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“And?” Rowles asked, the initial shock filtering into a cold understanding.
“And I can. So…I’ve been assisting my brother for a few years.”
“Good Lord, you’ve been at this for years?”
“Er, yes?” Joan answered with an apologetic tone. “It’s good work, and I’ve helped our country quite a bit.”
“You’re more like Joan of Arc than I originally thought.”
“I rather thought the idea was poetic, I confess. But I digress.” Her features settled into an expression of seriousness. “Morgan was evaluating three missives. Those were the pages I took from his desk.” She withdrew them from under her black cape. “And I noticed something… Come, sit by me so I can lay these on the seat.”
Rowles quickly switched seats, the warmth of Joan beside him melting away some of the harsh truth of her words. She laid out the missives and started pointing to a few words.
“The locations are all different, but I noticed they were quite closely clustered together.”
“And?”
“And I noted the dates were the same, but something didn’t sit right with me. The missives are about securing the ‘relic.’ But nothing we’ve done recently has been with this sort of smuggling. And then I started thinking. Why would they give locations all close together? If you were trying to keep someone from showing up at the right location, wouldn’t you want them widely scattered so it was more difficult?” she postulated.
“I suppose,” Rowles agreed slowly. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the concept that Joan, his Joan, was a spy of sorts. Or at least an aide to the War Office. Good Lord. His chest tightened at the idea, the knowledge of it sitting like a rock in his stomach, weighing him down. She was undertaking dangerous work.
Unaware of his internal struggle, she continued. “They clustered them together because it’s a trap. They don’t care where the War Office agent arrives. The group of miscreants will all be close enough to do whatever they intend to do. And they used the word ‘relic.’ Relics are usually holy items from the saints.”
“Yes, like the chains from St. Peter in Rome.”
“Exactly. Rowles…” She took a slow breath, her body angling to study his face fully. She swallowed, her green eyes troubled. “My name with the War Office is Saint.”
Understanding smashed into him like a hammer. “Good God, they’re after you?” Rowles’s muscles locked down as if preparing for a brawl. So help him, no one would touch her, not as long as he drew breath.
“Which is why Morgan left,” Joan continued. “He must have figured it out. I dispatched word to the War Office to send assistance, but I didn’t want to linger and wait till they arrived.”
“I can’t say I agree, but I do understand. I don’t like the idea of you being so close to danger.”
Joan shrugged. “But this doesn’t happen often—the danger part. Morgan will throttle me after I arrive and we take care of the situation. I’m sure I’ll endure the lecture of a lifetime.”
“He’s not the only one who will be lining up to lecture you,” Rowles commented softly.
Joan’s brow arched, and she met his gaze unflinchingly. “I do not require your approval, Rowles.”
The words hit him like a punch to the gut, because at once he knew they were the truth. They were engaged, yes. But not married. And she was her own person, with decisions that were hers alone to make, this being one of them.
And she had trusted him with this secret of hers.
“You’re right, but as your impulse is to protect your brother, my impulse is to protectyou,” he answered. “So I will do my best to understand this. I ask you to give me time to adjust as well.”
Joan’s expression softened. “Forgive me. Yes, of course.” She sighed. “It’s not an excuse, but aside from my brother, you’re the only one who knows, and you’re also the only one with an opinion that truly matters to me.” Her eyes dropped to her hands as she picked at her gloves. “I know it’s strange, and not the usual set of activities for a lady, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.” She lifted a shoulder. “And I also know that…my skills…are not conventional. Morgan warned me…so often…about how my involvement with the war office could be taken as less than ladylike, and likely make me the object of scorn. It’s not the usual vocation of a gently bred woman. Intrigue is far more dangerous than needlework.”
Rowles could easily imagine Morgan’s worries; he shared a few as well.
“But I’m not any of those things,” she continued. “I’m just…me. And for some reason, God gave me a skill. Not using it to help others seems such a waste. So, here I am.”
Rowles nodded once, then reached out, grasped her fidgeting hands within his, and squeezed once, twice, then held her fingers. “One of the very first things that captured my attention about you was your ability to see through me, the world, the injustices that surround us. It makes sense now, that you are able to peel back the lies to see the truth beneath, but I’ll never forget how you looked at me, your eyes piercing my very soul while we waltzed that first time and you gave me a lovely gift.”
As he spoke, her body relaxed and she leaned against him, her shoulder settling against his arm. She gave a small laugh. “Morgan thought I’d given myself away with that comment. It was too ‘telling,’ he’d said.”
“It was, but not in the way he likely assumed. It gave me hope. It removed the lie that I’d been feeding with my fear. It set me free in so many ways. Because even though I didn’t know you well, I believed you.”
“I was telling the truth.”
