Mistress of Sins (Dredthorne Hall #3) - Hazel Hunter Page 0,44

From that night on there could be no more loneliness for me. My world became us, together. Always.”

Jennet felt confused by the intensity of his words. Was he trying to apologize again for leaving her? She would not revisit that subject, not now.

“We must live through this night so we can be as you envisioned us,” she told him.

The pleasure emptied out of his eyes. “We can never be that.”

“We were just now.” Jennet pushed herself upright. “Surely you can give up this life as an assassin. It is not who you are.”

“The quickest way to get out of the hall unseen is by the staircase tower,” Greystone told her as he rose and went to the clothespress and removed a shirt. He quickly donned it and went back to his cache of weapons. “Go down the hall to the very end, turn right, and then left through the door to the stairs.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded as she fastened her soft stays and his shirt.

“Your escape. I will lure them from the house while you escape.” He handed her a dagger and a small pistol, pressing them into her hands when she wouldn’t take them. “When you reach the bottom of the stairs, walk straight ahead. The door there leads to the outside.”

Jennet shook her head. “You must come with me. Liam.”

“I must do my work now, and you cannot be part of that,” he told her. “Stay out of sight as you make your way to the road; they may have men out patrolling the grounds.” He gave her a hard, brief kiss and then strode out.

Chapter 17

Ruban upended the desk where Pickering had died, sending the drawers and their contents flying. Kicking a boot through the scattered papers did not provide any consolation. Whatever the English agent had stolen from the officer’s tent back in France remained hidden somewhere inside the house, or concealed on the Raven himself.

Staring at the puddle of blood Pickering had left behind made Ruban even more furious. He should have died after being questioned, not before. If he had been the Raven, then finding whatever he had spirited back to England would be almost impossible.

Ruban knelt and began sifting through the detritus, most of which dated back a century. Beneath a pile of receipts lay a small black notebook stamped in gold with Pickering’s initials. Opening it revealed pages of spidery writing, all in English, that detailed times, dates and remote locations across England. A single word had been noted at the end of each entry: Dispatches. Ledger. Weapons. Informant.

Already familiar with such records, Ruban now knew that Arthur Pickering had been an important courier for the English war effort. He would be sent to retrieve acquisitions too sensitive or dangerous to risk transporting openly. Bonaparte had a network of the same that he used to send and receive messages across France.

“He was not the Raven.” Ruban felt relieved and dismayed, for that meant the assassin was still at large.

The last entry in the notebook corresponded with the time, date and location of Pickering’s masquerade tonight. Beneath it he had written a single, damning word.

Cipher.

Now the reason the traitor at the chateau had killed himself became only too clear. The man had somehow stolen the cipher used by the Emperor’s officers, and passed it on to the Raven. All troop movements, battle plans, and every other effort vital to the French war effort were written in code that could only be decrypted by one cipher. The Raven would have to bring it to England, where it could be distributed by Wellington to all of his officers in the field. Once they had it, they would be able to read any communique they captured, or use it to send false messages to their enemy.

To prevent that, the only solution would be to change the cipher, Ruban thought. Yet with the French forces fighting in so many locations at present that would take weeks. In the meantime, the English could cause irreparable harm; perhaps even turn the tide of the war against Bonaparte.

If Pickering had not been the Raven, then he had come here to meet the assassin and take possession of the cipher. Which meant another man at the ball had come for that purpose. He would be someone who did not live in the village, but only came to visit infrequently, perhaps for the first time in many years.

Ruban realized who that was, and swore.

Chapter 18

He had given her the