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“Will she?”
“Why do you look so dubious? You can’t suspect her of deceit.” The thought outraged Daniel.
“Not deceit.”
“You think it’s unusual to know nothing of a brother who lived in the same house all your life?” Daniel was far too familiar with that sort of sensation.
“I think assistance is sometimes a hard thing to define,” Macklin said.
Daniel scarcely heard him. “I scarcely knew my parents,” he retorted. “They might have been acquainted with any number of revolutionaries, and I would never have known.”
Macklin gave him a long look, but he said no more.
Ten
When Penelope arrived at Frithgerd the following afternoon, she discovered that someone—it had to be Whitfield—had numbered the trunks in the blue parlor with chalk, just as she’d ordered. This tangible sign that he appreciated her ideas and remembered them when she wasn’t here lightened her spirits. She had a place in his mind, as he did in hers. They were linked. And she was glad. “Glad,” she murmured. “So there.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked the gentleman in question.
Penelope whirled and found him in the doorway. He wore a blue riding coat and buckskin breeches today, and he looked ready to take on the world. “My better self,” she replied. “Or worse one. I’m not really certain.” She repressed an errant laugh.
He came closer.
“You numbered the trunks.”
“As decreed.” He gave her a mock salute.
Whitfield wasn’t conventionally handsome, Penelope thought. His features were too blunt, his bone structure too rugged. She tended to forget this fact because when his face was animated, as it was now, he was rivetingly attractive.
“Are we going back to the trunks?” he asked. “I thought we’d decided to leave them for later.”
She couldn’t stand here gazing at him, enjoyable as that was. He’d think her a mooncalf. “I woke in the night certain I’d missed something,” she answered.
“In the night.” He smiled at her. “Was it a nightmare about the papers? I’ve had those. Sometimes they smother me. There was one where documents rose up like a great wave ready to break over my head and bury me. I had to fight them off with a cricket bat.” He mimed a swing, put a hand to his brow, and pretended to watch something fly off over her head.
She laughed. “Nothing like that. This was a nagging sense that I’d noticed something without fully taking it in.”
“What?”
“Well, that’s the question.” Penelope went to the trunk she’d been sorting through yesterday, opened it, and looked down at the stacks of documents. They were just the same—columns of figures, blocks of text, ornate signatures and seals, all jumbled together. There was too much to notice and nothing at all. She frowned, remembering what she’d done yesterday. She’d leafed through the pile at the end, reached down to take out part of it, then put it back. She repeated these actions.
As she finished, she felt it. The cloth lining of the trunk bulged out at this end, a small irregularity that one couldn’t see but could feel. She ran her fingers over the square, flat shape. “I think there’s something hidden here.”
He came up beside her, his shoulder brushing hers. “Hidden?”
Penelope took his hand, and then had to pause at the thrill that went through her at his touch. He noticed the brief hesitation, meeting her eyes. Warmth washed through her. With an accelerated pulse, she guided his fingers over the shape.
“Ha. I see what you mean.” Whitfield took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it, and slit the buff lining.
“Wait.” It was too late. The cloth gaped open, revealing a bit of dark leather. “I wanted to see how it had been put in there,” Penelope added.
Whitfield shrugged. “Sorry.” He reached behind the lining and pulled out a slender notebook.
It was an oblong the size of a piece of notepaper, bound in dark calf. The cover looked worn, as if it had been well used. There was nothing extraordinary about the object, except its hiding place and the fact that Whitfield was staring as if it might bite him. “Is something wrong?” Penelope asked.
“My mother always had a notebook like this,” he replied in a distant voice. “Carried it everywhere. She bought a dozen at a time. I remember my father rushing off, on one of their visits to London, to pick up a fresh supply for her. Had to do that instead of having lunch with me. Obligatory, he said.”
“A diary?”
