Page 109 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
Chapter 27
Alittle while later, Charley was seated next to Gracie at the library table, watching as Kincaid took the tiny book apart.
“Never liked a book for messages,” Kincaid said. “I much preferred script hidden in a cane or saddle pommel or a boot, or a coded open letter.”
She bristled next to him, ever defensive of her father.
“But I do admire resilience and adaptability.” Kincaid had noticed her reaction, the wily old trickster. “What do you suppose, miss, he might have written here?”
“I do not know.”
She was telling the truth. He glanced at his father and Farnsworth.
A few worn pages held handwritten words, notes by Gracie’s mother, words of love in her father’s writing. No code in those.
Kincaid’s beefy hands were as deft and as delicate as a diamond setter’s.
Farnsworth, on her other side, leaned closer. “I should not like to bring up painful memories, but whatever you can remember will help us. Did Captain Kingsley say anything more about your mother’s death?”
Charley touched her shoulder, feeling her tense and sent the old spies a warning glare. There was more, he was quite sure, but now that her first secrets were out, she needed time to face this. She needed more time totrust.
Lord Shaldon ignored him. “What Lord Farnsworth means, is, it might help to understand the motive, my dear.” His voice was gentle. “And that might help us in our search for the killer.”
“You do mean to search?” she asked.
“We shall do more than search,” Charley said. “We’ll find and bring to justice.”
She sent him a quick glance, as if realizing he was still there, and blinked, unseeing, frozen to her seat. “Money?” Her gaze went to the window. “Is it not always money that is the cause in these disputes?”
“Sometimes ’tis love,” Kincaid said without looking. “Or a need to silence someone who knows the truth.” His razor slid through a stitch and he inhaled sharply.
As much emotion as Charley had ever seen in him.
“Clever,” Kincaid muttered. With the tiniest of tweezers, he withdrew a folded paper. He slipped on a pair of cotton gloves.
“Let me.” Gracie pushed back her chair and stood. “It is mine, after all.”
Father nodded, and Kinkaid yielded his seat at the table. Charley went to look over her shoulder.
The filmy paper was so thin, it might have been transparent, but it was new, fresh, and stable. She worked with care, her small hands unfolding the document.
The writing was too tiny to read from here, but he could see handwritten lists marching down the paper in even rows.
She peered closely. “If these are dates, they go back to before I was born.”
His father’s eyes lit, and Charley’s gut clenched. This was a code of some sort.
Codes were not his area of expertise. Codes required analytical precision, and only agreed upon irregularity. “Father, when you have deciphered this, Gracie must know what it is.”
She looked up. “You think it is a cipher?”
“Yes.” Shaldon pinched his brows together. Charley knew that look. It was the spymaster reflexively holding back from sharing. Father hated revelations, unless they were someone else’s. “I met your father years ago. He became a Spanish citizen with his majesty’s blessing, though he would have done so anyway to win your mother. He sent reports whenever he could, and we had a code that we worked with. I believe we can work this one out. But Graciela, will you tell us everything he told you about your mother’s death? Every piece of information will help.”
She dropped her gaze, her long lashes hiding her eyes. “We lodged in a small house in the center of Veracruz and waited for Father’s return. And then the fever came and Mother fell sick first. When our friend, Consuela—there were five of us, six with Reina in the small house—when Consuela became ill, we made Francisca and Juan take Reina away, out of the town. My mother, she began to recover. She was so very weak, but the fever broke and she was able to get up and to help with Consuela who by this time was very, very ill. And then the sickness struck me.”
Charley crouched by her chair, took her hands, and began chafing them. She had gone cold, trembling as if the fever and chills were still upon her.
“Mama put me into her bed in the tiny bedchamber. Consuela was on a pallet in the parlor and neither of us could move her. How many days passed, I do not know. Mama came in and out, and then Captain Llewellyn was there, and then Papa. He stayed by my bedside and when the fever broke, he told me Mama and Consuela had died. Of the fever, I assumed. He buried them, sent for Reina, Francisca, and Juan, carried me onto his ship, and we left.”
