"Have you been to bed at all?" she asked in astonishment.
"Good morning." He got up and took her hand in his. "For a short while. There's a possibility that I may have to go to Portsmouth later. A note was waiting for me when I got back last night."
"Portsmouth! But you can't! We have work to do here!"
"I know we have work to do, and I've told the Admiralty so. But I may not have any choice. I'm still waiting to hear what they decide." At her sigh of exasperation he went on, "It's connected with the work we've been doing, Hester. Some fool of an Admiral wants me to explain parts of our transcription to his captains before they set sail for the Baltic."
"But...but what about the Pentacle papers? Aren't they important, too?"
"Of course they are! So shall we get down to them?"
Hester sat down at the table without replying. At first she found it difficult to settle, but after a short while she was fascinated once again by the sentences gradually unfolding before her eyes. When the messenger came with word for Dungarran she was surprised to see that they had been working for two hours. It was half past ten.
"I'm sorry, Hester," he said after reading the note. "I have to go after all. But I ought to be back in three or four days."
"Three or four days!"
"I assure you I'll finish there as quickly as I can." He took her hand. "You'll miss me?"
"Of course I will!" she said and snatched her hand away. "I shall have to work twice as hard!"
"I have no doubt that you will!" He grew serious. "Avoid conversation with de Landres. The time is coming when we shall have to do something about that gentleman, but meanwhile he mustn't have the slightest suspicion of your involvement. Promise?"
She cast a glance at the papers strewn on the table. "I don't think I'll have time for conversations with anyone! Yes, I promise."
"Then I shall leave you. But...before I go... Have we time for a little—a very little—light-hearted dalliance, would you say?" He took her hand again and pulled her closer. A kiss, light as a feather, touched her lips. "A reminder," he said softly. "So that you don't forget our agreement."
"A... agreement?''
"I promised to teach you the pleasure of kisses between friends, remember?" He observed the rosy colour in her cheeks with satisfaction and kissed her hand. "It's time I went!"
But halfway to the door he stopped, came back and kissed her again, this time more comprehensively. Once more the blood ran through her veins like fire and she would have responded just as passionately as the day before, if she had not exerted every ounce of self-control. His arms tightened, and he kissed her again. Then he slowly let his arms fall and gave a short laugh.
"You must be a witch! Given time, I think you could prove my aunt wrong. Goodbye, Hester!" He was gone.
Hester was left staring at the door. What had he meant? Lady Martindale had said that his work was more important to him than light-hearted dalliance. Did that mean...? Hester put her hand to her throat. Then she shook her head as if to clear it. Given time, he had said... There was her answer. Robert Dungarran would never give himself time to fall in love, never!... Fall in love? Where had that idea come from? Hester Perceval was not interested whether Robert Dungarran fell in love or not! Falling in love was not in her own plan for the future! She turned with determination to the Pentacle papers.
Lady Martindale came in a little later looking worried. "Hester, this trip of Robert's is very annoying! He's away for three, perhaps even four days! And I've promised to go out to Richmond to spend the day with an old friend on Monday. That's only the day after tomorrow. Shall I postpone my visit? Or would you like to come with me?"
"You're very kind, but I don't think I could do that, Lady Martindale. Now that your nephew has disappeared off to Portsmouth it's more than ever important that one of us is working!"
Lady Martindale smiled. "Robert's work in Portsmouth is just as important, my dear. For some reason or other the people there don't trust anyone else as much. They regard him as indispensable."
"Oh. Well, in view of what we said last night about urgency I shall be fully occupied with these!" Hester made a gesture to the papers on the table. "But please don't postpone your visit for my sake. I shan't have time to feel lonely!"
"I would prefer not to disappoint her..." said Lady Martindale, still a little undecided. "She's an invalid and doesn't have many visitors... Are you sure you won't come with me?"
"Quite sure! In fact, if on Monday you could tell your servants to say there is no one at home, that would suit me even more. I'd like to work undisturbed."
"Of course! Most of them have leave to be out in the afternoon, so you should have complete quiet."
Apart from meals and a walk in the park insisted on by Lady Martindale, Hester worked quietly and steadily the next day. She was aware of feeling slightly lost, of missing the tall figure at the other table, and if she had allowed herself the indulgence, she would have been miserable. But the work became more and more absorbing. Unlike the previous documents which had all concerned supply lines to the army throughout Europe, the Pentacle papers summarised an exchange of letters between Paris and the French command in Spain. At first they dealt with the demands made by Napoleon on his generals in the Peninsula, demands which the men on the ground clearly regarded as unrealistic. Later, however, the sentences grew more veiled. They seemed to be hinting at a plot of some kind... Lady Martindale had difficulty in prising her away for an early night.
When Lady Martindale came in to bid her goodbye the next morning Hester was already totally absorbed in her papers.
"I'm still not sure I should leave you like this. You'll work yourself into a brainstorm."
Hester looked up blankly, then rose and took off her glasses. "Dear Lady Martindale, I shall be perfectly happy working away here. In Northamptonshire I often spent hours alone in my attic and loved every minute of it. Enjoy your visit to your friend and forget me."
"Very well. But promise me that if you feel tired you will take a short walk! Bertram would go with you. Make sure you take him! I shall see you tonight, my dear."
The house was indeed quiet after Lady Martindale had gone, but Hester laboured on without noticing. It was becoming clear that the plot concerned an assassination attempt. But whose? Obviously someone important—the letters described him as one of Napoleon's greatest enemies.
Hester sat back in thought. Who was this person? She suddenly sat up again and stared at the papers before her. Could it possibly be Wellington? He was in Spain at the moment and his recent campaign in the Peninsula had posed practically the only successful resistance in the whole of Europe to the Emperor's armies. But there had so far been no mention of a name. She bent over her work again.
But by mid-afternoon her back was stiff and her head was aching. After she had made several stupid mistakes she decided that the short walk required by Lady Martindale was called for. Apart from Bertram, an elderly footman at the door, the house seemed devoid of servants. They were clearly taking advantage of Lady Martindale's absence to have a day's freedom. Hester fetched her hat and went out, waving away Bertram's offer to accompany her. She murmured something about going to see her brother and this seemed to satisfy him. But once outside, her feet turned as if by instinct in the direction of Hatchard's, and soon she was on her way past the table of new books in the front of the shop to the shelves on mathematics. She would just snatch a quick look before returning... She froze when she heard a familiar voice, and drew back behind a tall bookcase.
"Well, Behring, what do you have for me today?" said the Comte de Landres. "Have the new French classics arrived? No? A pity! I'll have a look through the shelves over there, however. I may have missed a treasure the last time I looked." Hester leaned further back. She had no wish to meet the Comte. There was silence for a moment, then de Landres's voice could be heard just on the other side of the shelves. Someone else had joined him. They were speaking softly and in rapid French, but Hester, suspiciou
s now, could hear every word.
"Did you find anything?"
"Nothing at all."
"Then the papers can't be at Curzon Street. And they aren't anywhere at the Horse Guards, either. It is as I thought, they must be in the Martindale house. Probably in the small room on the right."
"What do you want us to do?"
"The timing could not be better! With Dungarran in Portsmouth and the two women in Richmond for the day, the house is empty."
"Servants?"
"All out, except for one footman. He's old, Armand could easily deal with him. No need to hurt him. Where did you leave Armand, by the way?"
"I took him back to the inn. He's safer there. He can't speak English, and he's doesn't exactly look the gentleman. So—what do you want us to do? Bring the papers to you?"
"No. It's very risky, but I think I'll join you in Grosvenor Street. I want to be sure we get the right papers. I can't read the things but I'll recognise them—and the sooner they're burnt the better. That's vital. If anything should go wrong, if we're caught, those papers must be destroyed—understood?"
"We won't get caught."
"Get rid of the papers!"
"All right, all right! I understand. I'd best be on my way. I have to collect Armand."
"When will you be at the house?"
"In an hour. Less, perhaps."
"I'll call there in an hour. I can pretend to be visiting, if necessary."
Hester waited until de Landres had followed his accomplice out of the shop, and then she scurried out. The Pentacle papers were in danger and she must rescue them! De Landres's desperation to get rid of them before they could be deciphered proved their importance. Hardly knowing what she would do, she half walked, half ran back to Grosvenor Street. The door was shut but not locked, and the footman was nowhere to be seen. He was old and lazy—he had probably decided to have a rest, leaving the door unlocked in case she came back sooner than expected. Inside the study she gathered up the papers and the notes she had been making and stuffed them all into Lady Martindale's sewing bag, which was on the floor by her chair. She looked round frantically. Her glasses! They were lying on the table. She snatched them up and hurried out again, not quite knowing where she was going, only desperate to put as great a distance as possible between herself and the house in Grosvenor Street. Lowell! She would find Lowell. Halfway to Half Moon Street she stopped dead. Lowell wouldn't be there! He had left for Devon with Woodford Gaines, and the house would be empty. Her heart sank. But after a moment's thought she rallied again. Mr Gaines's servant knew her. If he was still there he would let her in. She might find an hour's refuge there—enough time, at least, to decide what to do next. Oh, why was Dungarran so far away just when she needed him most? How could she keep the Pentacle papers out of the hands of de Landres for another two days? She hurried on...
But Dungarran in fact returned earlier than expected from Portsmouth. He had finished his business there without ceremony, finding that half the captains he had been required to speak to were already at sea. Cursing the inefficient dotards at the Admiralty, he had set off early, wasting no time on the road. He used the importance of deciphering the Pentacle papers to explain his urgent desire to be back in London, but as he drew nearer to the capital, he had to acknowledge to himself that he was equally impatient to see Hester Perceval again. Try as he might to dismiss the feeling as irrational and illogical, it simply would not go away. He was more than a little irritated by this lack of control over his emotions. It didn't help that he found himself making for Grosvenor Street instead of his own home. His aunt and Hester would be out at a soiree, but he could wait for them there, and meanwhile examine what Hester had been doing on the papers.
He reached Grosvenor Street just after eleven o'clock, but he arrived at a household in chaos.
"Robert! Oh, thank God you're here!" Lady Martindale's normal air of self-possession had vanished and she clutched her nephew's arm with desperate fingers. "Hester has vanished!"
"What?"
"She's gone! And that's not all. So have the papers!"
"To hell with the papers. What has happened to Hester?'
"She sent this note." Lady Martindale looked round distractedly and produced a crumpled piece of paper. Dungarran smoothed it out and took it to the window. He let out a long breath.
"It is her writing," he said. "I recognise it. And she says she is safe."
"But where is she? Bertram saw her go out about three o'clock this afternoon and she hasn't been seen since. That's nearly eight hours ago!"
"Where did the note come from?"
"The servants tell me it was delivered just before I returned—by someone they didn't recognise."
"Man or woman?"
"A man. But they were in such a state themselves that they didn't really notice anything more about him."
"Why? What happened, Godmama? Why did Hester go?"
"That's what I was trying to tell you. The house has been ransacked, Robert! While I was out at Richmond two men broke in, bundled Bertram into a cupboard—he could have died of suffocation for all they cared!—and searched the place for your papers. They made such a mess... Come and see."
Dungarran looked round grimly at the devastation in the study. His face twisted as he saw on the floor a bright blue apron, spotted with ink. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment. Then he said as if to reassure both his aunt and himself, "The note said she was safe. Was she here when the men came?"
"I don't know! Bertram says not. He says she went out long before they appeared. But..."
"Well?"
"He's certain she wasn't carrying anything."
"No papers. Did she have anyone with her—a footman? No, of course not! Did she say where she was going?"
"Bertram thinks she said she was going to see her brother."
"And he didn't see her return?"
"He is a little evasive, Robert. I think he left the door unattended for a while—he sometimes does when left to himself, and she might have come in then. But he is quite sure he didn't hear her voice while the two men were here. Surely she would have made some protest?"
"She has spirit—she would have protested a great deal!" He looked at the apron. "Unless she was hurt?"
Lady Martindale sat down suddenly. "Robert! Oh no!"
He took a deep breath and said firmly, "We must believe that she wasn't here. Let me think about that note..." After a pause he said slowly, "Hester must have left before the intruders arrived—she says the papers are safe. That means she had time to gather them up and take them with her."
"I suppose so... What I don't understand is why she took them at all! How could she have known in advance that the men were coming?" Lady Martindale put her hands to her head. "But if she didn't know, why did she run away? I shall go mad, Robert! It goes round and round in my brain till I can't think at all! And in spite of the note and what you and Bertram say, I'm so worried about Hester. Where on earth can she be?"
"What have you done so far?" Dungarran's voice was still calm. Only his knuckles, white against the blue apron, betrayed his tension.
"I thought she might have gone home, so I sent every man I could find round all the inns with coaches for the north. No one has hired a coach for Northampton since last Friday, and no one answering Hester's description travelled on the Mail or any of the stage coaches. The fellow at the ticket office said there were no women at all on the Mail tonight. He noticed particularly."
"What else?"
"There hasn't been time for much else, but one of the maids says that she saw Hester crossing Berkeley Square. I wondered if she had gone round to see Lowell, as Bertram had said. I was just about to send someone to ask."
"I'll go," Dungarran said brusquely. "It won't take long."
But when he roused the sleepy manservant in Half Moon Street he was informed that Mr Perceval had left London that afternoon for Devon.
"Accompanied?"
"Mr Gaines went the day before
yesterday, my lord."
"But was there no one else with Mr Perceval?"
The manservant looked puzzled. "I cannot say. I was out at the time. He was here this morning when I left, but the house was empty when I got back at about eight o'clock. Mr Gaines allows me to visit my mother on the last Monday of the month, my lord," he added, a touch defensively.
Dungarran rewarded the man and returned to Grosvenor Street. "That must be where she's gone, Aunt! With Lowell to Totnes!" The apron was folded over again and tucked inside his pocket.
"Totnes? But why—oh, of course! Devon. Lowell was to join Mr Gaines there. That must be it... Robert! Where are you going?"
"To Curzon Street. I'll pick up my man and be off to Devon within the hour."
"But you've only just come back from Portsmouth. You must have some kind of rest! It's almost two days' journey td Totnes!"
Lord Dungarran came back into the room and took his aunt's hands in his. "I shan't rest until I know where Hester is. And if she has those papers the matter is all the more urgent.'' He made to go again, but Lady Martindale held him back.
"What can I do to help?"
"Make sure that our friend the Comte de Landres doesn't follow me!"
"How can I do that?"
"Get some of your friends at the War Office to arrest him. He must be behind this."
Chapter Eleven
Robert was back in three days, but he had no good news. Mr Gaines's godfather was seriously ill and Lowell Perceval's plan to spend time with his friend in Devon had been abandoned the day after it was formed. So far as Woodford Gaines knew, Lowell had never left London.
"So we are none the wiser?" said Lady Martindale anxiously.
Her nephew shook his head. "I haven't seen a trace of either of the Percevals. What about de Landres? Does he know anything?"
"He's been questioned. He admits he engaged the men to search for the papers, but claims that they didn't find them. He has even admitted that he was there himself. But there was no sign of Hester," he said. "Except for Bertram the house was deserted. And while I wouldn't believe a word the villain said, Bertram confirms it. He still thinks Hester went out to visit her brother. And now both Percevals are missing! What are we to make of it?" Lady Martindale walked up and down in agitation, hardly able to suppress tears. "Robert, I shall soon have to send a message to Sir James and Lady Perceval! What am I to say?"
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