not look to her stepdaughter for confirmation. In fact, neither so much as glanced at the other, which was interesting.
Griz could ask no more without rudeness, but it certainly gave her cause to investigate Mr. Gabriel further. She was sure the Derryn women were hiding something, which could only be the time of Gabriel’s arrival. But why?
***
Griz had given Nancy’s letters, which she discovered behind the loose wall panel beside the maid’s bed, to Mr. and Mrs. Barrow. But she had kept back the scribbled notes of addresses.
She sprawled now on her bed, with all the notes spread out for her examination. Some were in different ink and probably different pens since some of the notes bore thicker letters than others. On the other hand, she did think they were mostly in the same hand, and she didn’t think it was Nancy’s.
Gabriel’s?
She gathered them up and slid off the bed. She had never seen Mr. Gabriel’s handwriting, to her knowledge, but she was sure she would discover an example in Horace’s study. And for at least another hour, Horace would be at his office in Whitehall.
She walked briskly downstairs to the ground floor and the smallish room at the back of the house that Horace used as his study. It was convenient so that he could work late without being disturbed or disturbing others.
He kept it very sparse and neat, with a row of pens and inks along the back of the desk and a shallow basket for documents on either side. The largest space, in the middle of the desk, was entirely clear, its polish gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine.
There were only a few papers in the left-hand basket and none at all in the other. His desk drawers were, as she had expected, locked. Horace’s study was not a place to spy out his or his department’s secrets. He was far too discreet for that.
Griz didn’t want to know her country’s secrets. She just wanted to find a note, however innocuous, in Mr. Gabriel’s handwriting.
She picked up the first paper from the basket, a report from some underling. The one beneath was longer, several pages, but it was the note beneath that caught her attention.
Worth reading when you have time, but long-winded and not urgent. G.
“Aha!” G had to be Gabriel. She set the document with its attached note on the desk and took the scraps of paper from her pocket. “Drat,” she breathed, scowling at them. The pen had leaned less hard on the scraps of paper than on Gabriel’s note, and they were straight where his writing sloped to the right. The tails of his letters had unexpected little flourishes, and his vowels were much fuller in shape.
Annoyed, she looked at the last document in the basket, on which were three notes.
For your comments, G.
Requested changes in the margins. Perfect otherwise, HN.
With requested changes, G.
Griz gazed at the middle line, initialed by her brother, and sank into Horace’s chair. It was odd, but she had rarely seen Horace’s writing. He had never written to her. His letters to the family from school had been read out by her mother or Azalea. And more recently, his infrequent letters from London to the country estates when she had been there had gone straight to her parents. She could not even recall seeing his letters waiting to be delivered or to be sent. But there it was now, one hastily written, initialed line. And it looked just like Nancy’s notes.
Without warning, the door opened, and Horace strode in. He froze, startled to see her sitting at his desk.
“Griz? What the devil are you doing in here?”
There was no lie that could possibly work in this situation. In any case, she had always preferred the truth. “I was looking for an example of Mr. Gabriel’s handwriting.”
Horace’s already prominent frown deepened. “Why?”
Since they were lying all over the desk, she said, “I was comparing them to scraps of notes that had been with Nancy’s things. I thought she might have been working for him.”
Horace’s gaze flickered over the notes. Presumably, he recognized them. “It’s none of your business, Griz.”
“She was my maid,” Griz said flatly. “She was murdered. And she was working for you.”
He didn’t deny it, merely said impatiently, “The two facts are not connected.”
“Prove it!”
He scowled. “Stop being annoying. You will have to take my word for—”
“Please, Horace,” she said fiercely. “I have never asked you for anything since I was twelve years old. I need to know.”