Chapter 16 #2
He removed two of them, inserting an L-shaped one into the lock followed by a thin metal rod.
Dumbfounded, she watched his practiced movements.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. He was an earl, a gentleman, yet he handled the lock with unnerving ease.
This was not the skill of a clumsy schoolboy.
He had done this before. He flashed her a smile, returning to the lock as he worked the thin rod within it until there was a faint click.
“In we go.” His hand settled at the small of her back as he turned the knob and ushered her inside. “The guard will return any moment.”
Once inside, he cautiously shut the door behind them. Darkness enveloped them, the smell of tar and spices potent, the floor cold and gritty beneath her half-boots. She jumped at a rustling nearby that sounded a lot like a small rodent scurrying away.
Moonlight filtered through the high windows, giving only enough light to make out shapes. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, her mind whirled with what she had just seen. Was James some sort of criminal?
No. She knew enough of his heart to reject that thought immediately. He would never. But all the pieces she had seen of James refused to align.
The library. The alley. The bridge. The way he moved through the streets. The lock. All the secrecy.
Could he possibly be working as an agent for some government official? The thought seemed absurd, and yet she was currently standing in a dark warehouse in an itchy cloak searching for evidence against a shadowy organization. Anything was possible.
She felt rather than saw him draw near. His hand found hers in the dark, but she resisted his pull. “How did you know how to pick that lock?”
He stilled before answering. “I will explain, Kate. I promise. But not now.”
She gave a short huff. “Fine. But I shall hold you to that.”
“I would expect nothing less from you, though you may find I have more surprises than you wish to uncover. Now, can we return to our task?”
She nodded, determined to make sure he kept his promise. It seemed she was not the only one keeping secrets.
“We need to search the offices belonging to the clerk and manager,” he said. “They are typically upstairs, away from the main warehouse floor.”
Now that her vision had adjusted to the darkness, she could make out a set of stairs on the wall beside the entrance, leading up to a narrow corridor flanked by three doors.
James led her to the staircase, and she tried to muffle her footsteps as they climbed.
The first door they reached was unlocked, and even in the scant moonlight they could tell that it was a half-empty closet containing a few tools and a discarded bucket.
The second door was locked, and James made even quicker work of this one.
Once inside, he lit the lantern he had been carrying.
There were no windows to give away their presence.
The air in the small room was stale with the scent of parchment and dry ink.
She surveyed the shelves, noting the stacks of books and shipping manifests. “What are we looking for?” she asked.
James moved around to the other side of the desk.
“Ledgers, correspondence, anything linking the company to Ashcombe or to the men in the library. Anything that seems out of the ordinary.” He pulled open each drawer in the desk with precision, silently searching the contents before moving on to the next, leaving nothing out of place.
This was not the first time he had done this. There was so much she did not know about this man, but he had asked for her trust, and she had promised.
“Find anything?” he asked, eyebrows raised at her scrutiny.
She pretended not to notice. “Not yet.” She moved to the shelves and flipped through the maps and books about trade and agriculture. James returned to the remaining desk drawers.
“Based on the contents of the desk, this is the head clerk’s office.” He moved toward the door. “The other office should belong to the manager.”
He blew out the lantern and checked the corridor before leading them to the third door.
Once they were inside, James relit it. A large wooden pedestal desk occupied the center of the room, and the far wall was covered with maps of trade routes by land and sea.
Bookshelves lined the back wall. There were too many places to search in their limited time.
“Let’s start with the desk,” James said. They moved to opposite sides of the desk, opening one drawer at a time and examining the papers.
Kate pulled out a pile from the bottom drawer, skimming over contracts, correspondence about possible trade deals, and a shipment manifest. She spread several of them on the desk, scanning for anything that would indicate the company was involved in illicit dealings.
James closed a drawer. “You’re lingering on that pile. At this rate I shall have you hired on as their head clerk before dawn.”
She scooped the papers into a pile and placed them back into the drawer. “And you? Are you hoping to uncover the truth by your strength and charm alone?” She arched her brow.
He straightened and folded his arms across his chest, clearly enjoying himself. “So you think I am strong and charming?”
She gave him a nudge with her shoulder, and he stumbled back, catching himself on the desk. A loud, hollow thud sounded when his hand struck the wood. The playfulness vanished from his face. “There isn’t a central drawer in this desk, is there?”
“I don’t believe so.” She moved the chair in front of the desk and crouched down.
“Lantern, please.” She reached up blindly, and James placed the handle in her grasp, as though they had been doing this for years.
When she lowered it, the light revealed a small drawer at the far end of the desk’s opening, invisible unless one crouched beneath the piece of furniture. She pulled the small knob. Locked.
She rose. “Lord Brenton, it appears we are in need of your skills again.”
“Which one? My strength or my charm?” He knelt down, pulling out his small leather pouch.
Before long, he rose with a thick ledger in his hands. “What have we found?”
She placed the lantern on the desk as he set the book down and opened the cracked leather cover, moving aside some loose pages tucked inside.
The front pages were filled with columns of names, figures, and locations, though each entry appeared to be little more than a jumble of letters and numbers.
As Kate scanned the first page, then the next, the letters began to form a pattern. She thumbed through the rest of the ledger, finding more of the same.
Whoever kept this ledger had secrets.
Unfortunately for them, Kate knew how to uncover them.
She recognized the structure of the cipher almost immediately, but if she continued, there was no pretending. Showing James what she could do—trusting him with the truth—would risk everything she had worked so carefully to keep hidden.
The most terrifying part was that she wanted him to know. Not Lord Brenton, not the earl, not the man who kept a hundred secrets. James.
The ledger lay before her, the first real chance to discover the truth behind the meeting in the library, the crates in the alley, and Mr. Ashcombe’s murder. She wished she could take the ledger with her and work on it in secret, but that would alert the owner that someone had been there.
Her fingers tightened around the pages. She had to take the risk.
“What is it, Kate? What did you find?”
She steeled herself. “Would you search for some foolscap?” He hesitated, then opened the top drawer he had already searched and pulled out a small stack of quarto sheets. He set them before her, waiting.
She sat, the hard wooden chair pressing against her back, and pulled the inkwell toward her.
She took the first sheet of paper, dipped the quill in the ink, and examined the top line of the ledger’s first page.
After a moment of study, her quill flew across the page.
She was deciphering the fourth line before James finally spoke.
“Now it is my turn to ask. What are you doing?”
She continued writing while she searched for an answer. So much depended on his reaction.
“This ledger contains a substitution cipher.” She wrote as fast as she could, copying down both the original entries and the decoded names, though several appeared likely to be assumed.
“A substitution cipher.” James’s voice was tighter than usual.
She paused long enough to take him in. His lips pressed into a tight line.
He dragged one hand through his already disheveled hair, then locked his fingers behind his neck, utterly unsettled.
Usually so composed and measured in everything he did, he now seemed unsure of himself.
But she had no more time to worry about his reaction now. She returned to the ledger, the scratching quill echoing in the small room. After a few lines, she abandoned the attempt to decipher each entry and wrote down the coded names to solve later.
The air shifted as he drew behind her, close enough that his breath brushed her ear.
“It seems I am not the only one who has secrets to share.” His tone was light, but something beneath it was not.
The relief of finally sharing part of her secret with someone was quickly swallowed up by fear of his reaction.
Behind her, papers on the bookshelves shifted as he continued his search.
She would give anything to know what he was thinking, but she could not stop. The faint light of dawn crept through the crack beneath the door. They had been in here much longer than she realized.
She was skimming the ledger, memorizing the pages and layout as she went, when a loose sheet fell out. It was a letter, written in a different code from the ledger entries. She folded it, the two fractured halves of the wax seal coming together.
An oak leaf with a serpent entwined.
Her blood ran cold.
James’s shadow fell across the desk. “What is it? Another discovery besides the sinister ledger you are mysteriously able to decode?”
“Yes, I—” She stopped abruptly at a loud bang from the warehouse floor. That was not a rat.
They froze, listening. James crept to the door, opening it just wide enough to see into the warehouse.
While he watched the warehouse floor, she returned the ledger to its hidden compartment, the lock clicking into place.
She scrambled to grab the papers she had filled, along with the letter.
With luck, whoever occupied this office would not notice the letter’s absence.
She could not leave it behind. Not when it might prove the clue that made sense of everything.
James carefully shut the door. “There are two men on the warehouse floor. One is the guard from before, the other is either another guard or a worker.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry, Kate. I should have been more observant. There is no way to leave without them seeing us.”
“Maybe they don’t know we are here, and we can just wait until they leave.”
“They were examining the unlocked door. They suspect someone was here. There is only one thing we can do.”
Her chest tightened with fear. “What is that?”
“We need to separate.”
“No!” she said, much too loudly. She clamped a hand over her mouth before lowering it again. “No,” she whispered, “what if something happens?”
“I do not relish the thought of being separated from you either, but it is the only way. I will exit first and draw them away. While they are busy chasing me, you sneak out. We will meet back at the shop where we hid from the watchman.”
Every instinct in her rebelled against the plan. The thought of him facing danger without her made her feel ill. But if they stayed together, they would be trapped, and the papers would be lost with them. She secured the bundle in her cloak and prepared to move.
James rounded the desk, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I would not dare leave you alone if there were any other way. You asked for a partner. This is my attempt to be one.” His touch traveled down her arms before releasing her.
She let out a breath, her frame shaking. “Very well then. What did you say before?” She lifted her chin. “It’s time to be bold.”
He paused, gripping the doorknob. “You never cease to amaze me, Kate.”
Loud footsteps sounded on the stairs. He turned to go, but she stopped him, catching his arm. “Be careful. Please.”
He hesitated, his rigid control giving way to worry. His eyes traced her features with one last desperate look. Then he opened the door and slipped into the corridor beyond.