Chapter 16 #2
They reached the front hall. The house was in near darkness, the lamps kept low to avoid drawing attention. The shadows made the space unfamiliar. Elise heard her own breathing echo too loud in the stillness.
The banging came again—then ceased.
Elise snapped her gaze to the narrow window by the door. Light flickered outside—orange, living, flaring unnaturally against the night.
Mr. Leigh opened the door without hesitation.
A gust of wind swept in, cold and brisk.
The smell of smoke struck Elise like a blow.
There, on the front path, a torch had been driven into the earth like a stake.
The flame leaped and hissed, fed by oil.
Beneath it, pinned to the stake with a knife, was a folded paper.
Elise made a sound—half breath, half protest. The sight of a knife in her own soil felt like a violation more intimate than the ransacking of her belongings.
Mr. Leigh moved first. He took his coat, tugged it off, and smothered the flame with firm, practised motions. The torch sputtered, flared once more, then died with a final hiss.
Elise stood frozen, watching the smoke curl into the air as Mr. Leigh pulled the note free, careful of the knife. He pulled her inside and closed the door before holding the note to the lantern light.
His face changed as he read—hardening, a look Elise had seen only in men who were preparing for conflict. He handed it to her.
Her fingers shook as she took it. The handwriting was crude but legible, the spelling poor enough to suggest either ignorance or deliberate disguise.
MIDNIGHT.
LARKIN’S KEY OR BELAIR HOUSE BURNS.
COME ALONE. NO WATCH. NO SOLDIERS.
LEAVE AT THE SIGNPOST BEYOND THE GATE
Elise’s throat closed. For an instant she could not breathe.
It was not the threat itself—she had lived under threat before, though never so bluntly. It was the certainty in it, the presumption that she could be commanded and that her home, her girls’ refuge, could be treated as tinder for the blackguard’s impatience.
Her vision blurred. Then Mr. Leigh’s hand closed around her wrist—firm, warm and anchoring.
He did not release her wrist immediately. The contact should have been nothing—merely a practical grip. Yet Elise felt it as if her skin had become suddenly too sensitive.
His fingers were warm and his palm firm; a man’s hand, accustomed to strength.
Elise realized with sudden, unwelcome clarity that she had not been held since Charles had died—not in grief, not in comfort, not in affection. She had lived by self-command for so long that the simplest touch now felt like danger of a different kind.
She pulled her wrist free gently, not abruptly. “I am not faint.”
“I did not think you were,” he replied.
He took the note from her hand and read it again, as if the words might change by being stared at.
“Midnight,” he said softly. “They are giving you time to panic, yet not enough time to seek help.”
Elise swallowed. “They mean to burn it.”
“It appears so.”
She looked toward the staircase, toward the upper floors where the girls’ rooms lay empty and in darkness. “If the house burns—”
“It will not,” he said with a certainty that startled her.
“You cannot promise that.”
“No,” he admitted, “but I can make it less likely.”
Elise clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “They want the key—and they think I will give it to them.”
He looked at her then, and the intensity of it made her breath catch. “Will you?”
Elise forced herself to speak steadily. “Of course not.”
“Good,” he said, and there was something fierce beneath the word—a satisfaction that was not merely strategic.
Elise’s mind raced. “If they cannot get it from me willingly, they will take it.”
She drew a long breath. “Where is the ledger?” she asked, though she knew the question was dangerous. “Does Holt have it? Is that what they have, in truth—a ledger in Charles’ code?”
Mr. Leigh scowled. “If Holt has it, he will not leave it unattended. Men like him keep their fortunes close.”
“You believe he has it on his person?” Elise murmured.
“I would wager upon it,” Mr. Leigh said.
“What should we do?” she demanded, because doing nothing would kill her faster than fear.
Mr. Leigh’s expression shifted. He seemed to be measuring what he could safely say, what he dared not say, and what was necessary.
“We cannot wait quietly behind locked doors,” he said at last. “If Holt believes you have the key, he will keep pressing until he has it—or until you are gone.”
Elise’s resolve firmed. “Then we give him a reason to come where we can see him.”
Mr. Leigh’s gaze darkened. “Yes.”
Elise heard her own voice, unwavering and, to her surprise, almost detached. “We set a trap.”
His eyes held hers. “Yes.” A silence followed. Then he said, very carefully, “Using the cipher.”
Elise felt her heartbeat stutter. “How?”
He paced once across the hall, a restrained movement that betrayed the mind at work. “If they can read part of it, they are reconstructing. That means someone within their circle has enough knowledge to attempt it—but not enough to trust what they have without confirmation.”
“They want the key to confirm what they have,” Elise whispered.
“They want the key to complete it—” he replied, “—to ensure they know everything.”
Elise’s mind jumped, connecting threads hither and yon. “We could send a message in the cipher. Something that draws them.”
“I am not sure if using it is wise. Then you are even more valuable to them.”
She paced about the room. “We could tell them I have no knowledge of any key. They have already searched and found nothing.”
“That is a better option. It buys us more time until reinforcements arrive. I should prefer to keep them from coming back here.”
She pressed her palm to her forehead. “If we send a message now,” she said slowly, “we must ensure it reaches them.”
“The tavern,” Mr. Leigh said at once, “or possibly a boy on the docks might know where to take it.”
Elise narrowed her eyes again. “If it goes through the tavern, I must go there.”
His gaze flicked to hers. “No.”
She lifted her chin in further remonstrance. “Once again, I shall not permit you to forbid me.”
“This is not the same,” he said, his voice straining. “They have already marked you. They have threatened to burn your house. If you go to the tavern now, you will go as bait with no defence.”
“You will defend me.”
He held her gaze with fierce intensity.
She swallowed nervously.
Mr. Leigh exhaled slowly. “We must control the meeting. We choose the place. We choose the time. We choose what they believe they will receive.”
Elise’s mind raced, swift and sharp. “I will tell them I do not have it, but might be able to retrieve it tomorrow from somewhere else.”
He nodded. “They will be watching for you.” Then he looked directly at her, and something in his expression turned darker. “They will be watching the house.”
Elise swung her gaze to the windows, to the curtains and into the night beyond. “Then I cannot leave openly.”
“No.”
She felt the walls close in. “Then how—”
Mr. Leigh stepped nearer, lowering his voice. “The tunnel.”
Her breath caught. The tunnel she had wanted to explore—the tunnel he had forbade her to approach—now he offered it as a route.
“You said—”
“I said you could not go into it blindly,” he replied. “I did not say we could not use it carefully.”
She stared at him. The plan was forming like a shape in fog.
“You mean,” she whispered, “we leave through the tunnel, appear elsewhere—”
“And meet them where we choose,” he finished.
Elise’s pulse hammered. It was reckless. It was brilliant. It was—terrifying.
“If we do it, however, we do it with a plan. We do it with an escape in place.”
Elise’s hands trembled again, but this time it was not shock, it was excitement. It was the terrible promise of action.
“We will use myself,” she said, and heard how calm her voice sounded, as if it belonged to another woman.
Mr. Leigh went very still. “No.”
She stared at him, the plan taking shape with startling clarity. “We leave unseen. I go to the tavern briefly. I leave the message, which will send Holt away from Belair House.”
“To the old hut,” Mr. Leigh said. “Tomorrow, at daybreak. Where we choose.”
Her pulse beat harder still, but her voice was calm. “Then please write it, sir.”
He did not touch the paper until she had finished speaking. When he did, it was with the measured care of a man who understood that every word could cost a life.
Elise watched him write, then fold the note.
“I will take it,” he said. “You stay with Cook and Blake until I return—please.”
She nodded once. “Then go.”
Mr. Leigh paused at the door and looked back at her—really looked, as though fixing her in his memory. “We are not offering surrender,” he said quietly, “just taking control.”
Elise met his gaze without flinching. “Then let us hope Mr. Holt follows our instructions.”
As the door closed behind him, she found herself grateful she was not having to do this alone.