘I will pay the rest next week,’ he promised, reading the disapproval on the man’s face.
Ellis was sceptical. ‘You have said that before. Do you have any hope of employment, or should I offer your quarters to Mr Hibbert instead? He would never be late with payments, and nor would he waste hours scraping away on a tuneless viol.’
‘The Victualling Office,’ replied Chaloner, repeating the lie he had told Metje. The department that issued supplies to the navy was a large building near the Tower, and its officials were numerous and relatively transient, which meant it would be difficult for anyone to check up on him.
Ellis was pleased. ‘Good. Did you hear a whore last night, by the way? I swear I heard one laughing, although there was no trace of her when I went to investigate. Occasionally, the front door has been left open by mistake, and they have found their way inside.’
‘I heard no whores,’ replied Chaloner, making his way up the stairs and supposing he would have to warn Metje to keep her voice down – again. It was not easy, when one of the best aspects of their relationship was the fact that they made each other laugh.
Playing the viola de gamba, or bass viol, usually relaxed Chaloner, because it forced him to push all else from his mind. That night, however, music did little to quell his growing unease for the safety of the North family, or his concern that Metje was finally beginning to want to know more about him than he was able to share. His leg hurt, too, a residual throb from the dash to the Fleet Rookery. Even so, he was still asleep long before Metje arrived. After they had talked for a while by the flickering light of the fire, she went to bed, but he found himself wide awake. He lay next to her, listening to the clocks chime the hour until, unable to lie still any longer, he went to sit in the window. The bells struck five, then six o’clock, and he drew the blanket more closely around his shoulders as pellets of snow clicked against the glass. It was bitterly cold.
‘Come back, Tom,’ called Metje drowsily. ‘It is freezing in here without you.’
‘You should leave soon, or North will be at his morning prayers before you.’
She stirred reluctantly, and he reflected that she had changed little since they had first met. She had been a respectable widow of thirty, with black curls that were the envy of women half her age, and dark eyes in an elfin face. As governess to Downing’s hopelessly stupid daughter, she had been miserable and lonely, and Chaloner’s first encounters with her had been in the kitchens during the depths of night – she warming wine in the hope that it would bring sleep, and he returning from nocturnal forays on Thurloe’s behalf. He had been wary at first – being caught keeping odd hours by a Dutch citizen was not a good idea – but she had accepted his explanation that he was smuggling spices for Downing, and it had never occurred to her that it might not be true. Unwittingly, Downing had supported the lie by summoning Chaloner to furtive meetings, in which they discussed the reports they would send to Thurloe.
Gradually, the late-night discussions became more intimate, and she had amazed him with her increasingly imaginative ideas for visiting his room night after night without being seen. Downing, still hopeful of seducing her himself, would have dismissed her had they been caught, and the fact that they had carried on undetected for so long was a miracle of subterfuge. Then Downing had returned to England, and Metje had been dismissed when she had declined to sleep her way into his good books. As a Netherlander in London, her prospects had been bleak, and she had been fortunate North and his family did not share the current antipathy towards all things foreign.
‘It will be light soon,’ said Chaloner, watching her fall asleep again. ‘Do not grimace at me, when you are the one who seems to enjoy this ridiculous charade.’
‘I do not enjoy it,’ she countered drowsily. ‘It is just convenient. And we have no choice, anyway. You cannot support me – you can barely feed yourself.’
Chaloner was unhappy with the situation, and had been since she had first suggested it. ‘I did not mind deceiving Downing, but I dislike doing the same thing to North. He deserves better from both of us. And while we have managed to mislead the poor man so far, we cannot do it for ever.’
‘Why not? He thinks I am a pious woman, who likes rising early to prepare the chapel for morning service. He even gave me a key to his front door, so I can go out without disturbing him, and he trusts me to the point where he has never checked whether I really do leave my room at dawn – or whether I abandon it a good deal sooner. My solution to keeping you and my job is working brilliantly, so do not look for problems where there are none.’
‘He will catch us one day,’ warned Chaloner.
‘Why should he? We have fooled him since spring.’
‘I was away all summer.’
‘For the last couple of months, then. You have been here since October, trying to find work – which you had better do soon, or you will starve. The only thing in your cupboard is a cabbage long past its best.’