Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  What was wrong with her? She missed her parents, but she’d long ago moved past such maudlin reactions. Why was she succumbing to melancholia now?

  She wasn’t. She refused. Stiffening her spine, she continued downstairs to the dining room. Then stopped short as she stepped inside.

  Mr. Bowen stood near his chair at the head of the table, while Penn was positioned beside another. Children didn’t typically eat with the adults, though Margery had when it was just her and her parents. That Mr. Bowen had included his charge was yet another mark in his favor. This was most displeasing when she was working so hard to maintain a purely academic relationship.

  “Good evening, Miss Derrington, you look lovely, as usual.” It could’ve been a perfunctory compliment, but when the words were spoken with a velvety tone and accompanied a heated gaze, she had to accept he meant it most sincerely.

  “Thank you. Good evening, Penn, I’m pleased to see you’re joining us.” She snuck a look at Mr. Bowen who seemed pleased that she was pleased.

  They took their seats and a footman, supervised by Thomas, served their first course.

  The conversation was stilted at first as Margery attempted to engage Penn, who was far more interested in the food than anything else. She gave up after a while, and the meal fell into silence.

  During the second course, Mr. Bowen spoke up. “We should reach Caerwent by afternoon tomorrow.”

  Penn’s gaze shot toward Mr. Bowen. “You’re leaving again?”

  “For a short trip. We’ll likely return the following day.”

  Margery stared at him. Was he expecting not to decipher the code? Or that the treasure wouldn’t be in Caerwent? She wanted to ask him why he thought the excursion would be brief, but didn’t want to discuss it in front of Penn. He seemed upset that Mr. Bowen was leaving again so soon, which she understood. His mother had abandoned him with a stranger, and now the stranger kept leaving him.

  Penn went back to eating, though with far less energy.

  Margery purposely changed the subject to something that might interest Penn—his digging for treasure. However, he still didn’t fully engage until the conversation somehow turned to pets. He’d never had a dog or even a kitten and listened raptly to Margery’s tales of the menagerie she’d tended as a child.

  “Do you have any pets now?” Penn asked, his blue eyes wide.

  “No. My aunt is allergic so I haven’t had a pet in a very long time.” She turned toward Mr. Bowen. “I’m surprised you don’t have a dog or two. Don’t most bachelors appreciate canine companionship?”

  “I don’t know. My father wasn’t fond of animals. He said they’d interrupt his work.”

  “That was your father,” Margery said. “What about you?” She wanted to suggest he get a dog or at least a cat—for Penn’s sake.

  Mr. Bowen shrugged. “I never gave it much thought, actually.” He glanced at Penn for a pensive moment, then the arrival of the dessert course interrupted further conversation as Penn dove into his bread and butter pudding.

  What seemed like a scant few minutes later, he asked to be excused from the table. Mr. Bowen nodded his assent, and the boy disappeared from the dining room.

  Margery scarcely waited until the door closed before saying, “You should get him a dog or a cat.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “And why not? Don’t use the excuse of your work. You can train it to stay out of your study.”

  He arched a dubious brow. “That means I must obtain a dog, as cats are universally untrainable.”

  Margery recalled her favorite cat, Fancy, a fluffy orange and white tabby. “That’s not true. Some of them are quite able to master learned behaviors. Actually, I believe they all are. The question is whether they choose to. It’s all in their temperament.”

  His expression shifted into bemusement. “You’re saying cats selectively decide how to behave?”

  “Of course. They’re rather like people in that manner.”

  He chuckled as he set his spoon beside his unfinished pudding. “Just as you decide whether you’re going to be charming, as you are now, or prickly, as you were earlier.”

  “I wasn’t prickly.” She was, but she wouldn’t admit it. Because then he might ask why.

  “I won’t debate it with you, but we both know the truth.” He gave her a probing stare. “I can’t quite figure you out, Miss Derrington. You work as my partner and yet you try to deceive me.”

  “You deceived me first.”

  He inclined his head. “So I did. You also return my kisses and then act as though I’m anathema.”

  She tried to ignore his use of the word kisses. “That’s a bit hyperbolic, isn’t it?”

  He cracked a half-smile that did ridiculously lovely things to her insides. “It is. I’m poking fun. I like having fun in your company.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Admit it, you like me.”

  Far too much. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  His smile broadened, making him seem insufferably confident. “I can’t think of a reason.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “On second thought, there’s that vexing streak of arrogance.”

  He lowered his voice even further, as if he were imparting a secret. “I actually think you like that too.” And then he winked.

  Margery stood before she was irrevocably drawn into his flirtatious banter. “I’m ready to go to the library. Will you be joining me immediately or are you having a glass of port first?”

  He got to his feet and attempted to hold her chair, but she moved away from it quickly. “Have you ever known me to drink after dinner?”

  He was inferring that they knew each other well enough that she ought to recognize his habits. Surely she did not. She chose to ignore his question as she swept from the room.

  Within a few steps, he moved to walk beside her. “I’ve provoked you. I can’t seem to help myself.”

  He was close enough that she smelled him—sandalwood and something else that was both dark and fresh—and concluded he’d bathed before supper. She resisted the urge to glance at him, to survey the ebony sleekness of his hair, the smooth angle of his jawbone, the oft-audacious set of his mouth.

  They arrived at the library and Rhys opened the door. What they beheld inside made them both gasp.

  13

  Rhys rushed into the library to the table where Penn was standing over both de Valery manuscripts, which lay open. “Penn, how on earth did you get in here?” The door had been locked, and Rhys and Thomas carried the only keys. If Thomas had given the boy the key . . .

  Penn glanced up from the books, but quickly returned to looking at them. “The door was open.”

  Rhys touched the boy’s shoulder. “It was not. I won’t tolerate dishonesty.”

  The words came easily, which wasn’t surprising. He still remembered the day his father had sternly said them to him. Rhys had taken a valuable manuscript to his room and, when caught, had said a servant left it there. His father had seen through the lie, and the weight of his disappointment had ensured Rhys never deceived him again.

  Penn looked at him, his face reddening. “I picked the lock.”

  He’d what? Surprise robbed him of an appropriate response. At length he said, “I shall have to improve the lock, apparently. In the future, if you find a door locked, there is a good reason and you are not to employ your . . . abilities. Good Lord, Penn, where did you learn to do such a thing?”

  Penn shrugged and looked away. Rhys doubted the boy would tell him. The wall he’d erected was still too tall to scale. Hopefully, in time, Rhys would be able to take it down, brick by brick.

  Miss Derrington joined them. She stood beside Penn and looked down at the open books. “What were you doing?”

  Multiple lanterns had been lit about the room, flooding the space with light. Enough light for Penn to work. “Trying to solve the code,” he said.

  “Any luck?” she asked, pulling out a chair.

  “I
found this list of numbers.” He pulled the sheet of parchment they’d tucked into the front of Miss Derrington’s de Valery manuscript. “Are they in some sort of order? I don’t understand why the numbers are grouped together.”

  Miss Derrington sat in the chair and looked up at Rhys. “You may as well show him.”

  Rhys drew the cipher glass out of his coat pocket. While he’d locked the books in the library, he’d decided to keep the glass with him at all times. “Look through this and tell me what you see. Point it at the book on the right—at the illustration.”

  Penn looked at him quizzically as he took the glass. He brought it to his eye and bent his head. He sucked in air and bent further over, practically putting the glass to the paper. “How does it work?” he asked excitedly.

  Rhys had to stifle a smile. He was so pleased with the boy’s fervor. It reminded him of himself at that age. Or even his current age. “It was designed to remove all but one color and the scribe who created that manuscript used it to hide his code.”

  “Numbers.” Penn said the word with more than a touch of awe.

  “Rotate the glass,” Rhys directed.

  Penn turned his hand and let out a bolt of laughter—the kind of joy that only boys of a certain age could release. “Amazing!” He turned it again and again. “Just the three colors then?”

  Rhys exchanged amused looks with Miss Derrington. “Yes.”

  “And that’s how you have the numbers organized—they’re grouped by illustration? I recognize the numbers in this one as,” he lowered the glass briefly so he could glance at the sheet of numbers and point at one of the lines they’d listed, “these numbers here.” He turned the page in the book and reviewed the next illustration. He’d looked at the numbers so quickly and found the appropriate group almost without looking.

  “Penn,” Rhys asked slowly, “are you able to remember things you see, in exact detail?”

  Penn peered around the glass at him; the guarded look had returned. “Yes.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Rhys hastened to clarify. “I was merely curious. I went to school with a fellow like you. He was first in everything, the blighter.”

  After Penn reviewed another illustration, he lowered the glass. “What do you think the numbers mean?”

  Rhys frowned. “We don’t know. That’s why we haven’t solved the code yet.”

  “We proposed page numbers and numbers of letters in the alphabet,” Miss Derrington said. “We’ve tried any number of alphabet-based scenarios.” With absolutely no effect. “We also tried counting all of the stanzas and lines, but nothing we do makes sense.”

  Penn looked between them, his expression more confident and relaxed than Rhys had ever seen him. “Did you separate the numbers by color?”

  Rhys sent a sharp look toward Miss Derrington who’d turned her head to look up at him. Her gaze seemed to mirror the foolishness he was feeling. Why hadn’t they thought of that? “No.”

  With a quick nod, Penn took the chair next to Miss Derrington. He flipped the book back to the beginning and set about regrouping each illustration’s numbers by color. He was much faster at it than Rhys and Miss Derrington had been, but then no one was checking his work either. Rhys stood behind the two chairs and watched Penn work.

  When he was finished, Rhys said, “We should check what you did.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s correct.”

  “I see you’ve already left your influence on him,” Miss Derrington murmured with a small half-smile.

  Rhys sent her a mock-amused glance, but in truth, he was amused. He liked that Miss Derrington found him arrogant and, more importantly, that she called him out on it. Instead of forcing him to modulate his behavior, he found he wanted to provoke her whenever possible.

  Penn studied his regrouped list of numbers. “There’s an exact number of each color.”

  Rhys stood over him. “Yes, I see it. It’s as if they’re arranged in triplets—one blue, one red, one yellow.”

  Miss Derrington peered at the numbers. “That has to mean something.”

  “Page numbers,” Penn said. “One of those colors could be page numbers.”

  Excitement began to unfurl in Rhys’s chest. They’d tried page numbers to no avail, but now there seemed to be a pattern.

  Miss Derrington looked at him. “And the others?” Her question carried an undercurrent of anticipation.

  They were all quiet as they fixed on the numbers. In threes . . .

  Rhys snatched up the list and Miss Derrington’s text and moved to her right. He set the items down on the table and flipped to the page that matched the first number, which happened to be in the blue column. He searched for the line on the page that corresponded to the number in the next column. Then he found the letter in that line that matched the number in the third column: R.

  “Paper and pen, please.”

  Miss Derrington picked up another sheet of parchment from the middle of the table, where Rhys typically kept a small stack, and handed it to Rhys along with the writing instrument Penn had used.

  Rhys recorded the R and moved to the next set of numbers. The result was L. Which didn’t make sense unless the code wasn’t in English. He continued with a few more letters, but decided it wasn’t correct.

  Penn had come to stand on his right. “Try the middle column as the page number.”

  Rhys flipped back to the page corresponding to the number listed first in the yellow column. He worked through the other columns and came up with S. Moving on to the next set of three, he found the matching page, line, and letter and wrote down his findings: T. He continued, feeling a steady, building excitement that this was finally it. When he’d written STTATHEUS, which Rhys immediately recognized at St. Tatheus, he knew they had it.

  “Who is St. Tatheus?” Miss Derrington’s question sliced through the air of anticipation.

  “St. Tathyw, a late fifth-century abbot. Tatheus is the English form of the Welsh name.”

  Miss Derrington’s eyes clouded with confusion. “But what could that mean?”

  He had no idea, but there were a lot more numbers to decode. He gave her a long, penetrating look, trying to rekindle her enthusiasm. Don’t give up now, we’re so close. “Let us continue and see what we find.”

  They worked quietly and quickly, the three of them reading out numbers and letters as Rhys recorded them. When they were finished, he had written STTATHEUSANARAWDVENTASILURUM.

  Belatedly, he realized he’d been standing the entire time and now his neck protested the prolonged bowing over. He stretched it, running his fingers along the sore muscles. “A chair, Penn, if you please.”

  There were five chairs scattered about the table, one of which held Miss Derrington. Penn brought over the one he’d been using earlier.

  Sitting, Rhys gripped the pen and wrote: St. Tatheus below the deciphered code. That left ANARAWDVENTASILURUM.

  Miss Derrington pointed to the latter portion of the word “That looks like Latin.”

  “Indeed it does.” Rhys wrote VENTASILURUM below St. Tatheus. A broad smile split his lips.

  “St. Tathyw was an abbot in Caerwent, which used to be known as Venta Silurum.”

  Miss Derrington’s eyes lit, it was as if the flame of discovery burning in his chest had ignited within her. “They’re connected! But what is the middle part, Anarawd?” She said the word slowly, trying to pronounce the Welsh.

  “It’s a Welsh name, but I don’t know its significance.” He looked to the boy standing to his right. “Penn?”

  Penn’s blue eyes widened slightly, but then he shook his head. His face flushed and he looked away.

  Rhys gripped the lad’s shoulder. “You’ve been an incredible help; I had to ask. There’s no shame in not knowing. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

  Penn’s chest and shoulders puffed up. “Yes, sir. Will you still be going to Caerwent then?”

  “I think we must. It certainly seems to be leading us there
.” Though he didn’t know what Anarawd meant, he was overjoyed at having a destination and at having deciphered the code. He looked to Miss Derrington, who was staring at the words on the paper. “What do you think, Miss Derrington?”

  Her face lifted as she smiled. “When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning.” He glanced at the clock ticking methodically on the mantel. How did it get to be nearly eleven? “I think it’s past time for you to go to bed, Penn.”

  Penn moved reluctantly from the table, but turned before he reached the door. “Will you please take me with you?”

  Rhys’s chest squeezed. If it weren’t for the danger the Order of the Round Table posed, he would take the boy. But he couldn’t risk it. “I’m sorry, Penn. There are difficulties that prevent you coming with us. Truly, I’m sorry.”

  Penn’s face was a wooden mask. Rhys imagined he was gravely disappointed, but the boy had learned to keep his emotions hidden. Was that a new talent since losing his mother, or had he cultivated it throughout his short lifetime? Perhaps he’d ask Miss Derrington, since she seemed to do the same.

  “Good night,” Rhys said, as Penn departed without a word.

  “Why can’t he come with us?” Miss Derrington’s tone matched the scolding look she gave him. “Can’t you see he needs to feel a connection to something?”

  The heartfelt plea in her question was nearly his undoing, but he couldn’t endanger the boy. “I can’t expose him to the Order. We have to assume they’ll be tracking us somehow. If they were lying in wait at de Valery’s house, I imagine they’ll be watching Caerwent too.”

  She blanched. “Is it safe for us to go?”

  Perhaps not. Was she frightened? She had yet to display that emotion, even when faced with certain violence. He turned in his chair to fully face her. “You know this quest is no longer what we thought. There are people who would prevent us from succeeding.”

  She gave her head a shake and looked him square in the eye. “I know what we’re dealing with and I don’t want to give up now, if that’s what you’re asking.” She glanced at the deciphered code, the hint of a smile lighting her gaze. “I can’t.” She looked back at him. “Can you?”