Page 38 of Summer of Sacrifice

That Summer had changed everything. And so would this one.

Summoning her resolve, Seleste strode to the table and looked over the spread of notes there. She’d had little time to study the Druid markings or Laurent’s translation of them, but staring at them now, there were bits and pieces—broken bits—that almost lit within her mind’s eye, reminding her of something she’d seen before.

With a gasp, she knew exactly why they looked familiar.

Seleste, Then

SELESTE

Ear fixed on the sounds of the upper floor of Whitehall, Seleste was met with silence. At this hour, the cooks would be busy with the preparations for luncheon, Susie would still be with his lordship—who had taken a turn for the worse in the night—and Frances would be knee-deep in laundry. No one else came upstairs until teatime, and hardly anyone came into the small parlour next to the tearoom at all. She was alone.

A giddiness came over her as she reached into her apron and pulled out two pieces of parchment. Her current cypher conundrum and the letter it was meant to decode. Gently laying the letter on the desk and smoothing it out, she inwardly chastised herself for putting such a delicate thing in her apron, but she’d come so close to cracking the next bit of the code last night and had waited all day to give it a go again. Dropping into the plush desk chair, she reached for the quill and inkwell, telling herself she would only work on it for a moment, then return to her duties.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it had been far, far longer than she meant to sit hunched over her cypher when she heard footsteps coming down the hall. The young Lord Bardot’s purposeful footsteps.

With a little gasp, Seleste jumped up, returning the quill to its place. She was attempting to gather her papers as Lord Bardot entered the room, pulling up short when he saw her. His brows rose ever so slightly before knitting together in a scowl. Seleste paused her gathering, feeling flushed, and dropped into a small curtsy. “Milord.”

He was across the room in three long strides. Seleste gripped one of her hands in the other and squeezed, willing herself not to reach out and snatch up the parchments or, worse, try to conceal them with magic when it was clearly too late. The lord rested the pads of his fingers on one of the parchments, looking over it carefully. By the time his gaze lifted to meet hers, Seleste’s heart was beating wildly. If he dismissed her for doing frivolous things during her assigned working time, she would fail her Order. She’d never failed an Order before.

Failure wasn’t an option in her world. Sure, one could argue that failures were only a falling forward. But failing an Order was not a falling forward. It would mean facing her Sanction—a specific retribution for failure, specially tailored for her. Though she did not even minutely believe the Goddess Three to be anything but good and holy, she did completely believe there was a force that would inflict that Sanction upon her, should she fail.

And this…this was not a good start to befriending the grumpy lord in front of her.

He looked at her with those piercing blue eyes. She could never tell what he was thinking, which simultaneously unnerved and thrilled her. The questions hanging in the air between them threatened to do her in. No one was this unreadable, not for Seleste. Lord Bardot was a living enigma.

Her lips parted as she stifled the words that might tumble out if he did not say something soon.

“Are these yours,” he broke the silence, looking back at the papers, “or someone else’s?”

His tone did not sound accusatory. In fact, there was a hint of curiosity dangling in the words. It was far easier to discern what little she could about him when he wasn’t looking directly at her.

“Mine, milord.”

After regarding her for another moment, causing her palms to go clammy, he finally spoke again. “This is a cypher.”

It wasn’t a question, but there seemed to be one hidden there. He was surprised she had the intelligence for a cypher? He thought she was lying and had stolen it? Damn. She wasn’t certain where he was concerned, and it was driving her mad.

“It is.” She folded her hands together behind her back. If she were to befriend this man, she would have to be herself. Vulnerable. “I enjoy puzzles, my lord.”

The spark that danced across his eyes at her response was a puzzle in and of itself. It almost seemed like excitement mixed with fear. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would this future earl fear her? He looked back at the desk, gently sliding the cypher scribblings over to reveal the second piece of parchment.

“And this?” He regarded her with one brow raised.

“A letter, milord.”

He huffed through his nose, a pleasantly amused sort of sound, and Seleste almost baulked it was such a surprising occurrence coming from him. “A letter?”

My goddess, he’s nearly smiling. Nearly.

“In a dialect no one has spoken in Seagovia in at least a hundred years?”

Seleste suddenly felt hot. And completely unaware of herself, for the first time…ever. Was she nervous? Confused? Intrigued? Yes. A little mad laugh chimed in her head.

“I enjoy difficult puzzles,” she finally answered candidly, her mouth feeling a bit parched as if she’d been chewing on the papers on the desk instead of looking at them.

“May I?” he gestured to the notes as if she hadn’t been using his family’s time, desk, inkwell, and quill.

“Of course,” Seleste answered a bit too loudly.

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