The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig Page A

Wickham, without looking up from the letter he was signing, "are late."
    Geoff refrained from reminding Wickham that his relationship with the War Office was conducted on an entirely voluntary basis. Back in the old days, before Richard had decamped for the pastoral pleasures of life in Sussex with his bride, the League of the Purple Gentian had operated autonomously from their base in Paris. Geoff plotted and planned; Richard undertook the more dashing sorts of escapades, the ones that called for black cloaks and mocking laughter; and Miles served as their contact with the powers that be back home, to ensure that they trod on no official toes. The War Office occasionally nudged them in one direction or another, but, on the whole, the League merrily went its own way, freeing prisoners from the Temple Prison, filching secret documents, and generally doing everything in their power to harry the assistant to the minister of police into a precipitate decline. They had their own web of contacts, their own personnel, and, most important, they were all the way across the Channel, too far for Wickham to snap his fingers and expect them to come running.
    It wasn't that Geoff didn't respect William Wickham. He did. The man was doing the best he could in a damnable situation, trying to rope flighty émigrés into line, encourage sedition in France, and discourage the same within England. Geoff didn't envy him the job. He just wished Wickham would leave him to his.
    But the situation on the Continent was too dire to quibble about such minor matters as lines of command. Geoff slid into the chair across from Wickham's desk, placing his hat and gloves neatly on one knee. "Circumstances detained me."
    "Let us hope they do not continue to do so." Without further preamble, Wickham struck straight at the heart of the matter. "You're aware that Robert Emmet is back in Ireland?"
    Geoff dragged his mind away from his own difficulties and onto England's. As far as the safety of the realm was concerned, Robert Emmet spelled trouble.
    "So I heard. Along with Russell, Quigley, and Byrne."
    "Exactly," said Wickham. "All veterans of the rising in 'ninety-eight. I hardly need tell you what this signifies."
    Like many Irish nationalists, Emmet had fled to France in the wake of the abortive rebellion of 1798, leaving behind his country, but not his cause. It was too much to hope that Emmet might have been distracted by the legendary wine and women of France. As far as Emmet was concerned, a tavern was just a convenient place to hold clandestine meetings. Had they been on the same side, Geoff would have found that tendency admirable. As it was, it was merely alarming. Since their arrival in France, Emmet and his fellow United Irishmen had been laboring tirelessly to drum up funds and troops to have another go at what they had been unable to accomplish in '98.
    Emmet's reappearance in Ireland could mean just one thing.
    "Unless they've suddenly changed their tune?" Geoff propped one leg against the opposite knee. "Rebellion."
    "They are moving far faster than we anticipated. We had hoped Emmet would remain in Paris until he could be sure of French aid. It would, at least, have given us more time," Wick-ham said tiredly. "You know how the situation stands in Ireland."
    "Unfortunately," replied Geoff. The reports from his informant in Dublin had grown increasingly bleak over the last few months. The word "desperate" had been liberally scattered through the last. He knew how they felt.
    "'Unfortunately' is too mild a word. We've been systematically stripping our garrisons there to swell our defenses at home. A damnably shortsighted strategy, but there it is. Keeps the people back home happy, makes them feel safe in their beds." Wick-ham's grimace betrayed what he thought of the shifts of politicians. "We're short of men and we're short of munitions. We've made it ludicrously easy for them. All Bonaparte needs to do is to stir the waters a bit, give the rebels