Page 69 of The Spy Who Loved Her
He would go to the gallows alone—he would suffer her hatred—so that shedid not suffer for his death. Where was the justice in that? Already he was doomed to die disgraced, beneath a cloud of shame, in the service of the country that had turned its back upon him. Those same people he had spent so many years protecting would speak his name only in vicious whispers.
“If you can—if you can bring yourself to do it—please come,” Kit said. “I have no other family but you. If I am to be sent on to Old Nick, I’d be grateful for just one friendly face in the crowd to see me off as I go. And whatever Rafe might have said, I am certain the final face he wishes to see before he dies is yours. Do him that one small kindness. Please.”
Emma choked on a sob. “I cannot lose you, Kit. I cannot bear to lose either of you.”
“Every agent of the Crown makes his peace with the possibility of death. It isn’t your fault.” His eyes closed on a weary blink. “I’m tired of it all, Em. So damned tired. Go, now—you know what must be done.”
Yes, she did. To keep safe what he and Rafe had sacrificed their lives to protect. To give them justice, even if it would be weeks—months—yearstoo late to save them. But every minute that she let slip past was another closer to the inevitable. There would be a time to mourn, and it was notnow, while they yet lived. While there remained a sliver of a chance, however remote, that they might be saved.
∞∞∞
Three days.
Sir Roger had whispered those words to Emma in a silken hiss just as the door of her carriage had closed behind her, and Emma had known them for the ultimatum he had intended them to be. Three days to hand the journal over to him. Three days, and then Kit and Rafe would hang.
He would hang them anyway, she knew. It was a false deadline meant to force her into a state of panic, to enshroud her within a layer of desperation so thick she could see nothing beyond it. And it had worked, damn him. She hardly noticed the rock of the carriage over cobblestone streets, so severely had she trembled at the thought.
She could not do this alone. Rafe and Kit had tried already and failed, and they were so much more experienced than was she. They had had weeks, and she—she had only three days to save them. Three days in which to unravel the damned indecipherable cipher that had thus far resisted all of their efforts.
She was only one woman. Even the queen, the most powerful piece upon the board, could make only one move at a time. And her paltry moves, no matter which direction she took, could not hope to counter Sir Roger’s. He played by his own rules and cheated whenever it was to his benefit to do so. He had swept multiple pieces out of play in one move, taken more turns than those to which he was entitled. And there was no one but her to cry fair or foul, no arbiter of fair play to enforce the rules he chose to break. Under veil of secrecy, he moved the pieces to his whim, manipulating the board to his will.
Under veil of secrecy. Emma caught herself as the carriage lurched around a corner, and her breath whistled through her teeth at the realization. Secrecy—a spy, she supposed, had great need of it.
But she was no spy. The rules—Sir Roger’s rules, the ones he had impressed upon Kit and Rafe over so many years,molded them to adhere to—did not apply to her. She could never have hoped to go up against such a man in a game of his own devising, when the board had been set against her from the beginning. That had been a fool’s gambit, every meager move playing straight into his expectations, toward his own ends.
She could not do this alone. But she didn’t haveto. Sir Roger had been forced to limit himself to underhanded tactics to win, curtailed by his need for discretion. But she was not so constrained. She could fill the board with pieces of her own. As many as she could assemble; a queen amassing an army.
Months—perhaps years—of labor might be reduced down to mere days. At least, she hoped. Since they would have only three.
∞∞∞
Emma had planned, initially, to host this gathering of people she had called together within the green salon, but then she had not expected so very many people to turn up. Out of necessity, the few letters she had sent had been terse, opaque, and laden with warning.
Clear your schedule and come immediately. Bring everyone you can whom you would trust with your life.
And they had. Dozens upon dozens of them—Diana and Marcus, of course, but also their spouses and children and in-laws and at least half of the theatre company Lydia managed. Phoebe, naturally, but also her parents, her siblings, and their spouses. All told, it amounted to a great deal more people than the green salon could comfortably have held.
Her army, comprising some forty people, all come immediately at her bidding. For the first time in weeks, the grey pall in which she had lived lifted, just the tiniest fraction. Like a sudden, startling ray of hope had sheared through it.
Despite the upheaval into which they all must have been thrust by the merest association with Rafe, stillthey had come. And as servants flitted about, bringing in trays and trays of tea and biscuits and cakes and sandwiches, bringing in stacks and stacks of paper, bottles of inks and quills, still the only conversation that flowed about the room was—consoling.Kind. Comforting.
It had been in all the papers, the news of Rafe’s and Kit’s arrests, along with the charges of treason they presently faced. Not one person present believed it. A minor blessing, that. It would make the explanations less fraught, less complicated.
As the servants at last filed out of the room, Neil took Ambrose’s journal from her hands. “You’re certain?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. It must be done. But do it carefully, please, Neil.” And still she winced as Neil took a seat at the nearest table and began to—neatly and precisely—tear the pages from the binding of the journal one by one, sorting them into neat stacks ordered by entry.
“I say.” This, from one of Phoebe’s brothers-in-law. “What in the world is this about?” His eyes scanned the wall, now adorned with rows of letters in massive, tidy lines; a replica of the ciphering table that Rafe had once given to her, which Neil had painted upon the wall as they had waited for her guests to arrive. “You’ve ruined your paper-hangings.”
She could always buy new. Emma took a shuddering breath and her voice to reach the farthest corners of the room. “The purpose that I have called you here for is a dangerous one,” she said, and the last of the whispering fell into silence as her voice echoed about the rafters. “It is no small thing I am asking, and it comes with great risk. If you are not prepared to bear it, then you should leave immediately, and I will ask only your silence and circumspection. But before you do, please know that two innocent lives hang in the balance.”
No one moved. No one breathed. But Diana’s eyes filled with tears, and beside her, her husband wrapped his arm about her, easing her head toward his shoulder.
“You’re speaking of Lord Rafe,” Phoebe said, and she leaned forward in her chair to give Diana a reassuring pat. “It’s not true, what has been said of him,” she said. “Weknow it, at least.”
“Of courseit’s not true,” Marcus snapped. “My brother is no traitor.”
“No,” Emma said. “He isn’t. And neither is mine. But my late husband—he was.” Amidst the queer riffle of whispers that slid through the room, Emma pressed on. “Ambrose left behind a journal,” she said. “Isuspect that it contains information that will incriminate the man who has taken Rafe and Kit into custody, Sir Roger Banfield. It is likely the only thing that exists which might implicate him. However—” Emma faltered, her voice breaking. “The text is ciphered. Without the proper keys, it cannot be read.”
