Chapter Twenty-One #2
The words of the service seemed all too brief, and she hardly knew what she had said except “I do.”
The breakfast was a whirl of happy solicitations, hugs and kisses. Each person offered invitations to their Christmas events and country homes.
Luc came to wish them well once more. “Forgive me, but I must leave before you do. I suffer from a great fatigue and cannot exert myself for very long.”
“Luc,” Zeph said as she put a hand to his arm, “when we are settled after we return from our honeymoon, we hope you will come to dinner.”
“Thank you, both of you. But I have decided to give up my rooms in St. James’s. The city does not please me. I need the countryside. The air. The silence. The solitude.”
“Where will you go?” she asked. “We need to know. We will not lose you, you realize.”
“I have found a small house I like north of here. I have leased it.”
“Anything we can do to make that an easy move,” Rafe said, “you will tell us.”
“Thank you, but all of you have already. You saved my life, and from what I understand from Miss Hawthorne and her clerk, I have an income from her with all of you contributing. I am quite honored.”
“Find your serenity, sir,” Rafe told him as the two shook hands.
Zeph watched Luc go, fearing for his state of mind. “I had you,” she whispered to Rafe. “He has only himself.”
“We will watch him carefully, do not fear.” Rafe turned to her. “Enough of this. Let us say our goodbyes.”
*
Minutes later, they were off in Rafe’s traveling coach.
“We have a short ride,” he told her as she snuggled next to him. “But we change carriages soon.” When she looked alarmed, he said, “Not to worry. It is only a bluff.”
She bit her lip and traced his cheek with her fingertip. “I brought warm nightclothes.”
“Wise of you,” he said as he removed her little toque hat and pushed tendrils of her hair away from her ear.
“It is December.”
He thumbed her lower lip. “You won’t have to wear them.”
She giggled. “I did not plan to.”
Some long minutes later, they arrived at a small cottage nestled near a small stream and hill.
Dinner was brought to them by the local innkeeper, who promised to provide them with their meals for the next three weeks.
The roast of beef, potatoes, and carrots warmed them both.
Afterward, they washed their dishes together and sat on a settee before their salon fire.
It was not long before they agreed they needed their bed… and each other.
“I have something for you,” she told him as he poured two cognacs. They were in their large but cozy bedroom off the great room. A huge fire blazed behind the grate.
He handed her the glass. “To us, Mrs. Durham. I hope you realize I want no gifts. You alone are my prize.”
“Hmm. Perhaps.” She took a sip, closed her eyes, put her bare feet in his lap as he sat in an oversized chair, and pulled her to him. “But this is rare.”
“I would not have you buying me things.” He had told her that all her wealth would remain hers. He would not touch a penny. They would live on his income always.
“Well, I will. But what I give you cannot be purchased. It is incomparable. So unique you will marvel at it.”
He had a look of wonder in his sweet green eyes. “Tell me, then.”
She took another hearty sip and got to her feet. “Do not move.”
Off she pattered to her trunk. Opened by the innkeeper’s daughter earlier, the trunk was still half full. Zeph dug to the bottom and pulled out a small, locked box. With a key she retrieved from her reticule on the bench, she opened the box and extracted her little red surprise.
She plodded back into their sitting room and put the book into his hands.
He was bemused. “What is this? A book?”
She sat near him, her surprise for him amusing her to no end. “More than.”
He searched her eyes—and opened the leather cover. He turned one page, then another. Then a few more. What he saw there gave him pause.
He blinked and frowned.
At length, he looked at her. “Numbers. Not in your hand.”
“No, not mine.”
He put the book to his lap. “Whose is this?”
“Mine now.”
His eyes grew black with worry. “How is that so?”
“I stole it.”
He sucked in air. “Zeph.”
She could not decide if he was happy or wild or stricken.
Once more, he turned one page after another. “All numbers.”
“Indeed.” She picked up her glass and took a sip.
“Tell me what this is.”
“A list of English towns with the names of French spies in each location.”
He froze, his face going pale in the candlelight as he stared at her. “Vaillancourt’s?”
“Yes, it was his. I took it from his house the same way I took the other little book with all his debtors’ names.” She licked her bottom lip. “I had a lovely time stealing both of them.”
“But you did not take it to the Conciergerie. They would have…” He got to his feet, the book hanging from his fingers. “Cosette.”
She smiled, proud of her husband. “Of course.”
“How?”
“She came to visit me at Countess Nugent’s house just after gossip had spread about the other book I had taken—and given to the publishers on the Left Bank to record the information.
I predicted,” she said with a nod, “Vaillancourt would realize it was I who had stolen that book, and I assumed that soon he would discover that this book was also missing.”
Rafe’s mouth dropped open for a second. But, in shock, he quickly snapped it shut.
“When Cosette came to call on me that day in Paris to bid me adieu, I thought her my best hope to bring the book to safety.”
“And if she and her father did not make it to England, then you—”
She shrugged. “I had done my best.”
He bent and took her in his arms. His lips to her temple, he said, “Who knows you possess it?”
“Only Cosette.”
“Are you certain? What of her father?”
“She says she has never told him about my book.”
“You believe her?”
Zeph gave a little shrug. “I do.”
He pulled back. “This was the reason you went to see her that day.”
“It was. She could not bring it to me to Gus’s house, and she could not give it to me with her father in attendance.”
Fear and sympathy lined his features. “They are all numbers.”
“Oh, but my darling husband,” she said, unable to contain her joy, “they are so much more.”
He scoffed, laughed, and then grew earnest with a glare of fear. “Of course. And with your expertise in numbers, you have decoded them.”
She widened her eyes and let her brows dance. “At the top of each page, the names of towns in England. From what I can tell,” she went on, “they are all towns along the southern coast of England.”
At length, he collected himself and asked, “And the numbers beneath each town?”
“Sets of numbers, actually. The names of French agents are first, to the left. I assume that is what they all are. You see, I have not decoded all of them yet. But because I see the name Faucon in one line—and on another page is the name La Mère—I assume all entries will be similar.”
“Dear God,” Rafe ground out.
“Names, such as Faucon, begin the line. And next to that, other names, such as Tauzain or Chaudry. Paul, by the way, seems to be his given name. Below that, often but not always, I think, are places where they can be found. As close to an address as one could hope.”
He stared at her, speechless.
At length, he rose to put his hand to the mantel and considered the fire before him.
*
He suppressed his terror for his darling wife. He strode around the room, an animal in a cage.
Oh, yes, he had guards on her. Thank heavens, he had ordered them as soon as he and she had arrived in England.
But this was different.
This was dire.
This need to protect her was more vital.
Vaillancourt already sought Zephora for revenge over taking the first book. For this one, this most valuable one, the one whose decoding could destroy his network, the Frenchman would want blood. Death. Violent retribution.
Zeph came to him, her arms going around him and holding him tightly. “You are afraid for me.”
He spun to take her to him. “You do not fear him?”
“My dear man, I have been here in your care and in the Ashleys’, and nothing and no one has befallen me. Not even the meeting with Monsieur Tauzain.”
“Yes, Tauzain.”
“Who in the book is also Chaudry.” She gave a little shiver, adding her details.
“Chaudry! Tauzain! Who has disappeared. Who signed the lease on the house next to the Lenoirs as Mr. Chaudry, but who is—”
Zeph held up a finger. “Monsieur Paul Chaudry,” she said with delight at her own success at this decoding business.
Rafe choked out a laugh.
Zeph played with the ends of his cravat. “A man who happens to live in Deal, on Silver Street.”