CHAPTER FIVE PRACTICE IN TEMPTATION
The coin lay at the centre of Eleanor’s desk as though it had every right to command the room.
It was a small, ugly thing, dulled by years of handling and stamped so poorly that the winged staff upon one side appeared less like the symbol of Mercury than a pair of snakes engaged in an argument.
The reverse bore only six Greek words, yet Eleanor had spent most of the morning surrounded by dictionaries, reference texts and copies of her father’s published work without deciding precisely what those words meant. Not because the language was difficult.
Because it was familiar. Gabriel sat opposite her with his coat folded over the back of the chair and his shirtsleeves pushed several inches above his wrists.
The informality should have made him appear less elegant.
Instead, it exposed strong forearms marked by faint scars and made Eleanor remember how those arms had held her against the library table at Madame Laurent’s salon.
She had attempted not to remember. The attempt had been as successful as trying not to notice the sun because one disapproved of heat.
Gabriel turned another page of the rare edition before him. “Your father’s commentary contradicts itself.”
“That is not unusual.”
“Here he says the disputed phrase refers to a speaker using another person’s authority. Three pages later, he claims it describes a daughter inheriting her father’s rhetorical style.”
“He prefers conclusions that flatter the person currently paying for the edition.”
Gabriel glanced up. “You say that very calmly.”
“I have practised.”
The new publishing office remained too cold despite the fire burning beneath the narrow mantel.
Repairs in the workshop below had left gaps around one window frame, and each gust of wind disturbed the papers stacked near the sill.
The room smelled of ink, smoke and the bread Gabriel had brought from a nearby shop after discovering that Eleanor intended to work through luncheon.
He had also brought cheese, cold chicken, apples and a small jar of mustard. Eleanor had objected to the quantity.
Gabriel had said scholarship required provisions.
She suspected he had simply disliked the thought of her forgetting to eat.
The suspicion was more unsettling than the memory of his mouth upon her breast. That memory, at least, could be classified as physical.
Care was considerably less manageable. Eleanor bent over the open edition of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes.
Her father had published the text eight years earlier, before his reputation became large enough to make every subsequent error appear deliberate.
The volume contained extensive notes in Latin and English, several of which Eleanor now recognised as the work of his late assistant.
A page near the rear had been marked with the same six-word inscription stamped upon the coin.
“The phrase is not a direct quotation,” she said. “It imitates the hymn but changes two nouns and the verb.”
Gabriel moved his chair around the desk until he sat beside her.
The proximity was practical. They needed to view the same page.
Her body ignored practicality. He leaned closer, one forearm resting beside the book, and the warm scent of him reached her: cedar, clean linen and something faintly citrus from the soap he used.
Eleanor felt the awareness of his body before any contact occurred, a quiet tightening beneath her skin that had become increasingly difficult to dismiss as inexperience.
“Which words?” he asked.
She pointed.
“This should mean the son carries the cattle from the father’s field. Hermes steals Apollo’s herd in the original myth. My father changes son to daughter, cattle to voice and carries to a word that may mean speaks, delivers or presents publicly.”
Gabriel studied the Greek. “The father speaks with the daughter’s tongue.”
“Yes.”
“Vauclair’s coin repeats the altered version.”
“Precisely.”
“And this edition supplied the phrase.”
Eleanor turned several pages. “Not merely the phrase. Look at the line numbers.”
Gabriel moved closer. His shoulder brushed hers. Neither commented.
Eleanor traced a column of numbers printed beside the commentary. “The changes occur on lines twelve, eighteen, twenty-three and thirty-one. Read in sequence, they appear arbitrary, but the Mercury Club programme uses the date of the Feast to determine which line comes first.”
“You are certain?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
Eleanor sighed. “I am reasonably certain.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It is the highest form of certainty a scholar should admit before testing a theory.”
“And the lowest?”
“The certainty expressed by men at lectures.”
Gabriel smiled. The expression warmed his face without the usual polished brilliance.
It was not the smile he used to flatter women, distract husbands or make servants forgive him for arriving after midnight.
It belonged to the man sitting in a cold office with ink upon his cuff and crumbs beside his elbow.
Eleanor liked that smile. She disliked liking it.
“Begin with line eighteen,” she said, concentrating upon the text.
“The altered word means payment or debt in a commercial context. Line thirty-one indicates a place west of a principal building. Twenty-three refers to a person represented as Apollo, though I suspect the name is coded according to the figure’s attributes rather than his identity. ”
“Music? Light? Beauty?”
“Or a brother cheated by Mercury.”
Gabriel’s expression became thoughtful. “Lord Peregrine has a younger brother.”
“Does the brother possess music, light or beauty?”
“He possesses debts, a temper and a wife who dislikes him.”
“Then the resemblance to Apollo is limited.”
“Most men suffer under comparison with gods.”
“You appear to have endured it bravely.”
Gabriel touched one hand to his chest. “At last, recognition.”
Eleanor continued before he could enjoy himself further. “The final altered word is a date concealed as a line number. If the sequence is correct, the message identifies a payment, a location and a person.”
“Can you determine the precise message?”
“Not without the key used for the names. The Mercury programmes substitute mythological figures for individuals. Hermes may represent a messenger, thief or club member. Apollo could be a patron, scholar, musician or simply someone whose first name begins with the corresponding letter.”
“What does the evening star represent?”
“Possibly Vesper.”
Gabriel’s amusement disappeared. The change was immediate. He sat straighter, his gaze returning to the coin.
“Then your father’s edition may have supplied code phrases used for years.”
Eleanor looked at the title page. Edited and Translated by Dr. Edmund Finch. The familiar words had always irritated her. Today they felt threatening.
“My father knows this edition better than anyone,” she said.
“Except you.”
“I was sixteen when it was published.”
“That does not answer the point.”
“I corrected the index and several notes, but I did not produce the translation.”
Gabriel watched her.
“At sixteen,” he said, “I was being thrown out of Oxford for placing a goat in the rooms of a dean.”
“Why?”
“The goat objected to his views on educational discipline.”
“You expect me to believe the animal expressed a political opinion?”
“The goat was unusually perceptive.”
Eleanor looked back at the book, but a smile tugged at her mouth despite herself.
Gabriel had redirected the conversation.
Not clumsily. He had recognised the fear gathering beneath her words and offered absurdity before it became visible.
She should have resented the evasion. Instead, she was grateful.
That too was dangerous. They spent another hour comparing the coin to her father’s edition and the programmes taken from the Mercury Club.
Each deliberately corrupted phrase appeared to perform a specific function.
Financial terms indicated payments. Architectural references identified locations.
Mythological names represented individuals, while numbers concealed dates or the order in which information should be read.
It was an elegant system. It depended upon scholars treating obscure errors as matters of interpretation rather than deliberate signals.
“My father may have created it,” Eleanor said at last.
Gabriel closed the programme he had been reading. “Or someone may have used his work without his knowledge.”
“The alteration in his lecture was deliberate.”
“That does not prove he understands the entire code.”
“It proves participation.”
“It proves one altered sentence.”
Eleanor turned toward him. “You are determined to defend him.”
“No.”
“You have offered an innocent explanation for every discovery.”
“I have offered alternatives because proof becomes less reliable when one chooses the conclusion first.”
“My father received a programme. His published edition contains the code. Yesterday he publicly delivered a phrase matching Mercury imagery.”
“And we shall investigate all of it.”
“You once allowed society to believe the worst of Beatrice’s father.”
Gabriel became still. Eleanor regretted the words immediately, not because they were untrue, but because she had used Julian’s grief and Beatrice’s pain as a weapon.
She lowered her gaze. “That was unfair.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “It was accurate.”
She looked at him again. His face held none of the defensive humour she expected.
“Julian suspected Westbury of selling information that led to the deaths of his men,” Gabriel continued. “I believed Julian’s evidence because I trusted him, and I assumed Beatrice’s father was guilty because every fact appeared to support the conclusion. We were wrong about part of it.”
“Westbury did accept money.”
“Yes, but not for the reason we believed. He was frightened, compromised and attempting to gather proof against the men controlling him. We mistook his cowardice for complete guilt and his secrecy for betrayal.”