Together, they turned. She slipped her hand in Charles’s arm, and they headed for her room.
Ten minutes later, she slipped under the covers, and snuggled up against Charles. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. One hand on his chest, she pushed back enough to look into his face. “What are you thinking?”
His gaze flicked down to meet hers. “That strange though it seems, having disliked him and having him dislike me on first sight, I now have a certain sympathy for old Nicholas.” His lips curved. Drawing his hands from under his head, he closed his arms about her and lifted her so she lay atop him. “He’s had to deal with the Selborne wild streak, and he’s really not up to it.”
She arched a brow. “And you are, I suppose.”
He smiled, devilishly, and shifted beneath her. “Oh, yes.”
CHAPTER 19
THEY RECONVENED OVER THE BREAKFAST TABLE THE NEXT morning and decided on their way forward. Nicholas and Charles would work on a detailed report for Dalziel. Penny, meanwhile, would make a detailed inventory of the pillboxes.
Charles insisted on instituting formal guard patrols around the house as well as maintaining those inside. “We want to leave him in no doubt that we’ve taken his measure. Later, we can appear to be less vigilant and invite him in—when we’re ready, and on our own terms.”
Nicholas was hesitant over potentially exposing the staff to further danger. Penny argued that that wasn’t how they, the staff, would see things; in the end, she summoned Norris and Figgs, whose patently genuine reactions to Charles’s suggestion reassured Nicholas.
They left the breakfast parlor together. Penny went with Nicholas to the library, ostensibly to get papers and pencil to make her inventory, in reality in response to Charles’s silent direction to keep an eye on Nicholas, who was still very weak, while Charles went to organize his patrols.
She busied herself making a list of the pillboxes in the library. With both display cases smashed, Figgs and the maids had arranged the boxes on two side tables, leaving the cards scribed in her father’s hand in a neat pile. Matching each card with the correct box took time. She’d just completed the task when Charles returned.
He nodded to her and went to join Nicholas at the desk, pulling up a chair to one side. Quickly listing the boxes and their descriptions, Penny listened as he and Nicholas discussed how best to structure their report. Detecting no difficulties between them, she collected a magnifying glass and headed for the door—and the sixty-four boxes concealed in the priest hole.
When she came downstairs more than two hours later, her wrist was sore. Entering the library, she saw Charles writing at the end of the desk; she knew he was aware of her, but he didn’t look up.
Nicholas was sitting in his chair, his head back, eyes closed.
As she neared, his eyes opened; he went to smile, but the gesture turned into a pained grimace. “I think we’ve got the salient points covered.”
“Nearly finished,” Charles said. “I’ll send one of your grooms to carry it to the Abbey. One of my lads will take it to London.”
Presumably Charles’s grooms knew where to deliver such missives. Penny murmured, “Luncheon will be ready as soon as you’ve finished.”
Charles nodded and kept writing.
Fifteen minutes later, with the final draft completed, reread, and signed by Nicholas, then countersigned by Charles and dispatched with not one but two grooms to the Abbey, they headed for the dining parlor.
They dallied over the meal. According to Charles, there was little they could do but wait.
“We know who he is—a French agent. We know his mission—to execute the Selbornes, Amberly at the very least, for crimes against the French state, and to recover all or some of the pillboxes and snuffboxes. What we don’t know is what disguise he’s wearing. So we wait until either he shows his hand, or we learn something to the point from Dalziel.”
“Dalziel…” Nicholas sipped the red wine Em had insisted he drink. “He seems to wield considerable power.”
Charles nodded. “I have no idea whether that power derives from his position, secret as it is, or from his real self—his personal standing, his real title, his real name—all of which are even more secret than his position.”
Nicholas studied his glass. “I’ve heard…whispers, never anything more. He seems a conundrum, at least within the bounds of Whitehall. He behaves as if he has no personal ambition whatever.”
Penny watched Charles roll the comment around in his head, fitting it with his own observations.
He shook his head. “That’s not quite accurate. I seriously doubt Dalziel has any personal ambition toward political or public life—I suspect it wouldn’t be an option for him. That must make him an oddity in Whitehall; with no civil service future at stake, the mandarins would have no leverage over him. However, when it comes to ambition of a different sort, relentless determination…” He drained his glass. “I think he could give us all lessons.”
Nicholas raised his brows, intrigued; Penny kept her own counsel.
The conversation drifted to other things, but they were merely passing the time. Charles had sent instructions to Filchett to redirect any communication from London to the Hall, so they no longer needed to ride to the Abbey but could remain with Nicholas—keeping a watch on Nicholas.
Penny, Figgs, Em, and Norris had discussed the advisability of Nicholas’s resting; he was still pale and drawn. Penny held herself ready to distract him with some comment every time Norris, with the unobtrusive deftness of the best of his kind, refilled Nicholas’s wineglass.
At two, Nicholas could no longer stifle his yawns. “I think,” he said, blinking dramatically, “that perhaps I should lie down for a while.”