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No one had cared enough to scold her.
She’d been bored and lonely, so she’d learned how to pick locks, to access the places on the estate where she wasn’t allowed to roam.
And that’s when she’d found the secret room behind a bookshelf in her uncle’s library. Inside the room, she’d found her mother’s diary—it had been coded but eventually she’d been able to crack it. And that’s how she’d discovered her family’s secret lives as spies for the Crown.
Sir Malcolm had denied everything and forbidden her to speak of spying, but it had only made her resolve stronger.
She’d begun to piece together the true nature of his work. He wasn’t only an antiquarian. All of the men coming and going from the estate were not just fellow antiquities enthusiasts.
They were spies.
She kept her ears and eyes open, spying on the spymaster. She’d found books about code breaking in her uncle’s library and studied them. She’d discovered a talent for solving puzzles, for finding patterns. She started taking apart clocks, pistols, anything mechanical, and finding new and better ways to put the pieces back together.
Spy craft was in her blood. It was her legacy and her destiny. The only method remaining for her to feel close to her parents.
Her future began now.
She wedged the window open first and then slowly inched upward, balancing on the ledge.
When it was open far enough, she shimmied inside and dropped to the floor. She held her breath, hoping that the carpet had muffled her landing.
This was a study by the looks of it. One wall was covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and there was a large desk crouching against a wall.
Nothing moved in the household. No sounds of approaching footfalls. The duke was sound asleep in his bed upstairs, exhausted by his exertions.
Huge fist clasping huge...ouch! She stubbed her toe on the claw foot of the desk.
Had she made a noise? She held her breath.
Nothing stirred.
She needed more light to read by. She lit the lamp on the desk, keeping the wick low and the light dim. Jumble of receipts in a box on the desk.
Good Lord. That was an extravagant amount of money to pay for waistcoats.
She opened the drawers and found more receipts. Nothing about travel plans—no coaching timetables or names of ships.
She found a pamphlet of bawdy verses underneath a bottle of... she opened it and sniffed... brandy.
She could use some brandy after what she’d seen tonight. She took a long drink from the bottle, sputtering as the strong spirits burned down her throat.
Why did men like drinking this stuff so much? It wasn’t very pleasant. But if she was going to be a real spy, she’d have to develop a taste for brandy, in the event that she had to drink with someone in order to wheedle information out of them.
The brandy wasn’t so bad the second time around. Didn’t burn so much and produced a lovely warm sensation in her belly, much like the feeling she’d had when she watched the duke’s self-ministration. Was that what one called it? Self-stimulation, perhaps?
She’d have to ask him the next time they spoke.
Oh good Lord. Perhaps brandy was a bad choice. She untied her bonnet strings and set her bonnet on the desk.
The verses could be a clue, or even a code. She had an aptitude for deciphering codes.
Her nimble tongue, love’s lesser lightning, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
