Chapter 2 #2
He heard a pleading in his voice, like a little boy who only desired comfort from his mama.
And yet he was not ashamed of his weakness, because his heart was pained like a sponge that had soaked up a bitter sea, and his mind was heavy, a weight on his head trying to drag his entire body to the ground.
A part of him wanted to lie down and curl up on the floor.
He had lost so much, and he felt he had little else to lose.
But the warm hand on his reminded him he had not lost everything. And even though he felt tired, at the same time, he felt a blazing fire of fury in his stomach that wanted something to burn.
Yes, he would burn anyone who tried to harm the ones he loved most, the woman he loved most, the only lights of hope he had remaining in his life.
It was as if he had shouted his thoughts out loud. “We will not leave you, Sol,” Laura said fervently. “And I know that you will not allow anyone to take us from you.”
But her trust in him only seemed to make him feel more fearful. “How can I protect anyone? What could I do without the Ramparts to support me?”
“When you feel you have nothing left in your hands but ashes, you cannot simply lock yourself in the library and drink yourself into a stupor.” She was looking into his eyes, but there was a faraway quality to her gaze that made him think she might have been speaking from her own personal experience.
“All you can do is to reach out to God for help. He is always there in the darkness when you feel you have no one else.”
Her soft words made him remember his tumultuous thoughts as he escaped from the Ramparts in the tunnels.
He recalled his paltry prayer and the night that seemed to have pressed against his soul in the darkness underground.
Yet here, in the tanner’s house, he felt he was still there, walking in darkness, despite the sunlight shining through the curtains at the window.
No, it was not entirely dark. Laura was his light. Laura and her faith in God, who was surely more powerful than himself. God, whom she trusted, would answer his prayers and help them.
He could not scoff at her faith, because it was like water to a man dying of thirst. He wanted that sort of faith as he had never wanted it before, and he knew she was trying to tell him that no matter what he might have said or believed before, God was here.
Sol had not thought he would ever believe that, but he believed it now.
“Pray for me, Laura,” he said on a breath that was like a groan. “Pray for us, that we may know if we can trust Mr. Joshua Verling.”
Later, he could not recall what she prayed. But more than the words was the feeling that a thread of the Divine was there in that shabby drawing room, simply because Sol had asked the Lord to meet him there.
There was no violent or ecstatic revelation, no unexplained blazing in the hearth like the burning bush in the wilderness, a story he remembered from Sunday sermons.
Instead, there was a quiet flicker that suddenly appeared in his heart, warm and comforting.
It was a presence so small he almost wasn’t certain he felt it.
But he somehow knew that God had heard him, and God was with him.
He opened his eyes and realized that her prayer had ended some time ago, and they had been sitting in silence for many minutes. But she merely smiled at him. There was a serenity to that smile that soothed him nearly as much as her prayer had done.
“Have you come to a decision?” she asked.
At first, his mind started spinning again, and he wondered in a panic how he could possibly make such a choice about the safety of the team. But then he looked at her hand, which was still laid over his, and he realized that he had already decided. He nodded.
“I believe Joshua has returned.” She glanced toward the closed drawing room door. “Shall we call him in?”
Sol himself strode to the door and opened it.
Mr. Verling had been about to pass through the entrance hall toward the kitchen, cleaning his hands on a rag.
He had apparently been helping at the tannery next door to the house.
In seeing the young nobleman’s willingness to engage in menial work, Sol found himself feeling assured in his judgment of the young man’s character.
“Mr. Verling, may I ask you to join us?”
He glanced down at his dirty hands. “I am hardly fit for company, sir.”
“We will not fault you for doing honest labor,” Sol said, “and this discussion will not be lengthy.”
There was a grimness to the flat line of Mr. Verling’s mouth as he entered the drawing room, but his posture relaxed when he saw Laura smiling at him. He sat gingerly on the edge of a chair, continuing to clean his hands.
As Sol resumed his seat on the sofa next to Laura, Mr. Verling said, “I cannot tell you how much I regret that I did not notice Mr. Norton’s traitorous tendencies after working with him in France for many months.
I had believed him to be completely trustworthy.
In retrospect, I should have questioned the means by which he received the information about a revolutionary group smuggling weapons through Olivier Troy’s. ”
“He was your superior officer, and you could not have known,” Sol said.
“It is probable that the Citadel instructed him to bring that story to the Ramparts in order to ingratiate himself with my team. Once he pretended to stumble across Jack’s laboratory, it was likely that he would be put in contact with me, since I was the only agent pursuing Apothecary Jack. ”
“We surely do not blame you as much as we blame ourselves,” Laura said.
“We had more reason to be suspicious, and an obligation to protect the work being done, and yet we were not as vigilant as we should have been.” She looked at him with piercing golden-brown eyes.
“Tell me now, are you involved in the Citadel in any way?”
The young man did not seem to notice how intently her gaze was upon him when he answered, “No.”
“Then we will trust in your own words,” she said, “as opposed to simply my fond memories of you as a boy.”
There was a ghost of a smile on his face. “I thank you, my lady.”
Sol realized that the young man was unusually stern, and his demeanor only softened when speaking directly with Laura. It made him wonder if there was some sort of pain that bonded them together in some way.
“Agent,” Sol said, “I am sending you to a country village called Wittenden. It is urgent that you deliver a message to an agent there.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“You must deliver it secretly, without being seen by the villagers or even the servants in the house where the agent is staying.”
Laura had not known that Sol was intending to task Mr. Verling with this mission, but now, she briefly touched his wrist before she spoke.
“You may have met the residents of the house in society, Joshua. You shall be delivering the message to Mr. Rosmont, who is letting the house under the name Mr. Thornwell. He is accompanied by Lady Aymer, who is posing as his sister.”
Mr. Verling stiffened, then he said slowly, “I heard about how Mr. Coulton-Jones helped the doctor’s maid escape from the interrogation room at the Ramparts … I should have known …” He stopped himself from speaking further, looking contrite.
Sol could not stop himself from stiffening as he followed the words to their unspoken conclusion. “What should you have known?”
“I apologize, sir.”
“What should you have known?” he repeated harshly.
Mr. Verling said reluctantly, “… That le petit prince would be involved.”
“Why would you think that?” Sol demanded.
“I was one of the Nameless Ones in the Foreign Office,” Mr. Verling said.
Sol suddenly realized how he had heard about the prince. At Laura’s confused expression, he said, “The Nameless Ones are the same as the Quiet Men at the Ramparts.” Agents whose identities were shrouded in the highest secrecy.
She nodded in understanding.
Mr. Verling continued, “When I was still at the Foreign Office, I had been assigned a mission at the party of a peer of the realm.”
Sol thought he knew of the man of whom he spoke—any event to which a Nameless One was sent would likely involve a member of the royal family, perhaps the Duke of York, or even the Prince Regent himself.
“I had barely entered when I was accosted by Sir Derrick Bayberry,” Mr. Verling said.
“I was immediately ordered to leave. He knew who I was, and he knew the fine particulars of my mission. Then he told me that the Foreign Office had not known that le petit prince had already been sent on a mission at the same ball. That convinced me of the authenticity of his words more than anything—nearly all the Nameless Ones at the Foreign Office had heard about le petit prince.”
“Did Sir Derrick tell you the identity of the prince?” Laura asked.
Mr. Verling shook his head. “No, and neither did I ask. But as I was taking my leave of the host, I happened to see a young maid on the stairs. I am acquainted with Lady Aymer through my mother, and I recognized her. While it was never confirmed, I was fairly certain that she was le petit prince. Why else would she be in disguise at a party to which her mother would hardly attend? After the event, I was reassigned to the Ramparts.”
Sol was shocked that the young man had discovered Lady Aymer’s secret identity in this way. And yet, he had apparently not spoken of it to anyone before now, for Sol had not heard of any other rumors about her in the department in the years since Mr. Verling joined them.
Sol removed from his coat pocket two letters he had written last night in the fitful light of a tallow candle. One letter was to the senior officer in Wittenden, folded and sealed within the outer message to le petit prince.
He handed the packet to Mr. Verling. “The direction is Raddon Lodge in Wittenden. Be seen by no one, and deliver this to either Mr. Rosmont or Lady Aymer.”
Mr. Verling took the folded note and slipped it into his coat pocket. “I know a coaching inn where I can hire a fast horse. If I hurry, I may reach Wittenden by the late afternoon or early evening.”
“Make haste to return,” Sol said. “There is much danger for us here, and much we still must do.”
Mr. Verling nodded and rose to his feet. “Yes, sir.” With a short bow, he was gone.