CHAPTER SIX THE FEAST OF HERMES #4
She opened the paper. The copied lines were incomplete but legible. Gabriel looked at her.
“You copied the page while I distracted Carrow?”
“Part of it.”
“And concealed it there?”
“My gown contains no useful pockets.”
He nearly laughed. The woman had been thoroughly kissed, partially undressed and nearly brought to release behind a curtain while carrying evidence against a blackmail network inside her bodice.
No one in London would ever again convince Gabriel that Eleanor Finch was timid.
They waited until the gallery quieted, then emerged from the alcove.
Vauclair stood at the opposite end speaking to Crane.
They had perhaps two minutes before the missing coin or altered ledger became an alarm. Eleanor looked at the copied fragment.
“This is not enough.”
“It will have to be.”
“The final entries contain the scholars.”
Gabriel glanced toward cabinet forty-seven.
“No.”
“Gabriel—”
“No.”
His voice carried enough command to stop her. She looked at him, anger flashing. He lowered his tone.
“Vauclair knows the cabinet was opened. Crane will check every guest. We leave now.”
Eleanor looked toward the stairs. Then back at the cabinet. Gabriel saw the calculation occurring. He also saw the fear she refused to pretend did not exist.
“I need thirty seconds,” she said.
“You have ten.”
They moved together. Gabriel crossed directly toward Vauclair and Crane, intercepting them with a complaint about a private letter supposedly removed from another cabinet.
His outrage drew both men’s attention and forced the officer to defend the club’s security.
Behind them, Eleanor reached cabinet forty-seven.
She inserted her father’s coin. Opened the door.
Removed the final ledger. Gabriel continued speaking.
Crane glanced past him. Gabriel stepped into his line of sight.
“My dear Ashcombe,” the officer said coldly, “if you have lost a letter, perhaps the fault lies in bringing correspondence into rooms where you routinely lose clothing.”
Vauclair laughed. Gabriel smiled.
“An excellent point.”
A third bell rang again, shorter this time.
Not ceremonial. An alarm. Crane turned. A servant hurried along the gallery and whispered into his ear.
The officer’s expression changed. Gabriel looked toward the cabinet.
Eleanor had closed it. She was walking toward him with unhurried elegance, one hand resting upon her fan.
No one looking at her would have imagined her pulse was racing. Crane raised his voice.
“No guest is to leave the gallery.”
The doors at both ends closed. Eleanor reached Gabriel. He placed an arm around her waist.
“What happened?” she murmured.
“The coin has been reported.”
“Vauclair?”
“Probably.”
Crane instructed officers to examine every token and invitation. Gabriel looked toward the carved screens overlooking the salon. Too high to jump. Too exposed to climb. Eleanor’s attention moved toward the walls.
“What lies behind that tapestry?” she asked.
“A wall.”
“No.”
“Eleanor—”
“The floor plan mirrors a Roman basilica. The gallery sits above the eastern service corridor. A building of this size requires a servants’ stair between the kitchens and private rooms.”
Gabriel followed her gaze. A tapestry depicting Mercury stealing Apollo’s cattle covered the far corner. The lower edge moved faintly despite the still air. A concealed passage. Gabriel kissed Eleanor’s temple.
“Walk.”
They moved toward the tapestry while officers searched the first guests.
Carrow protested loudly. Professor Alderton appeared close to fainting.
Vauclair watched Gabriel. That was the true danger.
Gabriel placed his hand beneath Eleanor’s cloak and drew her firmly against his side, maintaining the appearance of a man irritated by interrupted pleasure.
Eleanor leaned into him. Their false intimacy felt effortless now.
Too effortless. At the tapestry, Gabriel reached behind the edge and found a narrow wooden panel. It opened inward. They slipped through.
The passage beyond was dark and steep, lit only by a single servant’s lamp several yards below. The door closed behind them, cutting off the gallery’s candlelight. Eleanor removed her mask.
“Down,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“Service stairs descend toward kitchens. Upper routes lead to private chambers.”
Gabriel took her hand. They moved quickly.
Voices sounded above as someone discovered the hidden door.
Eleanor lifted her skirts and ran. The blue-black silk, designed for seduction rather than escape, tangled around her legs.
Gabriel caught her once when she slipped, lifting her bodily over two steps before setting her down.
At the bottom, the passage opened into a corridor lined with pantry doors.
Servants carrying trays stared as they emerged. Gabriel did not slow.
He took a bottle from one astonished footman’s tray, uncorked it and poured wine down the front of his shirt. Eleanor looked at him.
“Drunken lovers,” he said.
“You are wet enough already.”
“From rain.”
“Not entirely.”
Despite the danger, heat flashed through him.
“Later,” he said.
The word surprised them both. A shout came from the staircase.
They ran through the kitchens. Gabriel overturned a basket of onions behind them.
Servants shouted, cooks protested and two masked officers slipped upon the scattered vegetables with a crash loud enough to shake pans from the wall.
Eleanor laughed. The sound was breathless, frightened and exhilarating.
Gabriel wanted to hear it again under circumstances that did not involve armed pursuit. They found the outer service yard.
Rain fell heavily beyond the door. Gabriel removed his coat and wrapped it around Eleanor’s shoulders before they ran into the night.
The club’s main entrance was blocked. Their carriage waited two streets away under instructions intended to prevent its identification.
They crossed an alley, passed beneath an arch and climbed over a locked gate Eleanor insisted led to the correct street.
Gabriel tore one glove and nearly lost a boot in the mud.
Eleanor’s gown caught upon the iron spikes.
He lifted her down. For one second, she landed against his chest. Their faces were inches apart.
Both remembered the alcove. Then voices sounded behind them.
They ran again. The carriage appeared through the rain.
The driver saw them and opened the door before they reached it.
Gabriel pushed Eleanor inside, followed and struck the roof twice.
The vehicle moved before the door fully closed.
Only when they had turned through three streets did Gabriel allow himself to breathe.
Eleanor sat opposite him, soaked hair loosening around her face and Gabriel’s coat wrapped over her gown.
The silver mask lay in her lap. She looked less like Mrs. Grey now, although she did not look like the Eleanor who had entered either.
Something had changed in the club’s dark rooms. Confidence no longer seemed a disguise she wore.
It had become part of her. Gabriel removed the copied paper from her hand.
The ink had blurred slightly where rain reached it, but most names remained visible.
Printers, editors, scholars and payments.
He read quickly while Eleanor watched. Then he saw the entry.
DR. EDMUND FINCH — TRANSLATIONS AND CORRECTIONS
Beside the name appeared the eight-pointed evening star. Gabriel looked at Eleanor. She had not yet seen it. Below the entry, another line appeared in smaller script.
E. FINCH — SOURCE MATERIAL UNAWARE
The meaning struck him with brutal clarity.
Vesper knew; the network knew Eleanor created the original material.
They knew Dr. Finch used her work. They had paid him for access to it while recording her as an unwitting source.
She was not merely adjacent to the conspiracy.
She had been part of its machinery without consent.
“Gabriel?”
He folded the paper once. Too late. Eleanor reached across and took it. She read the first entry. Her face became still. Then the second. For several seconds, the only sound inside the carriage was rain striking the roof.
“My father did not merely steal my work,” she said.
Gabriel felt something inside him tighten at the calmness of her voice.
“He sold it to them.”
He reached for her. Eleanor did not move away.
Neither did she lean into him. His hand stopped between them, suspended over the narrow distance.
Every instinct urged him to cross it, to pull her against his chest and promise that Finch, Vauclair and every man connected to Vesper would answer for what they had done.
Those promises would have been for Gabriel, not Eleanor.
Comfort taken rather than chosen was another form of control. He lowered his hand.
“Where?” he asked.
She looked at him.
“Where should I take you?”
The Finch house would place her beneath the same roof as the man named in the ledger.
Rothmere House offered safety, the Society and questions she might not be ready to answer.
Calder House offered Julian’s protection and the immediate machinery of investigation.
Gabriel’s own town house offered privacy, warmth and the dangerous possibility of the unfinished intimacy still burning between them.
Eleanor closed her fingers around the copied list.
“Take me home,” she said.
Gabriel struck the carriage roof to signal the driver. Then he sat in the darkness, watching rain move across the glass and realising he no longer knew which place she meant.