by Jane Ashford
“Insufferable,” said Daniel. “Intolerable.”
“He was.” Macklin looked thoughtful rather than annoyed. “And I’m curious about why the Foreign Office sent that particular agent. And gave him free rein to act with so little tact.”
“Tact! That fellow doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“Castlereagh has made mistakes,” Macklin replied. “But, really, he doesn’t employ graceless oafs. I suspect there was some calculation involved. Perhaps they thought they’d get more information by making you angry.”
“What?” Daniel turned to look at the older man.
“Thinking that in the heat of anger you would let things slip.”
“There is nothing to let slip. We told them what we found.”
Macklin nodded. “Yes. But as I’ve said before, when you live in a world of suspicion, everything begins to look suspicious.”
“What could they possibly suspect me of?”
“That must be a frustration for them,” his guest replied. “Knowing their secrets, I suppose. If you had read through the notebooks with the key—”
“That would take days.” More hours spent in a sea of paper, Daniel thought, making a translation as deadly dull as mathematics. Except that it might be a window into his parents’ life and thoughts. That idea gave him pause. Could he simply give that up?
Macklin nodded. “I’m a very curious person, but I’m not sure I would care to make the effort.”
“No.” And was there anything personal in that mass of cryptic phrases? Or would he find only dry facts and figures? Another sort of distance to add to the gap that already existed.
“Perhaps they know of something dangerous in the entries. Or fear there may be such a thing.”
Daniel considered this idea. He still found it difficult to see his parents in this new light. “Well, the notebooks are quite safe in my strong room for now.”
“I doubt those two gentlemen will be satisfied with that.”
“They’ll have to be. Until I decide otherwise.”
There was a soft knock on the drawing room door. When Daniel bade the person enter, Tom slipped through the doorway, closing it carefully behind him. “That Jake Wendell feller is outside.”
“Who?”
“The butterfly man. Who ain’t any such thing, unless I’m mistaken.”
This was the stranger sneaking about the neighborhood, Daniel remembered. “He’s here?”
“With another man, mounting up to leave.” Tom moved over to the windows and looked out. “They’re going.”
“The other is pale-haired and stocky?” asked Macklin. “With military side-whiskers?”
Tom nodded as Daniel went to join him and watch the two Foreign Office men depart. “The dark one is Wendell?”
“So he says,” replied Tom.
Daniel looked at Macklin. “It seems our lurker is one of the gentlemen from the Foreign Office.”
“He was nosing about Rose Cottage last night,” said Tom. “Till he roused the dogs and had to leg it.”
“What?”
“I was coming to tell you when I spotted him,” Tom added.
Daniel turned toward the door. “I must go and tell Miss Pendleton.”
Macklin held up a hand. “Wait.”
“She will wish to know.”
“No doubt,” replied Macklin. “But we shouldn’t upset her unnecessarily. We need to think this through.”
They needed to keep her safe, Daniel thought. He remembered her descriptions of the interrogations she’d endured—the tremor in her voice, the distress in her face. What he really wanted was to go and fetch her, bring her to Frithgerd, and watch over her from now on. Which he couldn’t do. “Think about what precisely?”
“What’s going on,” said the older man. “What is best to do about it.” He turned to Tom. “Could you follow them and discover where they go from here?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Very carefully, mind. These are not men to trifle with. And they are on the lookout for conspiracies.”
The lad nodded. “The butterfly fella hasn’t noticed me. I’m good at keeping out of sight. Or out of mind. Depending.” He grinned.
“See that you do. I mean it, Tom.” Macklin waited for another acknowledgment and then sent him off with a gesture.
“He seems confident,” said Daniel.
“As am I. I wouldn’t ask him to do this otherwise.” The earl looked thoughtful. “You may not be able to keep your mother’s notebooks from the government in the end, Whitfield. The Foreign Office probably does have some right to them.”
“And if the matter had been broached properly, we might have reached agreement on that.” What had they expected to accomplish by treating him so rudely? “Two weeks ago, I didn’t know they existed.” And how his life had changed since a certain young lady arrived in the neighborhood! “I would like to look them over. Learn something about my mother’s endeavors.”
“And that is what worries the agents, I suppose,” said Macklin.
“They cannot imagine I would reveal anything damaging to my country.”
“I have found that such people can imagine the most extraordinary scenarios. It is, at once, their strength and weakness.”
“Well, we will just have to show them the right of it.” Daniel frowned. “Did you have any inkling of my parents’ true reason for traveling, Macklin?”
“None whatsoever.”
“I’m still finding it hard to take in, even with all evidence before me.”
“I feel just the same.”
They finally decided that Daniel should send over a note asking that Miss Pendleton definitely come to work on the estate records tomorrow morning. They would decide together what should come next.
* * *
Though it had been only a few days since she’d visited Frithgerd, she’d missed the place, Penelope acknowledged the following day. “I have an idea about our filing system,” she said to Whitfield when he joined her in the office. “The estate system, I mean. It would mean building some shelves.”
He nodded, looking distracted. Yet he had asked her particularly to come.
“I think work on the bath is going well? Are there any problems?”
“No. The new doorway is finished, and the wall closing off the corridor is well under way.”
Henry Carson tapped on the open door at this opportune moment and came in. “I’ve found trees for the pipes,” he said. “They were cut last year so they’re well-seasoned. The man’s asking a steep price for them, however.”
“How much?” asked Penelope. When Carson gave her the figure, she frowned. “That is high.”
“We don’t want green wood,” said the builder. “It’s liable to shrink and crack.”
“I’ll talk to him,” she replied. “Leave me his name and direction.”
Carson nodded. “I also need the smith to make me a larger auger to bore them out.”
Penelope looked at Whitfield. He hadn’t participated in the conversation, and now she wondered if he’d even heard. “Tell him his lordship would appreciate a speedy job.”
“Yes, miss.”
The builder departed, passing Lord Macklin coming in. The earl rarely joined them in the records room. Penelope began to suspect that something was wrong.
“Our two visitors from yesterday are back,” Macklin said to the viscount. “They insist upon seeing you.”
“Insist?” echoed Whitfield, obviously offended.
Though it was none of her affair, Penelope was bothered by the air of tension that had entered the chamber. Over the past year she’d become acutely sensitive to such shifts. “What two visitors?” she asked.
Whitfield turned away from her. “Never mind. I’ll speak to them. You stay here.”
“W
hy wouldn’t I?”
The two men went out, leaving Penelope prey to a sense of foreboding. She had no reason for it, but she felt that something bad was about to happen. She made herself sit down to work.
Daniel met the Foreign Office representatives in his drawing room again. They looked as grim as before. Perhaps more so. He heartily wished them away.
“It has come to our attention that a known subversive has had access to Lady Whitfield’s notebooks,” said the one who called himself Jake Wendell.
“A what?”
“A connection of a traitor to the crown,” said the man with blond side-whiskers. He might have been amending his comrade’s accusation, or simply elucidating. “Miss Penelope Pendleton.”
“This is a terrible breach of security,” said the other agent before Daniel could speak. “I don’t know whether you’re careless or stupid or something worse, but—”
Generations of noble ancestors reared up in Daniel and lent their hauteur to his icy “I beg your pardon?”
“This woman frequents your house,” continued Wendell, unaffected. “She is given free rein to examine your records. She has had the notebooks in her possession.”
The way he said this woman filled Daniel with rage. “Have you been questioning my servants?”
“We question everybody,” the agent replied curtly.
“You need to be more careful who you associate with,” said the blond Foreign Office man.
Daniel wasn’t actually going to throttle a pair of government officials. He didn’t need Macklin’s hand on his arm to restrain him.
“Miss Pendleton was cleared of any involvement in the unfortunate events in Manchester,” said the earl.
“That what she told you?” answered Wendell.
“The Home Office did so.”
Wendell scoffed, but Daniel thought the side-whiskered agent looked a little uneasy.
“We demand that you hand over the notebooks and any other materials of your mother’s that you may possess,” said Wendell. “They must be moved to a secure location in London.”
“By you?”
“That is what we were sent to do.”
“Not collect butterflies?”
Daniel saw Macklin make an involuntary gesture and silently acknowledged that he shouldn’t have mentioned the butterflies. Revealing that they’d been watching him would no doubt heighten Wendell’s suspicions.
The man’s expression confirmed this.
“Possibly some arrangement could be made,” murmured Macklin.
“Nothing could be simpler,” said Wendell. “Give them to us now.”
“I’m not going to do that,” declared Daniel. “You may as well stop asking.” At Wendell’s scowl, he held up a hand. “You’ve set my back up, whether by design or accident, I don’t know. But I don’t like your attitude. And I won’t put my mother’s notebooks in the hands of two nameless men who march into my house without warning.”
“We brought a letter from Castlereagh!”
“Perhaps. I’ve never received one before, so I can’t identify his hand.”
“Are you suggesting that we forged our credentials?” Wendell was the picture of outrage.
“You don’t enjoy being suspected?” Daniel was aware of Macklin’s steady gaze, but he couldn’t help the sarcasm. He’d rarely disliked anyone as much as he did these two.
“You will regret this,” the one with the side-whiskers began.
But his companion silenced him with a raised hand. “What do you propose to do?” he asked Daniel.
“The right thing. For my country and my family and myself. I may consult Castlereagh in person.”
“A waste of time,” muttered Wendell. “He will only tell you what we’ve already said.”
“And in the meantime?” asked the other man.
“I’ll take great care.”
“As you have so far,” sneered Wendell. “Handing them over to a traitorous—”
“I have nothing more to say to you,” Daniel interrupted. Jaw set, he loomed over his unwelcome callers.
“I’ll see you out,” said Macklin, herding them.
Playing the footman to keep him from exploding? Daniel wondered. In other circumstances, it might have been amusing.
Under the unyielding gaze of two peers of the realm and practically being pushed out by the more impressive, the men went.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned the butterflies,” Daniel said when Macklin returned. “I hope I didn’t put Tom in jeopardy.”
“We may need to call him off, now that they know we’ve been watching.”
Daniel nodded.
“Are you really going to speak to Castlereagh?”
“Perhaps.” He wanted to do what was best for the much-maligned Miss Pendleton. As soon as he figured out what that was.
* * *
Penelope could bear it no longer. She had to discover what was happening. She’d spent far too much time, over the last year, sitting and waiting for doom to descend. She’d become oversensitive to the idea of events proceeding outside her knowledge, dictated by strangers. She left the estate office and made her way quietly along the corridor to the front of the house. She wouldn’t intrude on Lord Whitfield’s meeting, but she was determined to catch a glimpse of his visitors.
Slipping into a small parlor near the entry, she waited by the window. A few minutes later, two men walked out, settling their hats and pulling on gloves. They stood on the graveled drive, heads together, anger in the lines of their bodies. When a groom brought their horses around, they turned, and Penelope at last saw their faces.
She gripped the windowsill. She knew one of them. He’d been among her interrogators in Manchester, a cold-eyed man who’d questioned her a number of times without showing a shred of emotion. Any word she uttered he twisted. Any fact she offered he dismissed. He’d denied comforts and then doled out physical relief with contempt, as if her humanity was a sign of moral decay. He’d encouraged others to do the same. Seeing him brought back a time when she’d been alone and helpless and afraid.
Mounted, he looked at the house. Penelope pulled back behind the curtain.
What was he doing here? Had he come looking for her? She’d been cleared of any role in her brother’s folly and released. But that very man had told her that an investigation was never over, that the eyes of the government would always be on her.
She dared a look. The two were riding away from Frithgerd. Why had they called on Lord Whitfield? Were they headed for her small cottage refuge now? Would she encounter them on the road as she drove home?
Penelope went back to the records room. She sat at the desk and shivered and despised herself for doing so. That man had told her that they could find her wherever she went, that they could seize her at any moment if she put a foot wrong. And as the badgering continued and no one stood by her, it had become more and more difficult to scoff at his distortions and threats. Rising, Penelope made certain the windows were latched. She closed the draperies. She braced a chair under the doorknob. Then she sat again and fought with the memories that wanted to vanquish her.
A flurry of sound called her back. Someone was pounding on the door. The inquisitors had come. Penelope straightened, ready for battle.
“Miss Pendleton?”
It was Lord Whitfield’s voice. And his house, where she’d spent so many happy hours.
“Miss Pendleton?” he called, louder.
Penelope stood, went to remove the chair, and opened the door.
Her handsome neighbor strode in. “What’s happening? Why is it so dim in here?” He looked at the chair in her hands.
She put down the chair. Turning away, she went to open the draperies.
“Miss Pendleton?”
Of course she had to explain, even if the truth was humiliating. “I
saw your visitors riding away, and I recognized one of them as a man who questioned me in Manchester.”
“Wendell?”
“I don’t know his name. He never told me. He had blond side-whiskers.”
“That one? Not the other?” Whitfield looked surprised.
Penelope nodded. “Seeing him overset me, I’m afraid. He was…quite chilling.” She made a slashing gesture. “How I hate feeling like this!”
“I won’t let them near you.”
“You won’t be able to stop them. Nothing stops them.” When he would have objected, she shook her head. “What were they doing here?”
“The Foreign Office sent them to fetch my mother’s notebooks.”
Penelope felt a surge of relief. They hadn’t been hunting her. “They want her journals?”
Whitfield nodded. “To keep them secret. They intend to lock them away in some government vault in London, along with the code key naturally.”
Penelope nodded. And once they got their way, the government men wouldn’t come back. A dreadful thought struck her. “Does that man know I’m here? Does he know I saw the key? He’ll suspect me of…everything.”
Whitfield’s expression was all the answer she needed.
“I suppose I’m a spy now.” Penelope didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. “Do they think I’m stealing state secrets? For what? That man will want to lock me up again.”
“Nonsense.”
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
“It’s true I don’t.” He came close and took her hands. “But I will make certain it never happens to you again.”
“That’s kind of you to say, but you can’t make such guarantees.”
“It isn’t kind. It’s…the deepest wish of my heart. I will do whatever is necessary.”
Penelope blinked back tears. He’d stood by her as friends of long standing had not, with the authorities coming for him.
“Even…” he added, and stopped.
“What?”
“I suppose if you cut all connection with Frithgerd and me, went away somewhere for a while, you would be safer from them,” he said. He looked melancholy. “I must tell you that I mean to keep the notebooks for a bit. I won’t be bullied. I intend to manage this matter on my own terms.”