As usual, she had been right. He turned from the window and those mocking blue skies, back to his desk. He could never speak up in his own defense, and now—if war came, if he were accused of this crime . . . he could lose everything. Be arrested. And though in peaceful times such a ridiculous accusation couldn’t stick, who knew what a judge might decide in the panic of war?
And he couldn’t have people digging into his secrets. Even if they weren’t treasonous. Crouching down, he began to unload the bag from which he’d taken the letters. He’d done his best to make himself understood in spite of the stammering. He’d learned to excel at writing where he failed in speech, but that apparently wasn’t enough.
Well, it had been enough to earn him friends, to be sure. Ironic, really, that those very friendships were what now made him trouble. He slid out the books he’d been reading on the train and put them on the desk.
Gryff picked up one and flipped it open. “Surely the king or Prince Edward can hush the rumors—what is the point, after all, of having friends in those highest of places if they cannot offer you a bit of protection now and then?”
“I don’t want to . . . to put them in that . . . position.” Peter made a face but directed it at the last notebook he withdrew rather than at his friend. “And no one would . . . would care about me if I . . . if I hadn’t such friends.”
Snapping the book closed, Gryff set it down. “Perfectly unfair. And unjust. If you want me to file a suit against someone, just name the culprit. Surely we can trump up some charges of malice or slander or maligning or . . .”
“Brilliant, counselor.” Peter stood again and put his notebooks to the right, beside the box still front and center. “That will . . . that will surely solve everything.”
“You never let me have any fun at all, old boy. Nothing but paperwork and real estate—though perhaps that could help. Mr. Arnold could be right about that, you know, if you let it be known.” Gryff rapped a knuckle on the book. “Or the king could knight you. Perhaps that would hush a few of your detractors.”
Peter reached for the copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt and set it on the shelf behind his desk. “Why would he? I’ve done . . . done nothing.”
Gryff folded his arms over his chest, leaned against the desk, and arrowed a look into him. “You’ve done as much as Conan Doyle.”
He shot the look right back at his friend and turned to the box, though he wasn’t quite sure if it was dread or appreciation that coursed through him as he unlatched it. “I can . . . can hardly claim that.”
“Not can’t—won’t.”
“Semantics.”
“Precision—something I know well you appreciate, so don’t try to argue with me. And pray tell, what is your plan for dealing with it, if not appealing to the Crown for aid? Do you intend to hide yourself away here in Cornwall until your detractors forget you exist or Germany ceases threatening Europe?”
The thought had crossed Peter’s mind, though he’d no intention of confessing that to the man who liked nothing more than donning his white wig and black robe and arguing before the courts. “I intend to . . . to find answers.”
Gryff blinked at him. “Answers to what?”
“To the qu—questions they are raising. If I can . . . if I can prove to those loud f-few that I . . . that my family is loyal, then . . .”
“And how will you do that?”
Peter sighed and turned toward the door. The one he was rarely brave enough to open, though the room behind it bore a name he loved above most others—library.
Gryffyn snorted again. “Then I bid you good luck. I interviewed no fewer than four chaps for the job while you were away, and they all ran for the hills when they got a look at the place. If you want to tackle the cave, you’re on your own.”
Feeling a bit like the stalwart adventurer Locryn James, whose fictional escapades had captured countless hearts, he flung open the door. And then just stood there staring at the mess. “Even Locryn would . . . would tremble.”
Gryff laughed and came to his side but made no move to enter either. “Your family may be loyal, but it must be said, Pete. You are all a bunch of hoarders.”
Only of books. And magazines. And newspapers and journals and diaries and missives and . . . He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It is enough to . . . to make a man go grey. But then I would . . . would look like you.”
“I beg your pardon.” Gryff passed a hand over the hair more silver than brown, though he was only thirty. “You should be so lucky as to gain such a dignified look at such a tender age.”
Peter grinned, though it faded fast. “They never should have . . . have forbidden Mrs. Teague from . . . cleaning in there.”
“Ah, but zere is a mezod to zee madness!” Gryff held out a hand, doing a fair, if exaggerated, imitation of Peter’s grandfather.
“If only Opa had . . . shared it.”
“Hmm. My friend, here is my wisdom.” He clapped a hand to Peter’s shoulder and leaned close, saying in a mock whisper, “You really need to find that help, even if it’s someone untrained in history or libraries.”
And well he knew it. He pasted on a smile as exaggerated as Gryff’s German accent. “Gryffyn, old friend, old . . . chum.”
“I don’t like you that much.” Laughing, Gryff retreated to the desk and took the liberty of lifting the lid from the box.
Peter followed and then stood for a moment staring at the machine within. Usually seeing the typewriter made his fingers itch to strike the familiar keys. Just now, he had half a mind to toss it over the cliffs and into the sea—the blighted thing had been resisting him at every turn since the trouble started in London.
Ah well, there was nothing for it. He lifted the heavy base, letting Gryff slide the bottom of its box out of the way. Then Peter set it in its place before his chair.
His friend peeked at the stack of pages bound with brown paper and rubber bands that Peter had unloaded from his bag. And frowned. “Is this it?”
Peter squeezed his eyes shut, but reopening them didn’t make the stack grow. “Yes.”
“And you have only until August?”
“Yes.”
Gryff winced. “Perhaps I should leave you so you can get to work.”
“It won’t help.” Perhaps a walk along the cliffs would, though, even if God hadn’t sent him a storm today.
There was always tomorrow. And maybe he needed sunshine just now—the Lord, after all, had far more wisdom than Peter could ever boast. He motioned with his head toward the window. “Join me?”
“For a bit, then I should get home.”
They headed out of the study, down the hall, and to the nearest exit, which took them into the gardens. Mr. Teague’s pride and joy, they were a riot of color just now, long-stemmed flowers bowing in the breeze and sending their sweet perfume into the air. Peter had to pause, as he always did, to take in the splendor for a moment. Rather than the careful, cultivated look of neighboring houses, Teague had gone for a wild arrangement, a profusion of mixed blooms mingling in beds crowding the paths.
Peter had dreamed it was a jungle when he was a boy, what with the tropical flowers Teague had imported. He’d spent many hours on the benches situated here and there, a book in his hand and adventure in his heart.
Were he a different man, one who could command a presence and charm people wherever he went, perhaps he would have struck off to see more of the world than this imitation jungle. Perhaps he would have made his own way, cut his own path with machete and pistol.
As it was, even the jungle of London sent him running for cover.
“You’re brooding. You know how I detest it when you brood.” Gryff strode ahead through the garden, his aim the path that would take them, after a five-minute walk, to the cliffs.
“I’m not . . . brooding. Just wonder . . . wondering what else is out there.” Hands in his pockets, Peter kept pace with his friend, letting his eyes soak up every familiar hedge and then the equally famili
ar scrub that adorned the cliff tops. His ears strained for that first sound of wave crashing on rock.
Birdsong serenaded them, and the wind whispered a harmony to it. They were the only sounds for that quick walk, along with the scuff of their feet over the granite stones placed here and there along the path. In the other direction, between the house and the main road, was the wood, of which Peter was equally fond—but not in a mood like this. Nothing could soothe him like the wind whipping salt air into his face and a gull crying out a greeting. Peter dragged in a long breath, the release of which was always Gryff’s cue.
Gryff never missed his cue. “What will you do, then? If rumors get worse, and if you can’t find anything in that dreadful room to prove the Holsteins above reproach? What will you do if war comes and your loyalties are called into question? What if even selling off the last of it doesn’t help?”
Peter’s nostrils flared. What could he do, really? Hopefully here, in the village where he’d grown up, where everyone knew him—more or less, though perhaps less, given his habitual silence—he’d still be welcome. Still be trusted. People would speak up for him.
But, just as likely, that snarling Mr. Jasper would trump up charges. If war were declared, he could be arrested, just because of his last name. Because of his father falling in love with a German woman. He could lose everything. Everything. And even if it didn’t come to that, he would never shake the suspicion. Not in this climate. “The k-king is . . . he is considering . . . changing his name.”
Not that His Majesty was ready to make such a monumental decision soon—a monarch didn’t just toss aside a family name because of shifting politics.
But the politics were dire enough that King George was considering it. Seriously considering it and already had hired a historian to revisit all the research that Queen Victoria had sought out on their family history. Already he was trying to determine what name the house of Saxe-Coburg should take, if take a new one they did.
“Peter. You can’t be thinking of doing the same. You can’t. It would break your father’s heart, and your grandfather’s.”
He swallowed, though his throat felt tight and his mouth dry. “I can’t be sure it . . . that it would even help. But perhaps . . . it may make a statement. If I were to so visibly d-distance myself f-from my German roots.”
Gryff stepped between him and the view of the rolling sea, his face a mask of concern again. “Listen to yourself. This is obviously as distressing to you as it would be to them, so why are you even considering it? How can you possibly think it would be worth it?”
Because Cornwall was the only home he’d ever known, and if he were all but forced out of Kensey Manor as he had been out of his little townhouse in London . . . well, what sacrifice wouldn’t be worth keeping his home? This place he loved? “A rose by any other n-name, right?”
Gryff’s face didn’t soften any. “A lesson everyone else needs to learn about the name Holstein—not one you need to learn about changing it.”
But it wasn’t possible to change the world—only himself. Though perhaps by changing himself he could cause a greater change too. That had always been his hope, his prayer. That the Lord could somehow use both his shortcomings and his gifts to make others better. Stronger. More faithful. “It is only . . . only a notion.”
“Well, dismiss it and focus your energies on digging through that cave of paper you so optimistically call a library. Surely there is ample proof in there that your family has always been the most loyal of English subjects—your father and grandfather were both always writing things and filing them away. Find it, present it to whomever in Parliament or the Home Office is giving you trouble, and let that be that.”
The journals, those were what he needed. Surely if anything could prove his family’s innocence, it was those missing journals. “You would con—consign me to that mess alone? And here I . . . I thought you were my friend.”
At least he smiled, finally. “Call me a coward if you must, but I’m not setting foot in there. And if you have any pity on future generations, you’ll stop adding to the mess with those boxes of correspondence.”
He’d move them up to the attic eventually. When he got around to it. Besides, future generations looked none too promising. No woman he’d ever met had any interest in a stammering fool. Especially one with a last name like Holstein.
Maybe he did understand why his father had gone back to Germany for his bride.
Gryff’s smile had faded into a squint. He nodded toward the house. “Are you expecting company?”
“Hmm?” Peter spun around, squinting into the sun as well, until he caught the gleam of its light upon an automobile bouncing up his drive. “No.”
They both started back without the need to discuss it, their pace quicker than it had been on the way up. It could be no one from the village, not in an unfamiliar car. Perhaps a tourist who had taken a wrong turn?
They hurried over the rocks, through the scrub. The rumble of the engine breaking the quiet of the day nearly made Peter wince. The machines were here to stay, it seemed, but he rather missed the days before their advent upon the countryside. Things would never be the same.
Once in the side garden, the contraption came into clear view . . . and brought Peter up short. There were two young women in its open cab. The driver had a somewhat round face with a flattish nose, middling brown hair, and stared at the front of Kensey.
The passenger’s hair was a few shades darker, with a bit of curl, her face narrower, her sharp nose topped by a pair of spectacles. Pretty, both of them, with that kind of beauty that it took a few moments to notice. They rather put him in mind of the sisters Locryn James had met in This Mad Caper, in Spain. They had been on their way to a convent, determined to take their vows.
A resemblance Gryff didn’t seem to pick up on. “Well now, that’s interesting. Ladies. Here. Perhaps there is hope yet for those future generations.” Chuckling, Gryff elbowed him in the side. “Come on, old boy. Let’s go and say hello.”
He would rather brave the library.
Three
You’re never going to pull this one off. Never.”
Rosemary reached behind her for the valise she had stowed behind the seat of the borrowed car. “Shut up, Willa.”
“Ever. You’re aware of that, right?” Willa leaned back against the seat, wrist braced against the steering wheel as if she were perfectly at home driving the borrowed automobile. Her gaze remained on the stone edifice before them. “It isn’t even that big, as manors go. Probably employs no more than a dozen.”
“And how would I afford the upkeep of a bigger place after I steal it?” Straightening, Rosemary gave her sister a cheeky grin.
Willa turned and made a face at her. “Are you really going to wear those things? You look ridiculous.”
“I look the part.” Rosemary touched a hand to the wire-rimmed spectacles whose glass did nothing to magnify. Her gaze strayed to the house. Grey stone blocks, nearly white in some places. Ivy growing up the corners. The garden, visible on the side, looked disorderly, wild . . . and yet somehow inviting. And, she noted, had two men striding through it. “We’ve been noticed. I’d better get out and you gone.”
Willa nodded. “I can come back ’round in an hour.”
“No—you’d better return the car before that sot stirs from his stupor and realizes it’s gone. If I fail to gain entrance, I’ll just walk back to the hotel.”
Willa pursed her lips as Rosemary opened the door and slid out, valise in hand. “Are you certain about this, Rosie? The real part, I mean.”
No more sure than she had been about the museum job or the designs she’d liberated for Mr. V six months ago, but she’d pulled those off, hadn’t she? She closed the door behind her. “I’ll be fine.” She rounded the bonnet and paused on the other side to lean in and kiss Willa’s cheek. “I appreciate you coming with me.”
“Nothing better to do.” Despite her grin, Willa’s eyes shone with uncertainty. “
Besides, you know how Barclay is about sending us off alone.”
She had wriggled her way free of that “rule” plenty of times before—and would be happy to send Willa home once she was established here. But just now, it was rather nice to have a friend at hand. “Right, well. With the greatest risks—”
“—come the greatest rewards.” Willa nodded and faced forward. “Good luck.”
She was going to need it. Drawing in a deep breath, Rosemary clutched the valise in one hand, smoothed the linen of her new skirt, and drew in a breath to steady herself as the car puttered off down the other side of the drive’s loop. Rosemary Gresham, librarian. A stretch, she would be the first to admit. Not a role that would come naturally. But she would bluster her way along as she always did, and it must begin now with a smile. She fixed one in place and turned just as the two gents touched foot to gravel.
They may have been about the same age, though it was hard to say, what with the one having grey hair. His face was smooth though, as smooth as the other’s—that second man a blond. Testimony to his German side? Or did the bold step of the first signal he was master of the house?
Well, she wouldn’t fumble the introduction by assuming. Instead, she strode forward with the smile in place. “Good day! I’m seeking Mr. Holstein.”
The gents stopped a few feet away, the grey one looking to the blonde. “You have found him. May I inquire as to your purpose, Miss . . . ?”
“Gresham.” She had debated—and rejected—using an assumed name. Given how long a job this would likely be, she couldn’t risk getting tripped up with such nonsense. She held out a hand to the blond. “Rosemary Gresham, librarian, at your service, sir.”
She expected wariness. Confusion. Perhaps a dose of animosity. Instead, light sparked in Holstein’s eyes as he stepped forward and shook her hand. “A li—librarian, you say? Have you . . . have you c-come to apply for the p-position?”
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