The Lost Cipher (Gentlemen of Virtue #2)

Chapter 1

The house in St. James’s Square had always seemed too large for the men who inhabited it.

Even now—after years of campaigns, dispatches, and secrets traded in the dark—it still bore the air of some old bachelor establishment.

Major Baines kept a brace of duelling pistols on the mantel purely for the amusement of polishing them; boots were always drying before the fire; and a faint smell of pipe smoke clung to the curtains in a manner entirely impervious to the finest laundress.

To Captain Edmund Cholmely, the place had once meant camaraderie, late-night triumphs, the warm silence of friendship unspoken.

Now he wondered what was left for him. Stuart and Fielding had recently married, and with his brother’s death, Edmund felt his footing slipping.

He stood at the window of the salon, watching the winter dusk gather in the square below. Lamps trembled to life one by one, and the fog wove its fine grey fingers through the hedges. It was a peaceful sight, and completely at odds with the unquiet heaviness in his chest.

A murmur of familiar voices drifted behind him: Colonel Renforth’s calm baritone; Major Stuart’s cheerful rumble; Fielding’s quick, incisive replies. There was the soft scrape of Manners’ chair as he rose to pour himself another brandy. They were the sounds of men who had lives and a future.

Edmund inhaled slowly, willing the air to settle the unease within him. It did not. Nothing had settled him since his brother’s death.

A traitor’s brother. That was how he saw himself now.

A traitor’s brother he was—and, what was worse, a man who had failed to foresee it.

“Chum,” Renforth called from behind him. “Stop brooding at the window and sit down. Manners is threatening to give us all a lecture on cavalry manoeuvres if you do not occupy that chair instead.”

“That is slander,” Manners said comfortably. “I was merely observing that infantrymen walk everywhere and therefore grow melancholy. Put Cholmely on a horse and his spirits will revive.”

“If my spirits depend upon a horse,” Edmund replied, turning at last, “then I fear they are doomed.”

This earned a chorus of amused snorts, though Stuart regarded him with that particular look—half pity, half fellow-feeling—that Edmund loathed. All of them looked at him with pity at one time or another nowadays.

He took the empty chair by the fire because Renforth expected it, and because standing apart when the others were seated would draw more attention than he desired.

The Colonel, seated at the centre of their circle like some feudal lord, regarded them all with the contained composure that made even generals defer to him.

He was a tall man, his sandy hair now showing respectable streaks of silver, and he held his glass of brandy as if it were an extension of his authority.

Baines and Manners occupied the sofa—Manners elegant even in repose, Baines polishing a pistol whilst sprawling like a great guard dog.

Stuart and Fielding sat in leather armchairs opposite.

“Very well,” Renforth said. “We are all here. Let us come to the matter at last.”

“Which matter?” Manners asked. “The dismal state of Fielding’s cravat? Stuart’s lamentable absence from White’s? Cholmely’s—”

“The one I summoned you all for,” Renforth interrupted, “and if you stain the leather, Baines, I shall make you run drills in the garden.”

Baines grinned and set the pistol down as if it might leap to his defence.

Renforth turned his attention to Edmund, and the room quieted. “Edmund,” he said, and the use of his given name stole Edmund’s breath for a moment. “You may not thank me for what I am about to say, but you will hear it. You have been idle too long.”

Edmund swallowed the tart reply that rose instinctively.

Idle—yes, if one called drifting between melancholy and silence, between nightmares and despair, idleness.

“You needed time after your brother’s death,” Renforth continued.

Silence fell like a dropped curtain. They had never openly discussed what had happened.

Edmund stared into the fire, his jaw tight. He would not let them see the way the word struck him, hollowing his ribs. Even hearing it now felt like a blow.

The Colonel’s tone softened. “The world has not paused with you, Cholmely, and we have work that requires you.”

Manners leaned forward. “Work? At last. I feared you meant to turn us into pensioners.”

“Not all of us are idle,” Stuart murmured.

Fielding snorted. “Say the word, Renforth, and he will quote his wife as though she comes from the Scriptures.”

“She could be of the Scriptures,” Stuart said without shame, “in that she keeps me from sin.”

This laughter settled the tension somewhat, but Edmund remained still, unable to summon amusement.

Renforth set down his glass. “This is not a trivial matter. It would seem that an item has gone missing from the War Office.”

“What, besides their common sense?” Baines asked facetiously.

“A ledger,” Renforth said, “but not an ordinary one. It is ciphered and very secure—or so it was thought.”

Code was Edmund’s particular skill, or had been during the war.

Stuart’s brows lifted. “Whose cipher?”

Deliberately, Renforth looked around the circle. “’Tis that of a Captain Larkin, a naval officer.”

“If this is a Navy matter, why us?” Stuart asked.

“The War Office wants impartiality.”

The words struck Edmund like a physical blow. He felt his spine stiffen and his lungs falter.

Captain Larkin had been a school friend of his brother’s.

“But Larkin is dead,” he said. “He drowned at sea with half his crew. And the cipher they used—”

“Would have been decommissioned,” Manners said, his voice low, “after the war. No one should be using it.”

Renforth’s gaze settled on him. “Precisely.”

Fielding sat up straighter. “The ledger contains what, exactly?”

“Everything not meant to see daylight,” Renforth said. “Intelligence assets. Shipments. Bribes paid and bribes taken. The names of families who aided our men. The names of families who betrayed them. Illegal seizures, unauthorized raids… every sin the Admiralty would have burned if it dared.”

“Good Lord,” Manners breathed. “When was it stolen?”

“We do not yet know, but fragments of the cipher have been appearing in messages intercepted along the coast. Someone is apparently reactivating Larkin’s old network… and someone appears to be reconstructing the cipher.”

“Could it be one of ours?” Stuart asked quietly.

Renforth held his silence for a long moment.

Baines gave a low whistle. “Well, that answers that.”

The crackling of the fire suddenly seemed too loud.

Manners frowned. “Is there a suspect?”

Renforth exhaled, then picked up a paper from the table. “We traced the earliest fragments to Plymouth—unremarkable except for the naval docks and one thing.” He tapped the paper. “Captain Larkin’s widow lives there, in a place known as Belair House.”

“Belair House?” Fielding repeated. “Is that the one that belongs to an Elphinstone? I have heard the name.”

Renforth nodded. “Captain Thomas Elphinstone, Royal Navy. A kinsman of Admiral Lord Keith. During the summer of ’15, when Bonaparte lay aboard the Bellerophon in the Sound, awaiting his fate, Lord Keith used the house for a Council of War.”

Manners gave a low whistle. “The house has thus seen more than young ladies’ French verbs.”

“Indeed,” Renforth said. “Larkin’s widow is a relative and acquired it from Elphinstone’s estate after the war. He was the owner when the fate of Europe was being sealed. It is hardly an ordinary house, nor was Larkin an ordinary man.”

“A school,” Baines said doubtfully. “Does she teach treason between embroidery and French verbs in the very room where Napoleon’s sentence was read?”

Edmund looked up sharply. “Do you believe she is involved?”

Renforth held out his hands in question. “Maybe, maybe not, but it seems the answer is likely to be found with her or near her. The history of the place, the cipher, the reappearing fragments—these are not accidents.”

A coldness swept through the room.

“Thus far, nothing nefarious has been linked to the reappearance of the cipher,” Renforth went on, “but we cannot risk the ledger being translated should it be in the wrong hands. If someone has revived the system that once served Keith and Elphinstone, we must know who—and why.”

“I want you to go and investigate, Edmund.” Renforth said, “I think, as Larkin’s school acquaintance—you can call on his widow and offer condolences.”

“It is a very thin connexion.”

“It is more than anyone else has.”

“Was there a link to Alastair?” Edmund asked, and hated himself for asking it.

He hated that he feared the answer.

He also hated that a woman he had never met could cinch the knot further around his brother’s name.

“Larkin and Singleton conducted operations in the same coastal regions, although,” Renforth admitted, “Singleton stole the arms from London.” “We have no proof they worked together, but they moved in similar waters. It is possible she encountered him. It is also possible she aided him unknowingly.”

“Or knowingly,” Baines muttered.

Stuart threw him a warning look.

“Why me?” Edmund asked, keeping his voice steady through great effort. “Why send me to this widow? Why not Stuart? Why not Manners? Why—”

“Because you are the only one who knew Larkin…” Renforth hesitated. “… because I will not watch you suffocate here.”

Silence followed.

Edmund turned his face away. “I do not need saving, sir.”

“No,” Renforth said softly, “but you need purpose.”

Renforth handed Edmund the paper. “Go to Plymouth. Observe the widow in her fortress. Determine whether she possesses Larkin’s cipher. Confirm whether she is using it. And find the stolen ledger before the Crown’s enemies do.”

“And if she is guilty?” Baines asked bluntly.

Renforth’s voice softened. “We will first determine what she is guilty of.”

It was a test. A trust. A burden.

And, perhaps… a reprieve.

Edmund folded the paper carefully. “When do I leave?”