and sunshine – and then I must confess I thought about that book. How could I not, when it is sitting there looking so innocent? And then I tried not to think about it, but the more I tried not to think, the more . . .”
“I think I understand, and, moreover, I have an idea. You did say your husband eats dinner with you?”
“Why yes, not every night, but most. Is not that what husbands do?”
The expression on Violet’s face said perhaps it was not, but she only smiled. “Excuse me a moment. I must consult with my cook. I believe she’s just received some new recipes and I believe they may be of interest to you.” She left the room.
Recipes. Why were they talking of recipes? She really must have had too much sherry. She glanced at her empty glass. The blue book lay beside it. It called to her like a lure. It would not hurt to look at it again. She would only look at the pages she had already seen – just to check that – well, just to check. She laid a hand upon it. The leather was soft, and subtle, inviting a caress. She drew her hand back. That was ridiculous – a book could not want to be touched. A book could not want anything. She reached out and stroked it again. Just one peek. Just at that last page. Nobody would ever know.
Violet reentered the room. Marguerite snatched her hand back.
Violet smiled. “You’ll have to take it with you. No, don’t refuse, I’ll win and you’ll take it regardless. Otherwise I’ll just have it delivered and you wouldn’t want the footmen seeing it, would you? Tristan might even recognize the cover. It’s a very popular volume. I wonder what he’d do if he saw you with it – might just solve all our problems. No, what I’ve thought of is just too delicious, literally.
“Now here are my favorite new recipes. Cook only just managed to procure them. Now I want you to pass them on to your cook and request them for dinner tomorrow night. Then, I want you to . . .”
Being noble was harder than he had imagined. She was only a woman. He’d had plenty of experience with women, with women he desired. He’d never had any trouble putting them out of his mind. Why was she so different?
He needed to concentrate. He stared down at the list of snippets and facts he’d laid out across his desk. None of it made sense. It was as if he looked at the pieces from a dozen puzzles, not one. It wasn’t new information, but it had always grabbed his attention before. It would serve no actual purpose to solve this puzzle now, but the mystery would not let him go.
They were the pieces that would point to a spy, to someone who had fed information to Napoleon’s forces for the last years of the war.
Once, he’d thought the pieces led to Lord Harburton. The outliers certainly pointed in that direction. A courier had been seen leaving Harburton’s house on several occasions before heading off to meet with a known French agent. Harburton’s home was never without the daintiest of tidbits and the finest of furnishings even in the midst of the blockades – smuggling could only account for so much. And much of the leaked information was information that Harburton could have found out.
The information. That was where the problem lay. It was the most scattered bits of miscellaneous detail that Tristan had ever seen and most of it had been outdated even when first passed on. Still, locked in the morass there had been a few items of value, accurate rumors of future troop movements, and detailed knowledge of the armies’ shortages – far more specific than even the quartermaster would have reported. These were pieces that Harburton could not have known.
Unless he were a true master spy with his own network. A logician so deft that he knew how to disguise the valuable in the middle of this haystack of four-month-old news and complaints of cold and mud. War was always cold and muddy.
Still, it was impossible to picture Harburton with his love of fish and game as a spy and there had never been any evidence of his gathering information. The courier had probably been sleeping with one of the housemaids and Harburton probably had a line on an extremely successful smuggler – although the quality