The Wolves of Andover Read Online Free PDF

cautiously. “Perhaps what is needed now is a gesture of, shall we say, grand and unifying proportions.”
    The king frowned more deeply, staring through heavy lids. “ ‘Unifying’ is to our liking. ‘Grand’ is not. In case you have been sleeping, Bennet, we are dry in the purse as of late.” He stood up restlessly and turned to look through his window out into the gardens.
    Bennet came to stand behind Charles and saw several of the queen’s young women animatedly posing under the king’s gaze. That the king had given him his back was a sign of the trust he put in the earl, but it was also a signal, and a threat, of the potential withdrawal of royal favor. Henry Bennet had been with Charles from the penniless, starving days of exile and had reached the highest of appointed offices by being made secretary of state. But his ambassadorial journey with the Duke of Buckingham to Holland the year before to force upon the Dutch the terms of peace had failed miserably, and the war continued. The fact that he, like the king, was a closeted Catholic, although he made a public show of taking sacraments under the Church of England, made him keenly aware of his precarious position at court.
    Most of all, the earl knew he was despised by his Protestant colleagues and, worse, distrusted. His years in the Spanish court on behalf of the English monarchy had left about his person the aura of orientalist pursuits and popish ritual. Personally, he cared little what faith was à la mode, Protestant or Catholic; the important thing was what was expedient to further the king’s, and his own, interests.
    Bennet cleared his throat and offered, “Your Majesty knows that I have continued to have correspondences with the colonies of the Americas, and that despite two expeditions to the new England some years past we have had no luck in capturing the murderers of your father.”
    Charles grunted his assent but continued staring out the window. “I am painfully aware that the colonists have hidden and will continue to hide Cromwell’s covey. It hardly matters now. Natural death will soon do what the hangman has not been able to.”
    Bennet moved slightly nearer. “I have recently received a packet from an agent of mine in the governor’s office in Massachusetts. It’s true that Edward Whalley is reputedly in poor health and is likely to die soon. Of William Goffe and John Dixwell, the other two regicides in hiding, we have had little word of their exact place of concealment. However”—and here Bennet paused, knowing the silence would pull the king’s attention away from the spectacle of youthful exuberance and back to the matter at hand—“we have placed the whereabouts of the chief of Your Majesty’s ills in this regard in the person of one Thomas Morgan.”
    Charles did not turn around, but Bennet knew he had his full attention now. He leaned in closer, enough to smell the orange-water cologne of the French girl, and said, “I am fully prepared, Sire, to use my own resources to fund this expedition. What I propose is to send a few, perhaps four or five, expertly trained men on a merchant ship.” The last expedition, nine years earlier, had been composed of four ships and four hundred and fifty men; the rattling of sabers must have been heard a hundred milesout to sea. Not one arrest in the colonies had been made. “In this way, Your Majesty, we can take by stealth what has eluded us by force.”
    Charles tapped sharply on the window, drawing the attention of the young women, who giggled and turned away in practiced, coquettish flurries.
    Bennet took a deep breath to make his words more forceful and said, “Sire, I will speak plainly. There is ill feeling in both Houses. The Dutch, the French, and the Spanish are all waiting to cut our throats, or worse, cut off our trade routes. Now is the time to bring to justice, in a very public way, a man who has been hidden in plain sight by a gang of ill-bred rustics. By doing so you