Chapter Nine
Before the ball that evening, Adam’s Aunt Caroline and her children gathered at Thorn’s Mayfair home for a quiet celebration of Susan’s birthday. They sat together in the drawing room, each presenting her with a gift.
Thorn handed her a small box. Removing the ribbon, she opened it and gasped, looked up at Thorn with rounded eyes, then back at the contents of the box.
“What is it, dear?” her mother asked.
“Yes, what did Cousin Thorny give you?” Her younger brother snorted.
Susan lifted a delicate necklace and held it aloft for all to see.
“The necklace belonged to our grandmother. Our grandfather gave it to her on her eighteenth birthday, a month before they married. As the oldest granddaughter, she wished for it to go to you.”
Adam wasn’t sure who sniffled first, Susan, her mother, or her twelve-year-old sister. He simply smiled.
Thorn approached their cousin, lifted the chain from her fingers and opened the latch. “Allow me.” Standing behind her, he fastened it, then returned to his place.
“It’s beautiful,” their aunt said.
“Thank you,” Susan said, her voice thick with emotion.
More packages were opened, and the younger three children returned to the nursery to raise havoc. The six of them, all told, had recovered from their father’s loss more quickly than he’d expected—was that due to his being away from home so often?
This proved Adam was right to wait to marry. Even when they’d arrested all the men responsible for Uncle Fitzwilliam’s death, there were other men to be captured, other plots against Wellington—against their King himself—to be thwarted. Napoleon’s men were spread over the Continent and England, men like Boiselle who blended in to their surroundings. Careful surveillance was required before the King’s men had the information needed to make an arrest.
Adam knew realistically they’d never capture all the spies, so he wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d stay in the army until then. What Wellington needed was for Adam and the others to intercept encrypted messages and pass them to those who could figure out the cypher code, allowing the King’s men to interpret quickly enough to stop a scheme before it started. How long that would take, he had no idea.
When Susan and her sister ran upstairs together, and her brother wandered off to his own devices. Thorn excused himself, leaving Adam alone with their aunt. He sat in the chair beside her. “My uncle would be so proud of how lovely Susan is. She’s so composed, and a pleasure to be around.”
“She’s such a good girl.”
“Have any gentlemen hinted at an attraction? Or something more?”
“There are a few who’ve tried to catch her eye, but she’s very particular about who she marries.” Aunt Caroline smiled at Adam, a wistful, sad look in her eye. “I have hopes she’ll find a man like you or Thornton, one who’s deserving of her.”
Before Adam could protest, she raised a hand. “Don’t pretend to be humble. You know very well both of you are more honorable than any six men in Town.”
Six men. That was a high standard to live up to. “I only do what I must.”
“You do what you think people expect of you. My husband wouldn’t want to you waste your life avenging his death. If that’s the only reason you are still unmarried, I want you to quit. Stop this investigation before something happens to you. I couldn’t bear losing you, or anyone else, to Napoleon’s evil.”
“I will stop, soon.”
As soon as Boiselle was securely locked away in Newgate, and his men either dead on chained beside him, he continued in his thoughts.
Leaving her, Adam went to Thorn’s study, where his brother could always be found.
“Come look at this.” Thorn held out a sheet of paper.
On the first was written Vistula, Neman, Vilna.
“What are these?” Adam set them back on the desk and sat.
“Translations of locations in recent encrypted messages taken from two spies here in London. Napoleon has been gathering his armies in Vistula, Poland. Three days ago, they crossed the Neman into Russia.”
“On their way to Vilna. Are we moving in that direction?”
“Wellington’s men are busy on the Peninsula. The French haven’t left there, they simply enlisted more men to fight in Russia.”
“How does this information help us?”
“It’s too late to use it, of course. But there’s no coincidence in the first two names. We’ve broken the code.”
Adam couldn’t share his brother’s excitement. “They’ll simply use another next time. More than likely, they use different codes for each message.”
“That’s clear by the numbers on the outside of each one. Breaking through this one lets us understand their methods better, making it easier to decipher future ones. Soon we can know the details almost as quickly as the messages are intercepted.”
Taking back the paper, Thorn returned it to a stack and filed them away in a drawer.
Since he’d begun following Boiselle in Town, there was one thing Adam couldn’t understand. “Why do you imagine Napoleon’s men are passing information here in London about their invasion of Russia? The more direct route of travel is over the Continent.”
“Subterfuge. Our cyphers look for word patterns to discover the key to the code. They’re more likely to think messages passing through Town would have to do with the Peninsula than Russia.”
“True.” Adam tugged absently as the sleeves of his shirt where they were exposed at his wrists. “Do you think Boiselle is passing along information about Russia now? How will we connect him to Almeida?”
“We don’t need to.” Thorn’s voice softened and he met Adam’s gaze. “Do we care what he’s arrested for, so long as he is caught? I doubt we’ll ever prove who really ordered Uncle Fitzwilliam be killed, nor who did the act. If that’s why you are doing this, stop now. You’ll take foolish risks.”
“Aunt Caroline said much the same thing. She fears for our safety almost as much as she did her husband.”
“I can’t tell you to walk away from your surveillance work, but I can say I’d rather see you live a long, happy life and let someone else take on your assignment.”
Adam shook his head. “That would be surrendering. No one else will feel the same need for a successful outcome.”
“Which simply means they’ll take fewer foolish risks.”
“When have I been foolish?” Anger simmered in his gut at the insult. “When?”
“Very well, that was a poor word choice. Have you been as discrete as you should be? Have you rotated our men so your presence is less obvious? Less suspicious?”
No, when there was a chance to see Mary Jane, he took that shift himself. “Only when Miss Watson was present did I follow him openly. Where she had reason to be there, I took advantage of the opportunity to use her presence.”
Thorn tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, his lips pressed thin. “You’ve used her. An unsuspecting individual. And repeatedly? Won’t she misinterpret your attention?”
Stiffening his back to keep from slumping like a child being scolded, Adam defended his actions. “I hadn’t intended to see her outside the theatre. I’m certain nothing we did there was blatant.”
Thorn waited without speaking.
“Initially, when I followed Boiselle to a ball, I had no idea if she was there or not. I used our acquaintance to circulate through the guests. I danced with her and her friend. She was in no danger of being connected to me.”
Then came their first kiss. Again, it gave a reason his presence near Boiselle. Mary Jane was as against a relationship as he was, and even found a way to use his attention to her own benefit. But they weren’t supposed to fall in love.
“What happened after that first ball?”
“Nothing, really.” It would be true if falling in love was nothing.
“All that dancing, meeting her at the theatre, and nothing happened between you? You must have told her what your purpose was. Is she an actress? That could be helpful, but do you trust her?”
“I do trust her. And I told her nothing of what I was doing. She’s no fool, she understands the need for secrecy and has accepted it without question. She also knows I can’t promise a future between us, because of the danger involved. Miss Watson—” Cutting off his explanation, he reviewed what he’d just admitted.
“I see. Adam, you must admit you can’t focus fully on your work when you’re falling in love with the woman at your side.”
“Have you tried to not fall in love?” He couldn’t deny his weakness where Mary Jane was concerned.
“I’m reassigning you.”
“Thorn—”
His brother shook his head and rearranged the paperwork on his desk, his usual sign of a conversation being over.
“I’ve told her not to wait for me. There’s nothing between us. I can continue with no distractions.”
“We’re through here.”
Adam stormed out of the room. He would not be dismissed. If they’d broken the key to the code, they were too close to success for him to quit. He would see Boiselle arrested and if he couldn’t be tried murder, Adam would settle for espionage.