Page 8 of The Wallflower Ruse

To think she hadn’t even noticed something so obvious! Papa must be turning in his grave at her inattention. A numerical code—one, she was willing to wager, related to the book Marie had recommended he read. The clues were right in front of her, and she’d been distracted by a lascivious love note. How shameful!

“Are you well, Miss Lucinda?” Jane asked.

“Yes, perfectly,” she said, folding the paper and putting it back in the book. “I was thinking of my sister and hoping she’s happy with her Humphrey.”

Jane sighed her agreement, and Lucinda waited impatiently until the maid bade her goodnight and left.

Luckily, she had a copy of Wollstonecraft’s book—hidden under a floorboard, for Mother had strictly forbidden her to read it.

On her mettle now, Lucinda copied the numbers of the first few sums on the front, from top to bottom, including the incorrect totals, and matched them with the first letters of the corresponding words in Wollstonecraft’s introduction. Nothing coherent emerged, so she tried left to right instead, then the reverse from top to bottom.

Still nothing. She pondered, then added the columns again and realized that some of the totals were correct. This time, she varied the direction of deciphering depending on whether the total of any given column was correct.

Yes! Words, barely recognizable but vaguely familiar, began to appear. The message proved to be in Anglo-Saxon—very old English, so old that most people wouldn’t be able to read it. It was sheer happenstance—or luck at having such a wonderful, educated father—that she had not only read some Anglo-Saxon in the past, but this very passage!

She had to account for the modern version of a few letters used in Anglo-Saxon, but otherwise the message was a well-known verse from the Bible, the one about the man who built his house upon rock.

Except...the passage had been further altered by the addition of a few words inserted here and there. The first was cymru, which she didn’t recognize. The others, which translated as jolly wench, moonrise, and Beltane eve—she did.

She didn’t understand the significance of the jolly wench, but the other clues seemed clear: something important was about to happen at moonrise on the evening before Beltane, which was commonly known as May Day. Something secret, almost certainly dangerous, most likely harmful to England. And only a few days away!

Only one course of action lay open to her—to foil the traitors and spies. No doubt the young lad who’d stolen a ride in her coach was also involved.

She took a fresh half-sheet of foolscap, copied the notes from Marie in what she hoped resembled the woman’s handwriting, and then covered the rest of the paper, both sides, with sums, some in a childish hand, some not.

Sums which meant absolutely nothing at all.

Restive woke early. There was no time to waste. He’d had his valet pack a small valise for him last night. He would hasten to London in his curricle; the valet would follow later in the traveling carriage.

But first he had to retrieve the damned book with the coded message. He took another of Molière’s plays from his bookshelf to offer as an exchange, had one of the grooms saddle a horse, and set off down the lane.

Mist still lay in the hollow where the lane met the road. A small figure—a woman—on a pony emerged out of the mist, gasped, and pulled her pony to a halt.

Restive stopped as well, but not too close. “Lucy?” he said, appalled. What sort of trap was this? Her notion of vengeance? He resorted to formality. “Miss Belair, that is.”

He realized then that she appeared almost as aghast as he. “Heavens, you startled me,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “But this is most fortunate. I brought your book.”

She pulled it out of a pocket in her cloak and urged her pony forward. “Here it is. I have also come to warn you.”

He stowed the book in his own pocket with a word of thanks. “Warn me of what?”

She flushed. “My mother. She means to force you to marry me. It won’t work, of course, because I shall persist in my refusal to do so. But it would be better if you were away from here, in London perhaps, or better, the Outer Hebrides. She will eventually give up if you are nowhere to be found.”

He stared, unable to take her words at face value. Was someone hiding around the bend, ready to pounce? But her father was dead, her brother was on the Continent, and the idea that her mother might be out at dawn to trap him was too absurd.

It hardly mattered. He had the book. Time to leave.

“Thank you,” he said flatly, adding, “It was most kind of you to let me know.” Which was sheer nonsense.

She huffed. “Unbelievable. You still think I’m trying to trap you! How conceited and—and utterly idiotic can you possibly be?”

“I’m not conceited,” he said, taken aback. “I don’t rate my personal attributes, such as they are, as better than those of other fellows. If I am rude, it’s from bitter experience. Do you imagine I enjoy being pursued for my money and title?”

She cocked her head to one side. “No, I expect it’s worse than annoying. But surely you—” She shrugged. “Oh, never mind. Good day, my lord.” She turned her pony, and it was then that he noticed the valise lashed clumsily to her saddle.

“Wait, Miss Belair. That valise... Where are you going?”

Oh, drat, drat, drat! thought Lucinda. Just when she’d been about to escape! Her heart thudded as if he could read her mind and knew of her intent.