by The Spy
Fisher cleared his throat, then scrubbed at his youthfully balding head. “It’s numerical, I know it’s numerical! I just can’t discern the pattern. It’s probably just a simple translation code . . . simple if you know the key.”
He looked up at Phillipa with almost comical tragedy in his eyes. James folded his arms and leaned one buttock on the desk. Comical—if one didn’t know how many had died and how many might still if Britain could not learn more of Napoleon’s plans.
Phillipa wrapped her arms tightly about her waist. “I don’t know that I can help you, Fisher. I am not a professional, merely a daughter who enjoyed the puzzles set by her father. I never knew of the journal until recently.”
James flicked his gaze to her face, watching for those little signs that betokened a direct lie. Her expression was frustrated and weary, but clear of deceit.
Which might only mean that she was a very good liar. This he had already had personal experience with.
Fisher slapped his hand flat on the desk. “But there must be something in it! Else why would he take so much trouble to send it safely to Upkirk?”
Phillipa lifted the journal in her hands and traced the design embossed into the cover with her fingertips. “I rather think it was me he wanted sent safely to Upkirk,” she said softly.
James watched her fingertips, entranced by their delicate motion despite himself. His skin still tingled from her delicate touch . . . the way that she explored him with feather-light caresses in the dark . . .
He felt heat within his collar and tugged at it with one finger. Damned third story was too bloody hot. He raised his gaze to find Phillipa watching him watch her. She smiled. It was not the triumphant smirk he expected, but a soft, hopeful curve of her full lips. Her tiny overture hit him in the raw.
He drew himself up. “So if what you say is true and your father only wished your safety, then he withheld information that might have helped Upkirk understand the codes that the French are using.” He sneered as her face paled. “Score one for my side.”
Fisher made a small sound of protest, but Phillipa held up her hand. “No, Mr. Fisher. James has far more anger to dispense than that. I fear we shall all bear the brunt of it for some time.”
She stood and, with a pitying look at James, crossed behind the desk to bend over Fisher’s shoulder. James took it from them both and snapped the journal shut. “There’s nothing here, Fish. Atwater never meant for us to crack his codes. I told you that all along. Napoleon owns his soul now.”
“No!” Phillipa rounded the desk in a blink. “You’ve no call to accuse him! You barely even knew him!”
“I know the sort. The sort that cares more for money or glory than for loyalty. The sort that can be bought with a handful of shiny gold or a—”
“A woman?”
James flinched. Phillipa shook her head at him, her anger apparently gone. “Don’t blame my father for your mistakes, James. He has made plenty of his own, I’m sure, but that one is all yours.”
James slapped the book down on the desk, bracing one spread hand upon it to stand. He towered over her, quite dwarfing her, yet she held her ground to gaze levelly at him with clear green eyes. “Yes, James?”
He broke first, looking down and away from those eyes that knew him far too well. Bloody hell! If only he’d never confided in Phillip Walters! His gaze traveled to his own fingers, tracing the raised symbol on the front of the journal.
Phillipa must have been watching him, for she turned her head to peer down at it as well. “It is a Greek letter. Phi. Some call it—”
“The Divine Proportion,” murmured James. In a blink he was back in his father’s study in one of those rare moments of communication with the elder James Cunnington. He could still feel the wool of the carpet beneath his elbows as he lay on the floor with his chin propped on his hands, listening to his father combine mathematics, science, and philosophy in a rare garrulous moment.
“ ‘ ’Tis proof of a holy plan, irrefutable scientific, mathematical proof! The key to the universe, from the spiral of a snail’s shell to the patterns of the stars. The Golden Ratio! A scrap of mathematics that can tell you the proportion of things unimaginable!’ ” His father had drawn it for him, each stroke of the nib as slow and reverent as any sacred ritual. “Phi.”
Phillipa’s exclamation pulled him from his past. “Oh! You know of it? Not many do,” she said.
James ran one finger along the symbol. “I’d little choice. My father was a mathematician, a rather prominent one. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit his scholarly talents.”
“Bloody liar he is,” grunted Fisher to Phillipa. “He could have been the greatest code-breaker since Atwater himself.” He shot James a chastising look.
Phillipa blinked. “ ‘Keep a close watch on James Cunnington,’ ” she murmured so softly he could barely hear it. “He wanted you for an apprentice, didn’t he?”
James nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I believe so. Simon agreed with me, however, and assigned me to the primary saboteur.”
Fisher sniffed. “But, of course, he’d rather blow things up than face the challenge of cryptology.”
“Imagine that,” commiserated Phillipa.
Yet her eyes told a different story. They gleamed at James like emeralds before firelight and he saw a glimpse of what had enabled a sheltered young woman to cross three nations on her own and to brave the home of a possible enemy in disguise.
She was like him, attracted to the thrill and the challenge, and yes, even the fear. A moment passed between them that rang of the old camaraderie between himself and Phillip.
Then James blinked and she was simply a woman with short red curls and rather too much mouth. A woman who had lied to him with a cool professionalism that he had only ever seen in Lavinia Winchell. A woman he would never allow himself to touch again.
He tore his gaze away to look back down at the book. “Phi. Why would he have that put on the cover of his journal?”
“He spoke of it often, especially after my mother died. He swore that since it proved order and a purposeful hand in the universe, it also proved that she lived on in heaven and waited only to be reunited with him.”
“Well, no one ever mentioned it to me!” Fisher said indignantly. “You’d think one of my old masters would have taken a moment to explain it. Unless they thought it too difficult for me to understand.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Fisher. It’s quite simple. It is a ratio that is found repeatedly in nature. In the petals of flowers, and even in the proportions of the human body. I can explain it like this.” She reached for his pencil and a scrap of paper. “You begin with ought and one.”
She quickly wrote a sequence of numbers upon it. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8. “Now see? Each number in the series is simply the sum of the two numbers before. Further, the ratio—phi—of two consecutive numbers will always be one and six-tenths.
“I learned it as a child. After all, I am named for it!” She laughed. “Thank goodness, for the other option was Ruperta.”
Named for it? Phi. James turned to look at her slowly. “Phi. Phillipa,” he breathed. “You are the key!”
Her startled gaze flew to meet his, then they both turned to look at Fisher, whose eyes widened.
“Phi!”
Chapter Thirty-two
In an instant they were all three on one side of the desk, scrabbling through the papers to find the almost cracked code. Feverishly, Fisher bent over the sheet while Phillipa murmured the ratio into his ear once more. Fisher tried it first one way, than another to no good result.
James fought down the suspense within him. If this wasn’t the answer, then everything had been for naught. The French would win. Napoleon would win.
Lavinia would win.
Suddenly Fisher froze. Phillipa caught her breath. James opened his eyes to look down at the sheet that lay flat between Fisher’s hands.
“Where is Phillipa? Is she with you? Upkirk, please reply.”
“Sent again and aga
in.” Phillipa released her breath with a broken sigh that was half-sob. “Oh, Papa.”
James sagged back, his heart pounding like a steeplechaser’s. Atwater had been proven loyal after all. For all his apparent treachery, the man was innocent of evil and had been redeemed.
He raised his gaze to meet Phillipa’s. Her eyes were shining and her face had that odd twisted look women got when they were trying very hard not to cry. James crossed behind Fisher to take her trembling hand and bow over it.
“My apologies, Miss Atwater. I find myself very pleasantly in the wrong. I wish you and your father the best.” Then he straightened very stiffly and left the room to inform his spymaster.
While Mr. Fisher wrung her hand and congratulated her profusely—apparently for being the child of such a brilliant cryptologist—Phillipa watched James turn his back on her and leave the room.
She didn’t know what she’d expected of him. Had she thought he would fling his arms about her in joy that they could finally be together?
That wasn’t very likely, was it? Not with all that still lay between them. She sighed and smiled at Mr. Fisher. Her relief at Papa’s redemption was great, but it didn’t quite fill the bleeding James-shaped hole in her heart.
“You do not even know me.”
Phillipa stayed where she was, still feeling him within her, still tasting him on her lips. I know you better than you know yourself. I love you better as well.
“Flip? My head hurts.” The small mumbling voice pulled Phillipa from the dreamless void of deep sleep. “And Jamie’s havin’ a bad dream.”
Robbie. Her thoughts were slow. She opened her eyes into flickering dimness. Hadn’t she doused her candle? Must wake. Robbie needs me.
Then she remembered. She sat up straight in her bed. “Robbie?”
He stood before her in a too-large adult nightshirt, clutching a candlestick in one trembling fist.
“I don’t feel good, Flip. Can I sleep with you? Jamie’s makin’ too much noise. It hurts my head.”
She wanted to sweep him violently into her arms and squeeze him until he couldn’t breathe. Instead, she pulled aside her covers to allow him to climb in. “I’m glad you’re here. I was becoming quite cold.”
After putting the candleholder on the night table, Robbie climbed onto the bed, supporting his splinted arm with care. “Guess I broke it, huh?” he said when he had settled in.
“Yes, love, it’s broken.” She kept her voice soft. “Does it hurt very much?”
“Lots. I think it needs trifle.”
She chuckled, blinking back tears of relief. “I think that can be arranged.”
“Good.” He snuggled closer. “You’re inside the club. Did you get caught?”
“I did indeed.”
“Are they goin’ to kill you?” The words were slurred, as if he fought sleep in his urgency to know.
“No, my darling. Not I nor my father. He’s been proven innocent and so have I.”
“That’s good.” He yawned. “Now, you can . . . marry . . . Jamie.” He slipped back into sleep, a healthy snoring slumber full of twitches and tweaks. Phillipa lay there for several minutes, relishing his small knobby-kneed presence.
Then what Robbie had said came back to her. James was having a nightmare. Should she go wake him from it? He likely wouldn’t thank her. Still, nightmares were hellish things, and if Agatha’s stories were any indication, James’s dreams would have a wealth of demons to call upon.
Finally she could bear her own indecision no longer. She would wake a dreaming hound from its nightmares, would she not?
She had no wrapper, and only her old nightgown from home to sleep in—the very one in which she had hidden behind the wall—so she gathered the counterpane from the bed. The room was warm enough for the light wool blanket that remained, so she need not worry for Robbie. Wrapped in the counterpane, she took the candle that Robbie had brought with him. It must have been the one left burning by his bedside all night, for the stub was nearly burned through and guttered halfheartedly.
The hallway was chill but Robbie’s room was nearly a furnace. The candle scarcely pierced the darkness. She heard James before she saw him for he was indeed making noise.
He was sprawled on a cot near Robbie’s bed, shirtless but still clad in his trousers. As she stepped closer, the dimming candle gleamed on his perspiring chest and shoulders. He tossed his head with a formless groan. She bent over him, reaching with one hand to smooth his sweat-soaked hair from his brow.
“James, wake now,” she said softly. “It is only a dream.”
James was trapped. Bound and helpless, starving—feeling his strength ebb even as his dread grew. Filth covered him and waves of heat engulfed him. The tiny cell in which he lay bound was too small for a tall man, too small for any man. It shrank steadily, until the walls threatened to choke the life from him.
Then a door opened, a door that had not been there before, yet he immediately knew what it meant for him. The beating began as if it had been in progress for hours—or perhaps years.
Agony.
There was only the black depths of pain and the sickening awareness of his own helplessness. He raged against that vulnerability, fought it with everything he had, everything he was.
Yet, to no avail.
She came. She wound about him like a serpent, her tongue flicking from her mouth to touch his lips, his chest, his privates. “I own you,” she hissed. “You will always be my creature, and I shall always be your mistresssssss . . .”
Sick revulsion consumed him, twisting in his guts like a knife. Faces emerged from the dimness surrounding them, familiar faces. Weatherby. Upkirk. Ren Porter and the others. His comrades watched him with dark condemning gazes as she fondled him.
No! I am not her minion! I did not give you to her! I did not! His soul shouted the protest, but he could make no sound. The shadowed faces turned from him, abandoning him even from their scorn, leaving him all alone.
Alone with her.
Cool hands touched his face. He struggled against his bonds—they were gone. The dark cell was gone.
There was only Flip’s worried face in the clean glow of the candle.
He must have startled her, for she pulled back with a jerk. “Are you awake now, James?”
Inhaling deeply, he nodded. Then he released his lungs in a long shuddering sigh. The nightmare was gone, at least for now. He managed a sickly smile.
“That—that was a kindness, thank you.” He sat up on the cot, swinging his legs to the floor. She settled on her knees beside him, still holding the candle up to see his face. He took it from her to set it upon the table between the cot and Robbie’s bed.
The dull glow shone only on rumpled sheets and a dented pillow. The bed was empty. “Robbie!”
Phillipa laid a hand on his bare arm. “Shh. He is in my room, sleeping normally.” She smiled. “You woke him up. Isn’t that wonderful?”
It was more than wonderful. It was worth a thousand such nightmares. James closed his eyes against the relief that burned behind them. “Is he—is he himself?”
“Entirely.”
He laid a hand over hers and squeezed it, sharing his intense elation with perhaps the one person in the world who understood and equaled it. She returned the pressure without a word. They sat thus for a moment, their differences set aside in a moment of unity.
Finally she spoke. “Your dream—it must have been ghastly. You would not wake for so long.”
He opened his eyes to gaze down into hers. “Not dream, I’m afraid. More like memory.”
She turned her hand in his to lace her fingers through his. “Agatha told me you were a prisoner for months.”
“Indeed.”
She continued to regard him soberly. “Yet you recovered.”
“Outwardly, at any rate.” Perhaps it was the darkness and the eerie solitude . . . or perhaps it was the clear lack of judgment in her eyes, but he heard himself confessing his darkest fear. “I do not thin
k I am entirely recovered . . . within.”
“How so?”
“I am not who I was. I remember that man as if he were someone I knew well, but I am no longer him.” He pulled his hand reluctantly from hers, but he could not bear to be touching her when her gaze became accusing.
“I fear I may be going mad.” He’d said it, wrapped words about the dark shadow that stalked him. He’d made it finally real.
She laughed in his face.
He drew back, affronted. “I am deadly serious, Phillipa!”
She clapped a hand over her mouth and waved a finger at him. “Oh—oh, dear!” She drew a breath, obviously trying to control her great amusement.
James clenched his jaw. Honestly, she was as irritating as Aggie! Here he’d told her his deepest fear and what did he receive? A belly laugh!
She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, James. It was only that I expected you to say ‘I’m ill’ or ‘I’m slowly bleeding to death inside’ or something of that sort.” She hiccupped a last giggle. “But insanity? That is the least of your worries, I should think.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because for one, you are the sanest person I have ever known. And for another, people who are truly mad believe with all their heart they are sane. That is why they are mad, after all.”
“But the dreams—the black spells of mood? What could that be but the onset of madness?”
She shook her head. “I think you are very sad at the loss of your friends. I think you have not allowed yourself to grieve them. I know you have not allowed yourself forgiveness.”
“How am I to forgive myself for betraying them? I killed them all!”
“No, you did not. French spies killed them. The same spies who kidnapped and tortured you for months on that boat.” She glanced away. “I asked Agatha.
“At any rate, you did not give up your comrades. The information may have been stolen from you—in a sense, raped from your mind—but you are no more responsible for that than Robbie is for being an orphan.” She moved closer to him, still on her knees, until she looked him full in the face. Her hands came up to cup his jaw so that he was forced to gaze into those clear and steady eyes.