Cross of Fire by Mark Keating Page A

Madagascar when the pirate Devlin had need of a ship. Their ship. He had robbed and abandoned them on Ascension island, sure that a passing party would acquire their unfortunate company. Eventually. That had been three years ago.
    Returning to England, George resumed his education at Oxford while Albany rejoined a lascivious life in the courtyards and passageways of London. Inevitably Albany had shared shoulder and tankard with Wharton, Duke of Wharton, Irish peer and Duke of Northumberland, that title bestowed upon him by the exiled James Stuart, to be taken up on his return to the throne. And with Albany’s companionship so followed a friendship with the new Earl of Lichfield, George Lee.
    Somewhere, over beef and burgundy, under tobacco and turbans, Albany, George and Wharton had envisioned a club to annoy Walpole’s government, ridicule the masonic doctrine and to mock the House of Hanover and indeed the very hand that fed them.
    With the South Sea Company’s collapse and the financial travails of all Europe that followed, even peers of the realm found their carriages and tailors actually needed paying and Wharton discovered that he had something more than just an exemplary eye for horseflesh in common with his young friends.
    The pirate Devlin, with his failure to assist the bearing up of the South Sea enterprise, had cost Wharton his fortune. Wharton had even held a funeral parade for the company and for England, to further humiliate Walpole’s Westminster, when it transpired that the government and Bank of England had backed a consortium of thieves.
    The arrogance of the worm of a pirate in casting the diamond into the Thames! His dilettante’s whimsy with other people’s fortune. The idiotic gall of him.
    Wharton may have been a wastrel and profligate but he knew the purpose and value of money. Pleasure until death. The only purpose in life. Peasants knew nothing of entitlement. The pirate had most probably laughed at the sound of banks falling.
    But it was more than that. Along with the loss of the diamond Devlin had mercilessly, cowardly, taken the life of Albany Holmes when he came to the diamond’s defence. There had been a wherry boat on the Thames, under the fog, that two-of-the-morning fog that clings to your coat and lungs. A blade had ground into a liver, a body was dumped on the water, even more casually than the diamond.
    The Hellfire peers would have their revenge, for they were Hellfire in more than just name.
    ‘George,’ Wharton drew his friend’s shoulder close. ‘Our friends have secured the only man who surely could find the dog. He has his orders from Whitehall for the same.’ He tapped the masks in turn. ‘Ridiculous, ain’t it so? Masks. Cloaks. But they insist. And they have considerably deepened our purse.’ He lifted his goblet. ‘And mine host’s cellar.’
    George sniffed. ‘They could be anyone in our group. I think the anonymity gives them pleasure. The little shits.’
    ‘But they wish to return the true king.’ Wharton pulled another one of the tokens from a pocket, twisted it in his fingers. The bull with the serpent’s body. The papal cross. ‘They fear the Hanoverian will ruin the colonies. The Stuart has promised independence. The Americas allied with Spain.’ He put back the coin. ‘The pirate has had dealings with them before. There was the porcelain.’
    ‘Aye,’ George said. ‘Myself and Albany were in the opening act.’
    ‘Exactly.’ Wharton stretched and yawned. ‘A dream that the “white gold” might provide them with their own industry. Fools. They are merely England’s lumber yard. Slave paragons. They should be grateful for that.’
    ‘As we should be grateful. For the pirate denying.’ More port, a chime of glass this time.
    ‘Just so,’ Wharton said. ‘But we share a common purpose.’
    ‘The extinction of the dog.’ George drank.
    ‘Ah, ah,’ Wharton lifted a hand in objection. ‘The return of the king.’
    George corrected