Margot let the words play through her mind again, as they’d been doing all morning when she ought to have been paying attention to the liturgy. Against her will, her eyes tracked Drake where he exchanged a few discreet murmurs with an old friend he’d discovered was in the parish. It was the first he’d made it out of the flat for Mass. He seemed to be reveling in it.
“You seem rather intent on a certain someone.” Willa at least whispered the words, though she made no attempt to disguise the amusement in them.
“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you mean.” Margot snatched her gaze away from Drake and focused it instead on Zurie, who made a happy noise and then lunged for her. They were making their way to the exit by means of a side aisle, and the going was rather slow.
She caught her niece, dropped a kiss upon her curls, and waited to see if being preoccupied with thoughts of a man made any urges for a little one of her own spring to life. But she found, as always, that her love for Zurie in particular didn’t seem to extend to the thought of babies in general. Was there something the matter with her?
Each thought a bejeweled raindrop.
Hardly, just now. More like a rain puddle, cloudy and grey.
Willa chuckled and looked over at where Drake was moving toward the narthex with his friend. “Right. No notion at all, I’m sure. You do know he asked Lukas’s permission to court you, don’t you?”
“What?” Her gaze snapped back to Willa from where it had strayed to him again. Something buzzed in her veins, and she wasn’t quite sure if it was anger or pleasure. “When was this?”
“Oh, at your birthday dinner.” Willa lifted her brows and adjusted Zurie’s little ruffled bonnet. “Hasn’t he followed up on it? I thought perhaps with all the dinners you’d been eating over there . . .”
“No. I mean, he’s attentive, but he’s attentive to everyone. His sister and Holmes as well as me.” The only thing different in his treatment was the way his eyes lingered. And the letters.
He looked up now and caught her gaze—which had again gone his way, blast it all. Smiled.
Bother. Drat. Blast. Why did he do this to her? It wasn’t that she looked at him and went all weak-kneed over his knotted nose or his silver-blue eyes, the way the secretaries said happened when they saw a handsome man. Not that he was unpleasant to look at, but what were good looks, really? Just inherited features from parents, arranged symmetrically.
He praised her beauty in those letters. But no more often than he praised her mind. Her heart.
Was this really how Drake Elton courted a girl?
Half of her mouth returned his smile before she could help it. Which made her all the more frustrated when she turned back to hiss a quiet reply to Willa. “I’m not going to fall in love, so stop smirking at me like that. He’s a friend. That’s all.”
Willa pressed her lips against a laugh that would earn her a few scalding glares if she let it loose and took her daughter back. They were finally only a few steps from the narthex, where conversation wasn’t quite so restricted. “I thought I’d have to wait decades to see you like this. Rather delicious irony that of all the girls to fall in love at a young age, it happens to you.”
“It has not!” And wouldn’t. Just because she liked him, just because his words, written in code, kept playing through her mind, didn’t mean she was in love.
“There you are.” Lukas edged his way to them once they left the sanctuary, through the crowd of parishioners who seemed none too eager to go out into the cool December air again. “What have you made my sister scowl about this time, mon amour?”
“The fact that she’s sweet on Drake Elton and doesn’t want to admit it.” Grinning like the mischief-maker she was, Willa turned toward the aisle. “We’d better get home, luv. My family’s probably already there.”
Lukas, of course, was too busy staring at Margot with questions in his brows to follow his wife. “Is she right? You actually like this fellow? I thought him on a fool’s errand when he said he meant to win your heart.”
“My heart isn’t in need of winning, thank you.” And she’d prove it if she must. A quick plotting of the most efficient course through the milling masses—bypassing Mrs. Neville, of course—and she was sidestepping her way over to where he stood just outside the doors. She’d simply tell him she wasn’t interested in being courted. Perhaps if he heard the words outright, that would be that.
Though she’d said as much the first time he’d flirted with her, hadn’t she? And yet here they were, apparently involved in something romantic without her ever once having agreed to it. All she’d done was read the letters. Did that equal agreement? Complicity?
A rotund gentleman shifted into her way, requiring an immediate course correction to avoid plowing into his well-padded back.
Drake would probably be embarrassed if she just went up to him now and said, “We’re not courting.” Which might help her cause, ultimately.
Though he’d no doubt stop sending the letters then too. Which shouldn’t make her pace slacken . . . but it did.
And she didn’t want to hurt him. Or, to be honest, embarrass him. He’d been nothing but kind to her. And he was a good man. The best sort of man, always watching for a way to help others. He certainly didn’t deserve a public dressing-down for the crime of liking her, did he?
She cleared the doors. He’d wandered a bit along the sidewalk with his friend, but he stood now ten paces away, tracking her. As she neared, he turned a bit so he was facing her more than his friend. Waiting for her.
Never had she imagined she’d find herself in this position. Her words to him that first time he’d flirted had been perfectly true—men usually forgot quickly enough that she was female when they realized she was smarter than they were. That she didn’t enjoy flirting. That she had no interest in the things a girl was supposed to want.
Why was he different?
His friend said his farewells and moved off as Margot drew nearer. Still, with each step closer, her desire to put him in his place about this courting nonsense dropped by another twelve percent, until it was so low upon reaching him that she couldn’t summon the words to her lips.
Instead she asked, “How are you holding up? Tired?”
He smiled, silver eyes sparkling. “I’ve quite recuperated from the walk here, actually. Though I think my pace on the return trip will have to be rather slow.” His head tipped toward hers a bit. “Perhaps you’d walk with me? I’d love to hear your thoughts on Father Foster’s homily. When he’s visited me as I recuperated, I found him to be a thoughtful man.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t exactly admit that she hadn’t been paying that much attention—he’d ask her what had distracted her, and then she’d either have to scramble for a lie or admit that she kept seeing the numbers from his latest letter, arranged like poetry on the page.
12.15.3 67.3.8 112.9.9
She blinked them away and smiled. “Of course.” They’d be eating together at Dot’s flat anyway. There was no point in refusing to walk with him. Especially since Dot and Holmes were exiting the church now too, her hand in his arm.
Her friend had no qualms about falling in love. No question about what it meant for who she was if she did so. She could simply enjoy it, bask in Holmes’s smiles, celebrate his new victories knowing they could become her victories as well. She could encourage him and not feel as if she were compromising her identity in doing so.
Drake picked up her hand and looped it through the crook of his elbow, setting it on his forearm. He wore gloves, and so did she. But still she was acutely aware of the touch. And not in a way that made her itchy or eager to pull away.
She looked up to meet his gaze. “You set the pace.” For the walk, she meant. And yet it sounded like more in her ears.
Perhaps it did to his as well. He gave a low, slow smile and led her along the sidewalk.
They’d barely gone three steps when an olive-clad figure stomped into their path, his scowl as dark as the circles under
his eyes. “De Wilde! I thought you’d never come out. It’s impossible.”
Drake’s arms tightened a bit under her fingers. Interesting. She blinked at Camden. “I take it your first night shift didn’t go well?”
“How could it? It’s impossible. I don’t know how in blazes any of you ever manage to find the new variations. I tried every conceivable one and couldn’t make sense of it.” He flicked his eyes toward Drake, nodded. “Morning, Elton.”
Drake gave him a rather pointed look. Probably because he hadn’t actually said in blazes, though Margot had gotten rather accustomed to filtering the men’s talk for herself as she processed their conversations.
Margot motioned him to move out of the path. He could walk with them if he wanted, but they’d be holding up everyone else if he just stood there.
Not that Phillip Camden seemed to mind inconveniencing anyone.
“Are you certain you were using the right telegrams to try to break it?”
He walked backward in front of her rather than falling beside. Presumably so he could keep frowning at her. “There are wrong telegrams?”
She sighed. The others with the night shift last night should have briefed him on procedure, though they probably hadn’t simply to teach him a lesson. “They’re not all in the same code, you know. If you’re trying to find a variation for 13040 with a message sent in 7500, you’re going to get nothing but a headache for your trouble.”
“Well, how can you tell—”
“The form. Weather reports, for instance. They always appear the same. And are always in the same code.”
He muttered something that didn’t have a less offensive interpretation for her to provide for her own mind.
Drake let out an exasperated breath. “Camden! Language.”
Camden smirked. “Sorry.” He said the same thing, more or less, but in French.
He knew very well that she spoke French, too, but Margot interjected before Drake could chide him again. “I think the fellows pulled one over on you, Camden. I told you that you ought to try to get along.”
“I’m not interested in making friends.” Did he know that pain flashed in his eyes with the proclamation?
Drake certainly wouldn’t miss it.
She lifted her brows. “Then you’d best learn how to function among enemies.”
He muttered another something that would have made Maman blush.
This time Drake responded with a sigh. “Would you like to join us for dinner, Cam?”
The invitation brought the pilot’s feet to a halt, necessitating that Margot and Drake stop too. He glanced over her shoulder, his search halting quickly. Margot turned to find Dot and Holmes strolling not far behind them. “Will your nursemaid be there?”
Margot’s brows drew together. “Dot?”
“No, he means Red. Yes, he’ll be there. And do stop antagonizing him. I think you’d actually get along if—”
“As I just said. I’m not interested in making friends.” He faced them again, his face hard. And then he stepped out of their way. “Thanks for the invitation, but no thanks. The role of fifth wheel has never suited me.”
“Cam—”
“I have tomorrow off, though. I could do with a game of chess, if you’ve the time.”
Drake’s face shifted from determined to satisfied. “Whenever you’d like. I’ll be at home.”
Camden spared a nod for Drake, another for her, and then strode off as if he were going somewhere of the utmost importance.
They both watched him go. Margot shook her head. “Has he always been so . . . ?”
“No. Not quite. Always gruff, always a troublemaker, but never with those shadows.”
“Has he told you what happened?” Thus far it was an unsolved x in the equation that was Phillip Camden.
Drake shook his head. “Perhaps he will tomorrow. But I doubt it. I don’t think he’s ready for that. Sharing it with someone would mean letting go of it a little, and he’s holding it tight. It may help him just to be with someone he knows won’t judge. Won’t ask.”
A breath of laughter slipped out. “You? Won’t ask? I rather thought that your specialty.”
The way he grinned down at her made her wonder if the observation somehow equaled encouragement in his mind. That they were growing familiar enough to tease each other, perhaps. “Part of the art of asking a good question is knowing what not to ask, you know.”
Like not asking her if he could court her, perhaps? She turned her attention straight ahead. If he’d reasoned it out like that, then it was frankly a tally mark in his favor. “Could we take a turn through the park, if you’ve energy enough?”
“So eager for a few extra minutes with me?”
Teasing or flirting? Either way, she met it with narrowed eyes but the beginnings of a smile. “Don’t flatter yourself. I want to see if Williams is there or has made another play at Go. He hasn’t had the board set up for days.”
“I have no idea who and what that is.”
She explained briefly as they walked—the new face, the game they’d played the day Holmes and Dot were reacquainted, how since then he’d been playing her via notes, the board left out waiting for her. She’d been meaning to come by the park earlier in the day to try to catch him and not just his note, but time and short hours of daylight hadn’t cooperated.
Drake frowned at the entrance of the park. “And that doesn’t strike you as odd? Someone playing a game like that? Why not just sit there and wait for you?”
“Well, the weather’s gotten colder, and he doesn’t seem quite healthy. Given that I’m rarely there in the warmest part of the day, I suppose he simply sets it up then and comes back to check my move the next day.”
“Isn’t that a bit careless? Who’s to say someone won’t just pinch the board?”
“I certainly thought of that.” But she could only shrug. “He lives nearby. Perhaps he keeps an eye on it.”
They turned in, and his eyes began to scan everything in sight in a way that wasn’t exactly casual. “This Williams bloke—what do you know of him?”
She tugged him down the correct path. “What Holmes discovered for me. He was part of the diplomatic retinue to Japan until war broke out. Returned home, joined the navy. Was on a minesweeper that sank in August. Discharged.” She decided to leave off the bit about him not being quite mentally stable. Drake looked dubious enough as it was.
She stopped at the wrought-iron table, smiling to see the board there again. No white note fluttered this time, but that was all right. She stepped up and studied the stones’ arrangement, withdrawing her hand from Drake’s arm so she could fold her arms over her middle while she considered.
Drake only glanced for a second at the game before moving a step away. He stared at a tree a few dozen paces off, his fingers twitching.
And why was she considering him instead of her next move? “Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. How do you know this chap can be trusted?”
“Drake. It’s just a game, in a public park. What harm could there possibly be?”
He still stared at the tree, as if expecting something other than a squirrel to jump out from behind it. “That’s the question, isn’t it? And I don’t have the answer.” He pivoted back to face her, his smile a bit forced but no less warm for it. “Perhaps you could teach me how to play. If you’d rather actually finish a game this century.”
She made a show of thinking about it, tapping a finger on her arm. “I don’t know. It’s a complicated game. You might not have the capacity.”
As she’d expected, he laughed in outrage—and made a playful lunge for her, which she hadn’t foreseen. “Are you insulting my intelligence?”
She dodged him, her pulse picking up. Just like it always had when Lukas would chase her. But not. Not at all like that. Biting back a smile, she put the chair between them. “Well, I have no proof of your mental prowess, have I?”
He grinned and sid
estepped the chair, trapping her between him and the table. He didn’t draw too close, but even so. Even so. “Of course you have. I like you, don’t I? What could be a more accurate proof that I’m smart?”
She felt as though she’d just sprinted up a flight of stairs. And had absolutely no idea how to parry that. So she turned to the game board. “I don’t have the game. This is the first set I’ve actually seen in England.”
“So teach me on this one. It’s out here, isn’t it? One doesn’t leave a board in public if one minds it being played. I’m sure you could return everything to its current position when we were through.”
She could. And the idea of sitting across from him for hours, strategizing and counter-strategizing, was an appealing one. She’d learn much about him through a game of Go. The way he thought, whether he would sacrifice one stone for another.
She touched a finger to a white stone and slid it into her chosen play in this game. “All right. I don’t imagine we have time for the lesson today. Dot won’t want to wait dinner that long. But perhaps the next time it’s set up.”
“It’s a date.”
No, that wasn’t what she meant. She opened her mouth to say so, then jumped when his hand brushed against the small of her back. There was no good reason to do so—it was a move that her brother made all the time, as did Hall and Barclay. Completely innocent. Gentlemanly. So why did it feel so new?
He was smiling. Probably because he knew well why she jumped. “Ready, then?”
No. Not nearly. But he was only talking about dinner with his sister. Not dates or romance or anything else. Careful not to meet his gaze lest he see in her eyes what a muddle he’d made of her, she turned back toward the walking path and drew in a long breath. In two beats, out two beats. Count the bricks. Measure the steps. Focus on the mathematics of the walk, not on the man beside her.
Das Gespenst muttered a curse under his breath and kept his back against the tree for a full minute after their voices faded into the sounds of the city. Only then did he dare to peek around the massive trunk.
The Number of Love Page 26