Chapter Twelve
C hapter T welve
H ow Gilles managed to do anything at all after kissing Abigail was completely beyond him. And she had returned the attentions so sweetly, so perfectly, that he was entirely unmanned by it. He’d have kissed her for hours had his girls not returned shortly after they had begun, and he’d been relegated back to his chair for the duration of the interlude.
It had taken all of his strength not to rush back into her room and continue showering her with his kisses for the rest of the day.
But he had managed.
Today, however…
Well, he had not rushed in there. Had not even seen her yet.
But he was considering it.
Seriously.
But there was work to be done, unfortunately, and if he wanted to maintain any sort of connection with England or France, he had to do it.
Then he could proceed with kissing Abigail.
If she wished it.
What if she did not wish it?
Gilles groaned and shoved his hands into his hair, dropping his elbows onto the surface of his desk. Why must falling in love with someone be so damned complicated? He was overthinking everything and questioning possibilities and losing his once-thriving mind.
It had not helped that his dreams had been all of Abigail, making sleeping torture, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“Work first,” he ground out to himself. “Her later.”
It was not even remotely convincing for his heart, his body, or his mind. But tormenting himself was not an option either.
He growled and reached for his desk drawer, pulling it out sharply and retrieving the latest stack of letters there.
They were back to being vague, even within the code, and he did not like that. It had been a few months since things had been so carefully worded, and he’d never heard the results of whatever operation that had been, either. No one was coming out and saying what they meant, what was going on, what anyone ought to do, and yet somehow those involved in writing these letters back and forth had enough understanding to not question it.
Gilles knew there were others doing as he was doing and forwarding letters along for the cause, so he had no doubt that other letters had other details, and he knew all too well that meetings took place between supporters and operatives frequently. Those meetings likely held all of the information he was missing with this particular arrangement, but it was maddening not to have much to share with his British contacts.
He felt utterly useless in the grander scope of things, and useless was not something he enjoyed being.
He looked over the two letters containing the vague references now, having already decoded them. Between the original letters and the decoded message, he could not find anything resembling insight, and he wondered if something might have changed. Were they double-layering letters once more? That had been agony on his part, but Heloise had managed to crack the additional layer easily. Her mind had always been rapid and keen, so it had never surprised him that she had seen the puzzle for what it was.
Gilles, on the other hand…
He sighed and rubbed at his brow. What did they mean by “candidates,” and how could they be “sifting the grain” with them? He knew full well that “clasping hands with friends” meant they were working with supporters of influence for whatever it was, but it hardly gave him direction. There was mention of a foiled attempt, but an attempt at what? The only thing he could safely say was that the pressure exerted by the quill in writing the words “foiled attempt” as well as “missing rodent” was far more intense than any other words in the letter.
“Missing rodent” made no sense, but it must relate to the foiled attempt, whatever it had been. For the corresponding men, their manner of penmanship was always light and neat, so for the excess ink and almost tearing of the parchment in these ones to be noticed now indicated strong emotion indeed. Anger, if he understood it right. Fury, even.
The lack of detail surrounding a fury for the Faction was gnawing at him.
What could be so secretive that it did not warrant clarity in letter? They never spoke vaguely of shipments of arms, smuggling of brandy, transportation of operatives, or locations to meet, and he had passed all of that information on when it came to him. But this? What was so crucial about this that even between trusted contacts, the exact wording could not be used?
He did see one word that he did not care for, however.
“Eliminate.”
The word was only used with respect to the missing rodent, but it still made his skin crawl. Whoever the missing rodent was, they were hunting him and would kill him, and quite possibly remove his very existence from history. He had seen such things done in the past, and knew only too well how capable the darker parts of the Faction’s contacts could be.
It would certainly be worth warning someone in England about if he had any sort of specifics or insight, but as he did not, he would simply have to sit here in the knowledge that someone was soon going to be done away with for whatever had failed.
But that was unacceptable.
There had to be something he could use. Something more.
What was the layering code they had used? What else could there be lurking here?
Punctuation marks.
Gilles felt his smile curl almost viciously as he recalled that, and went to work on a separate sheet of parchment, writing down every letter after a punctuation mark, however strange it seemed. When that was done, he went to the salutation of the letter, which had always been the code for this cipher. Layering ciphers within already layered ciphers. Would life never settle?
He worked at the decryption of the two letters for a while, and only when both were complete did he sit back to read what was there.
Allred cannot be found. Suspect Austria or Spain. Key insists on setting up next bride quickly. Use any means necessary to blackmail.
What in the world any of them would want a bride for was beyond Gilles’s comprehension. Especially when the two men writing this correspondence certainly had wives already. And who in the world was Allred? The rodent, naturally, but who?
He turned to the next letter.
Two potentials found. Social connections excellent, financial situation bordering desperate. Leaning on government connections for further information. Secondary warehouse secured south of Thames.
Now that was interesting. They already had several warehouses on the south shore of the Thames that they used frequently, not to mention their more particular north shore warehouses. The southern ones were more secret and more protected, but there were plenty to choose from. When they said secured, did they mean a new one had been acquired? Or a specific one they already owned was readied for something?
Still, it was usable information, which was more than he had before.
He pulled out another few sheets of parchment and jotted down a note to Iris, inviting her to inspect the warehouses in her sector. She’d get the information to Briar, as the two of them had different interests in the warehouses and shipping in that area. Then he scribbled out a short note to Trick, this time about the name Allred and the details he’d uncovered there. If Trick was not the one who needed that information, he would see that it got to those who would.
He could do no less than that.
And now that he’d seen this other layer of coding, he needed to go back to his other vague letters and see what else lay there.
Marvelous.
He put his two notes for England into a pouch that he would take down to his contact later that night, and then put his Faction letters into the pouch he would take to that contact in the morning. He needed his notes to Iris and Trick to arrive before the Faction letters, just in case anything was urgent. If he uncovered more information in the older letters that needed to be sent along with them, he could do that as well, but he doubted anything would be as significant. More than likely just the same information and vagueness.
It would have been so much easier if he could actually sit down with Trick or Iris and show them what he had. They would have far more insight than he did. But it wasn’t possible for him to leave Guernsey when Abigail was just barely recovered. She was in no condition to have full care of the girls for however long his trip would take. He had gone away to France for a few days before, and that had always worked well, but he hadn’t done that much at all since Heloise had died. He hated leaving the girls alone without a parent in residence.
Besides, he’d never met Trick or Iris in the flesh, and it was safer that way. More frustrating, but safer. No one had ever asked him to go to England, and he had never offered.
But one of these days, he would have to do something more than write about what he was finding.
For the next few hours, Gilles went through every letter that he’d found annoyingly vague and applied the same old code and cipher to the words. As he suspected, there was nothing new to them for the most part, just the same madness about Allred, brides, and warehouses. There was a link missing here that he did not seem to have the key for, and working with incomplete information was one of the most maddening aspects of his position.
But there was an intriguing hint about preparing a channel, and that one was new.
No other letter had ever mentioned anything about a channel. Ever.
What channel were they talking about? How could it be prepared? He could only presume it was related to Allred, the warehouses, and whatever brides were being selected, since those were the threads of the secret correspondence. But anything to do with the warehouses already had a channel out of London, and that route was perfectly secure.
He’d made sure it was secure, and Trick had helped him do so.
His heart slowed to an ominous pounding that soon enveloped his hearing as his mind flicked a new idea alight.
Not a channel. The Channel.
Guernsey was a Channel Island.
He was the Channel.
They were going to send something—likely someone—to him. The largest cave beneath his home led to a long-abandoned cellar that they had used a few times to filter operatives in and out, but it had been some time since he’d done that. Three years, if his math was correct. He only had to house them there long enough for the proper transportation to either England or France came, and it was a straightforward enough business. Whatever they told him, he relayed to Trick, and the information was acted upon.
But if he was to be housing someone, why hadn’t he been notified yet?
He looked back at his most recent work, scanning quickly. Were they planning on bringing the bride, whoever she was, to him?
Oh, zut, was his home going to become the hiding place for an elopement?
Gilles snorted a laugh of disbelief and covered his eyes, slumping back against his chair and letting the parchment pages fall to his desk. That was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing he had ever conjectured about anything the Faction could or would do. The worst of it was that it was not even far-fetched, based on the information in the letters. It was entirely possible that, for whatever reason, someone within the Faction was trying to elope, and the Faction was working hard to help them do so.
This was idiotic, and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
Glancing at the clock on the mantle, Gilles sighed. Abigail and his daughters would be taking an afternoon meal now, probably with their own tea service. It had been several hours since his early breakfast, and there were several more hours until dinner. He did not usually make a habit of interrupting the structure of his daughters’ day, but today he might have to make an exception. He was hungry—for the sight of Abigail as much as for whatever food might be available to him.
Besides, nothing else would get done today unless he took a break to let his mind reset.
Elopement, indeed. What a nonsensical thought.
Gilles pushed up from his desk and placed all of the letters in his secure hiding place, then strode out of his study in search of his three favorite ladies.
It didn’t take long, as the sound of giggles filled the air as soon as he was on the ground floor. That boded well for everyone. No one could make the girls laugh like Abigail, and if they were laughing down here, then she must be out of bed. He’d hoped that would be the case, as she had looked much better the day before, but one could never be entirely certain that recovery would be consistent from day to day.
But Abigail did not belong in a bed like an invalid; she belonged out in the world and among the living, daring Fate to try its best with her and proving herself more than up to the challenge.
The laughter grew louder and more delighted the closer to the dining room Gilles got, and his smile was impossible to restrain at hearing it. His daughters were the light of his life, and their amusement so pure and infectious. If he were at the brink of hell itself, that sound could restore him to life and heaven in an instant. He would need nothing else. And quite honestly, if their laughter were the only music that ever filled his life, he would consider that life well-lived.
He slowed his step as he reached the dining room, not wanting to disturb whatever entertainment was taking place within.
Abigail was telling a story, it seemed, in between bites of their repast, and was taking great creative liberties with the voices she used for each character. Presently, she was portraying a princess, but her voice was a squeaking, lilting Irish accent. Then, without warning, she became the lady-in-waiting, and her voice was a drunken growl that ought to have belonged to a Cockney man. The discrepancies between characters and her portrayals of them were what was causing the utter hilarity, and he was not unmoved by that.
He let himself rest against the door of the dining room, now perfectly visible but still silent, and no one had noticed his entrance as yet. He watched Abigail tell the story with great animation in her face and her movements, somehow still managing to eat while she did so. The girls, on the other hand, were barely managing single bites, with their abject adoration and merry giggles taking their full attention.
Abigail was a vision of loveliness, even with her expressive antics. Her cheeks were rich with healthy color, her eyes vibrant in the afternoon sunlight, and she’d only pulled her hair halfway up, leaving plenty of gorgeous, waving tresses to drape around her shoulders. His fingers itched to run through them just as they had yesterday, and he folded his arms tightly to avoid the temptation to do just that.
He couldn’t interrupt the story, after all.
“And then the princess went out to the garden, and who should she see but…” Abigail trailed off, looking between the girls expectantly.
“A goat!” Marie-Claire cried out.
Gilles barked a laugh at Abigail’s startled expression, which brought all three of them around to look at him. He clamped his lips together against further laughter and held up an apologetic hand.
Abigail stared at him with wide eyes, seeming just as startled by his presence as his daughter’s suggestion. And her cheeks took on a new shade of pink.
What a delightful bit of artwork that was.
A strange smugness began to build in Gilles’s chest. Something altogether foreign and particularly tantalizing, and it made him want to do something between playing and prowling. Just to see what might happen.
So he started to walk towards the table slowly, almost ambling, keeping his eyes on Abigail.
She was fixed on him, her attention never wavering, the expression in her eyes as unreadable as the line of her mouth, and only the color of her cheeks gave anything away.
“Mademoiselle Abby,” Marie-Claire said, shaking her arm a little. “A goat. Keep going.”
Abigail swallowed, her eyes shifting slowly back to the girls. “A… a goat. Right, yes.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “The goat did not belong in the garden, of course, so the princess asked…”
Gilles reached the table and picked up the plate next to Madeline, his gaze never straying from Abigail.
“She… she asked, ‘What are you doing in here?’” Abigail went on, her voice not quite matching the previous tone the princess held.
“That’s not how she speaks, Mademoiselle Abby,” Madeline pointed out.
Gilles raised a brow at her as he began to layer slices of cold ham onto his plate.
“‘What are you doing in here?’” Abigail tried again, this time with the right tone, but a bit breathless. And more like she was asking Gilles rather than any princess asking a random goat.
There was no stopping the crooked smile that burst across Gilles’s lips at the question, and he caught the struggle to swallow in Abigail’s delicate throat.
And was it just his eyes, or was her color growing even rosier?
“And… and the goat said, ‘Goats l-love gardens. Everybody knows that.’ But the princess didn’t know that, of course, or she would never have asked,” Abigail managed, giving the goat a very soft, childlike voice that had Marie-Claire snickering.
Gilles nodded his agreement to the story as he moved to the asparagus and placed a few stalks on his plate.
Abigail was still watching him, her eyes never wavering. “But the goat was starting to grow restless,” she continued. “Goats do, you know.”
That gave him pause, and he tilted his head at her curiously, his smile still in place.
He watched as her cheeks positively flamed.
“Goats don’t always kn-know where they stand,” she stammered as her eyes flicked back and forth between his.
Gilles put the tongs back on the plate with the asparagus and moved around the far end of the table, watching Abigail carefully.
“So the p-princess watched the goat,” she squeaked, swallowing again, her food completely untouched now, “trying to figure out how to help the goat be less restless.”
He picked up a roll from the basket and set it on the plate beside everything else.
“Because the princess knew that the g-goat loved the garden so much,” she said in a rush, her blush extending down her neck. “And she wanted the goat to be happy.”
Gilles nodded at her very slowly, setting his plate down without any sound.
“So the p-princess said—”
“I need to speak to Abigail for a moment,” Gilles broke in calmly, startling his daughters.
Madeline groaned loudly. “Papa!”
He smiled, but kept his eyes on Abigail. “Just for a moment, mes filles. Abigail, would you come with me please?”
She was out of her seat in a blink, and the two of them walked out of the dining room, breaking their locked gazes for the first time in so long, it might have been a lifetime.
Once out in the corridor, Gilles turned to face Abigail, her eyes bright, her color high, her lips parted as her breath raced audibly between them.
With a groan that might have been both internal as well as external, Gilles took her face in his hands and brought his lips crashing down on hers, backing her against the nearest wall and focusing his entire being on devouring every breath and heartbeat from her. Abigail latched her hands behind his head, her nails digging into his scalp as her mouth did much the same with him, colliding and waltzing and consuming every sentient thought and insensible feeling he’d ever known. There was no beginning and no end to their kisses, just a series of more and more, deeper and sweeter, passionate and tender, something raw and ethereal unleashing and coiling between each connection.
Abigail whimpered as he caught her upper lip gently, and he chuckled at the sound. “Zut, ma douce,” he breathed when he released her, his mouth moving to her chin and tracking hungrily down her throat. “I may never get enough.”
“Gilles…” she moaned, gripping at his hair and arching her neck for him.
He kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder tenderly, loving the shiver it caused in her. He ran his nose back up the slender column and brought his mouth to her ear, letting his lips play along the surface a moment. “The way you look at me, Abigail… My whole soul feels alive and seen, and just wants you.”
She panted a rough exhale, nodding against his lips. “Yes,” she whispered.
He grinned for a moment, wondering what question she thought she was answering, then returned his attention to her mouth. One poignant, wringing kiss, returned so eagerly that his knees began to shake.
“But there is one thing I must ask of you, ma douce,” Gilles managed as he forced his mouth away from hers.
She blinked, her eyes a trifle hazy as they met his. “What?”
He brushed his thumbs across her still-blushing cheeks tenderly. “Please don’t ever liken me to a princess again. It’s not entirely flattering for me.”
Her eyes widened a moment before she broke out into the most delightful grin he had ever seen. “How else was I supposed to get you to do something?” she asked with ribbons of giggles in her voice. “I’ve been dying to see you since last night, and I had no idea how to bring that about.”
Gilles stroked her cheeks again, shaking his head in amusement. “Just ask for me, ma douce. I fear I am now hopelessly yours.” He leaned in again to take her teasing, delicious lips once more.