In the Shadows

Page after page of it, Thomas flipping through them until he

stopped on a list of names. “Here now,” he whispered, then pulled

a piece of paper out of his vest pocket, unfolding and smoothing

it. “Looks like someone was keeping tabs on just what this Ladon

Vitae was up to.”

The names on the two lists frequently matched, but the book

had far more details. Kidnapping, blackmail, conspiracies . . .

“Does that say Napoleon?” Thomas asked, squinting in disbe-

lief at the book.

“Are they after him, too?” Charles shifted in bed, pulling a

pillow over his head so his voice was muffled. “Someone ought to

tell them he’s quite dead.”

“How do we fight this?” Thomas leaned back, fear and exhaus-

tion written onto his face.

It hurt Cora to see him like that, to be unable to fix it. She

needed to fix it. She looked back at the book, her eyes watering,

fixed on

the term Blackmail underlined twice next to a name she

didn’t recognize.

And then she had an idea.

Cora handed a stack of parcels to Annie O’Connell, who was

making the weekly delivery to the post. “Thank you.”

Annie nodded, turning her head to shrug the thanks off. She

was pleasant and quiet and did her work well. It made Cora

sad most of the time, seeing how easily the role she played to help

her mother was filled by someone else. But right now she had

plenty of other worries to fill her mind. Annie was welcome to the

dusting.

She wanted to watch until Annie reached the end of the lane,

but it was important not to draw attention to what she was doing