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Page after page of it, Thomas flipping through them until he
stopped on a list of names. “Here now,” he whispered, then pulled
a piece of paper out of his vest pocket, unfolding and smoothing
it. “Looks like someone was keeping tabs on just what this Ladon
Vitae was up to.”
The names on the two lists frequently matched, but the book
had far more details. Kidnapping, blackmail, conspiracies . . .
“Does that say Napoleon?” Thomas asked, squinting in disbe-
lief at the book.
“Are they after him, too?” Charles shifted in bed, pulling a
pillow over his head so his voice was muffled. “Someone ought to
tell them he’s quite dead.”
“How do we fight this?” Thomas leaned back, fear and exhaus-
tion written onto his face.
It hurt Cora to see him like that, to be unable to fix it. She
needed to fix it. She looked back at the book, her eyes watering,
fixed on
the term Blackmail underlined twice next to a name she
didn’t recognize.
And then she had an idea.
Cora handed a stack of parcels to Annie O’Connell, who was
making the weekly delivery to the post. “Thank you.”
Annie nodded, turning her head to shrug the thanks off. She
was pleasant and quiet and did her work well. It made Cora
sad most of the time, seeing how easily the role she played to help
her mother was filled by someone else. But right now she had
plenty of other worries to fill her mind. Annie was welcome to the
dusting.
She wanted to watch until Annie reached the end of the lane,
but it was important not to draw attention to what she was doing
