Page 61 of Unmasking the Silver Heiress
His vision swam, his hands shaken by the tremor that ran through him. He recognized many of the items listed in a column namedReceipt and Exchange. He recognized them because he'd indexed them himself, in a list very similar to this one.
What he didn't recognize were several sets of initialed codes listed, both as cargo and as goods. It was several pages later, under the large headlinePending,that he began to realize what he was looking at.
It was a list of names. A very long list of names, each with either anFor anEnext to it. Many of them had been crossed out and annotated with a date.
Sure enough, when he flipped backward to check, the initials in the ledger matched with the names from the larger list. The Silver Leaf Society was smuggling, yes, but not riches and secrets. It was moving people between France and England at wartime, in both directions.
He didn't know what it meant. He couldn't think. He slapped the book closed and rubbed his eyes, resolving to immediately go to his wife and show her what he'd found. However, when he pushed himself to his feet, the book held tight in his hands, he found that he was not alone, and perhaps hadn't been for some time.
Zelda Smith was leaning against the door jamb, a familiar ring of keys dangling from her fingers. Her mask was gone, and she looked somehow older now than she had that day on Bond Street or even earlier tonight, in the ballroom at La Falaise.
"I let myself in," she said softly, answering the unasked question. She spoke without the taunting edge that had been in her voice just hours ago. It wasn't that she sounded apologetic. No, he rather thought she was incapable of apology. Instead, she simply looked tired and resigned.
She sighed, dropping the keys into her pocket, and crossed the room, pouring herself a glass of whiskey twice as full as his own. After tipping a portion of it into her mouth, she set the glass down, met his gaze, and said, "Nathaniel, I think it is time we talk."
* * *
Nell wipedher eyes quickly at the sound of the doorknob turning, burrowing herself deeper under the blankets.
She hadn't been sure he would come to bed tonight, or ever again if truth be told. Her aunt had shattered whatever it was that had grown between them, as quickly and sharply as a snap of the fingers. Perhaps, if he were coming to their bed, all was not lost.
The glow of a handheld lantern shone in a shaft of light from the doorway to the foot of their bed, and for the briefest moment, Nell pondered whether or not she ought to feign sleep. That is, until she heard her aunt's voice in the dark.
"Nell? Are you asleep?"
She blinked hard, twice, just to ensure she wasn't in the midst of some cruel nightmare, but no, certain enough, her aunt was crossing the bedchamber, the heels of her dancing shoes clicking smartly against the wooden floor until she came to the corner of the rug.
"Aunt Zelda?" Nell murmured, her voice scratchy in her tear-strained throat. She pushed the blankets back and shoved herself up to sitting, blinking against the specter in front of her, haloed in light from the hall. "What are you doing here? Where is Nathaniel?"
"He's out," she said, dropping the lantern on the table and turning to face her niece with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked surprised, genuinely taken aback.
Nell thought that perhaps she'd been caught unawares by the beautiful nightgown or the sumptuous dressings of the room.
However, when she spoke, she said, "You've been crying."
"Of course I have," Nell replied, unable to stop a weak laugh at the absurdity of her aunt's shock over such an obvious reaction. "You know exactly what a rift you created tonight. How did you get into our house? Where did my husband go?"
"He went back to La Falaise, to retrieve Therese," Zelda replied, crossing the space between them to sit at the edge of the bed. She reached out a tremulous hand, touching Nell's cheek with the tips of her fingers and a frown. "He rather insisted I stay behind and use the time to apologize to you, and so here I am.”
Nell raised her eyebrows, which caused her aunt’s frown to deepen.
“I am sorry,” she said, her voice hushed, either with shame or distaste for her own words. “I did not realize my actions would cause you such distress."
"How could you not realize that!" Nell cried, flinching away from her aunt's touch. "He is my husband! We were happy!"
"Nell, he has been working for the last decade of his life to expose and destroy me. I thought he had trapped you into marriage by some convoluted scheme to hurt me, with no concern at all for you. I never imagined that ... well, that you were happy." Zelda grimaced, shaking her head. "I am not often such a poor judge of reality."
"I have always wanted to find love," Nell said, furrowing her brow. "I've told you that."
"Well, yes, you have," Zelda allowed. "I simply thought ... well, I thought you were like me, and you know very well that I have never held men in great esteem. I have always seen so much of myself in you, from such a young age, my love. It blinded me to our differences. Or, perhaps I did not want to see them."
"You dressed me poorly apurpose, didn't you?"
"I simply wished to spare you the annoyance of male persistence," she said with a sigh that bordered on irritation. "I've already said I was wrong. I see that I was. Am I to take it, then, that you have fallen in love with this husband of yours?"
"Yes, of course I have," Nell whispered, her fingers flying to her lips to stifle the sob that threatened to escape. "He is more than I could ever have hoped to find for myself."
"Nonsense. You are far too good for much better than the Atlas boy," Zelda sniffed. "Peter believes him a cold-blooded killer," she added, as though Nell could have forgotten her implication of just that not so long ago. "Has he told you he is not?"
