Chapter Twenty One

By the time Emma had finished recounting the details of Sir Roger's call, Kit's face had gone several shades paler. His hand shook as he lifted his glass to his lips, swallowing down far too much liquor in a single, pained gulp. "Christ," he said, in a low, despairing tone. "Christ."

"I—I've made a dreadful mistake, haven't I?" Emma asked, dropping her head.

Kit swiped one hand through his hair, his fingers yanking a few knots free on the pass. "No," he said. "It's not your fault, Em. There is nothing you could have done differently."

Her throat tightened with encroaching panic. "I don't understand," she said, wringing her hands. "All of this, Kit—it's beyond my comprehension."

Sinking back in his chair, Kit heaved a sigh and scrubbed one hand over his jaw. "We told him," he said, "that the journal had contained nothing of import. A journal, and only that. He accepted that explanation, because there was no pressing reason not to. If we had had the proof of his perfidy, we would have wielded it against him. There is information to be learned, Em, not only in what is said and done but in what is not said and done."

Oh. Her shoulders sank, her fingers going lax in her lap. What had she told the man, not only with the words she had spoken, but with the ones she had not? With her actions and inactions?

"Em, it was a doomed endeavor before he had ever set foot in your home. He had his suspicions even before he arrived that we had been less than forthcoming with him—and perhaps more than forthcoming with you," Kit said. "He came only to confirm those suspicions. He prevailed upon you because you haven't the training to lie convincingly."

He had deliberately set her off-guard, reading her reactions to gauge the truth. And she had not been a proficient enough liar, nor quick enough at thinking on her feet to deceive him. "He asked to see the journal," she said.

"And you did not show it to him," Kit said.

Her spine stiffened with outrage. "Of course I did not! How could I have done?"

"You couldn't have," Kit said. "But that is also information, Em. Enough of it for Sir Roger to make some credible guesses as to the contents thereof."

At once, several disjointed pieces clicked into place within her mind; a sudden, startling understanding. She had not fooled Sir Roger with her feigned outrage at his perceived abandonment. She had not fooled him with the meager defense of safeguarding Ambrose's private thoughts. She had all but told him, with her refusal to share it, what he had already suspected: that the journal contained information that might well implicate him.

She had also told him, with that same inaction, that she had not read its contents. Because it was just as Kit had said. If there had been concrete proof, it have would have been wielded against him already.

If you can, he had said. But he had meant if you are able—and she was not. He knew she was not. And he knew, too, that no one was.

"I told him it was ciphered," she whispered. He had given her a choice that was no choice at all, had had her in check before he had even entered the room. And she had walked right into the trap he had set for her. She hadn't known it, hadn't even suspected. In comparison to a master, she was only a novice. A mere pawn upon the board, to be manipulated as he saw fit. "I told him."

"You didn't tell him," Kit said. "But he's shrewd enough, experienced enough, to make the assumption himself. There truly is nothing you could have done differently," Kit repeated, though his face had not regained its color. "It's not your fault, Em." He said it as if he wished to impress it upon her, as if he wished to absolve her of the consequences of it before they had happened.

Her head pounded with the frantic thud of her pulse. "What is going to happen?" she whispered. "Kit, what can we do?"

"I don't know," he said, and swallowed hard. "Em…there may be nothing we can do. Thus far he's done nothing inherently suspicious. We've no proof whatsoever of current wrongdoings, no evidence to suggest any active engagement in illegal activities. Without that journal, we have nothing. Have you…taken precautions to guard it?"

"Yes," she said on a rush of relief that she had had that much foresight at least. She hadn't liked the way Sir Roger's gaze had lingered upon her desk. Hadn't liked his attention to the ink stains upon her fingers. "Yes, I have."

"Good," he said. "Tell no one its location. No one, Em. Not even me." His shaking fingers swiped at his jaw. "So long as the journal is in play, he will try to take it. And if he succeeds, the game is over."

Checkmate. A shiver slipped up her spine. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean we will have nothing and he shall have everything," Kit said. "He'll destroy it if he can, and then—then there will be a traitor within the Home Office, free to act with impunity. There is no telling what damage he might cause, the lengths to which he might go to protect himself and his position."

And they would all be marked as his enemies. Obstacles to be removed—or eliminated.

∞∞∞

The quiet creep of footfalls upon the stairs raised Rafe's hackles before the intruder had even reached the door of his study. It wasn't the regular step he had come to associate with his housekeeper, nor the thunderous stomp generally indicative of Dannyboy's overeager stride. He was reaching into the drawer of his desk for his pistol before the door had opened, one hand curling around the handle.

And yet it was Dannyboy's head that appeared in the gap of the door, his brow furrowed in consternation. "Oi, guv," he said. "There's an awful lot o' men outside yer house. Did ye know?"

A pit of unease formed in Rafe's stomach. "Are there?" he asked. "What did they look like?"

Dannyboy gave a jerky little shrug, struggling to remain an aloof demeanor. "I didn't like the look o' any of ‘em," he said. "I came through the back, like ye said—but I didn't let them get a peek at me afore I did."

The boy had damned good instincts. Even at his age he had seen enough to know that some sorts of people were not meant to be crossed. That there existed a whole subset of the population who would not think twice about apprehending even a boy of his tender years. And if they were lingering outside of Rafe's home, well—

He was about to be arrested.

He couldn't even say it was particularly unexpected. He had always known it was a dangerous game he had played, and that Sir Roger made a powerful enemy. And now, somehow, he had been found out.

Rafe rose to his feet, shoving his hand within his pocket to retrieve his coin purse. "Mrs. Morris let you in?" he asked.

"Yeah," Dannyboy said. "She weren't pleased about it. Said I got mud all o'er ‘er clean floors." His eyes fixed upon the purse in Rafe's hand in expectation of the promised coin. "If you ain't got nothing for me—"

Rafe tossed the entire purse to the lad. Unless he missed his guess, he wouldn't be needing it any longer.

Dannyboy's eyes rounded as he caught it in the cup of his hand. "What do ye want for this?" he asked.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully," Rafe said, "and to follow my instructions to the letter. You must leave the house the same way you entered and take Mrs. Morris with you." The poor woman could too easily be caught within the web that Sir Roger had cast, and her only crime had been keeping house. "Tell her she's not to come back. And then you must go straight to Emma's, and stay there."

"Fer ‘ow long?" Dannyboy inquired, though a long, hard swallow bobbed in his throat. Probably too much of Rafe's disquiet had shown upon his face, and even a boy of his years could sense that something had gone terribly wrong.

Christ. He didn't know. The tides had turned, pitching him overboard, and he could not see his way out. Could not see if there was a way out. "Until she tells you it's safe," he said. "Tell her—tell her I've been arrested. Tell her that her brother likely has, too. And tell her that whatever happens, she must keep it hidden. She'll know what it means." His fingers itched to write out the instructions, but there was always the chance that Dannyboy would fail. That the note would be intercepted. That it would then be used against him in an attempt at the subversion of their goal, a perfect bit of evidence of a criminal conspiracy. "Have you got all of that?"

Dannyboy nodded, his fist clenched around the purse, his eyes growing wide and frightened.

"Go," Rafe said. "Go now. And take care of yourself." He had grown rather absurdly fond of the boy, and it was as close to a farewell as he could manage.

Dannyboy made a queer little sound in his throat, halfway to a sob, and Rafe thought—just maybe, the boy had developed a fondness for him as well. "Goodbye," Dannyboy said in a choked voice, and darted out of the room, his footfalls nearly soundless upon the stairs.

Rafe would have liked to offer the boy some assurance, some faint hope to cling to, but he could find precious little of it even within himself. He knew only too well the fate that awaited men in his position. A short drop and a sudden stop would be a mercy.

He was surprised at the steadiness of his hand as he poured himself one last glass of brandy and sat back in his chair to enjoy it. The last taste of freedom he was likely to have—and it tasted mostly of regret. What would Marcus think of him? Diana? Likely not much, given that she had been furious enough to refuse him the last two Saturdays he'd come for breakfast, as she had once demanded of him.

What would Emma think of him? Probably, he thought, nothing at all. Perhaps that he had earned his comeuppance.

He had almost finished his brandy when at last he heard the unmistakable sound of his front door being broken down, and he rose to his feet once more to descend the stairs and meet his fate.

∞∞∞

"Dannyboy!" Neil's shout preceded the echoing stomp of small, booted feet in the hall without the room that had once been Ambrose's study, and Emma jerked at the intrusion of the sound, her concentration ripped away from her. Dannyboy?

"Emma!" It was practically a wail, high and keening—the sort of sound that she would expect of a child in the throes of a nightmare, and it brought her surging to her feet, abandoning the books clustered around her as she strode for the door.

It had hardly opened beneath her hand before the boy barreled straight through it, and he cast his arms around her middle, his small shoulders heaving with each frenetic breath. "They got ‘im," he said, his voice muffled against her stomach.

Her brow furrowed in confusion even as she draped her arms around him, offering a few soothing pats to his back. "Dannyboy, what—"

"The lad got away from me," Neil said breathlessly as he appeared in the doorway, his chest heaving with the exertion of having raced after the child. "I can take him to the schoolroom—"

"No!" Dannyboy's arms squeezed her as if he thought he might be pried away. "I gotta tell ‘er first," he said. "'E said I ‘ad to!"

"There now, it's all right," Emma said in what she hoped was a soothing cadence, with a brisk nod to Neil, a silent instruction to stand down for the moment. "Tell me what?"

"'E said to tell ye ‘e's been arrested," Dannyboy said on the tail end of a sob. "Said they got likely got yer brother, too. Said I was to stay ‘ere until ye said it was safe and that ye was to keep it ‘idden no matter what."

Emma's breath sailed from her lungs on a massive rush, as if a knife had slipped between her ribs and punctured them. Her legs trembled, her knees buckled—and Dannyboy came crashing to the floor alongside her in a tangle of limbs. Arrested. Rafe and Kit?

I am deeply, deeply sorry, Sir Roger had said. And this had been the why of it; his next move across the board. Two knights captured in one fell swoop. Hardly a sporting play, but she ought to have expected it of a man who would cheat to win.

"My lady!" Neil strode forward to help her regain her feet, but still Dannyboy clung to her with tiny whimpers of distress, and Emma did not think her legs would yet hold her besides.

What was she meant to do? She was no spy, no strategist. How was she meant to hold her own against a man who knew ever so much more than did she, who was not afraid to use such underhanded tactics to achieve his own ends?

She drew in a short breath, and it tasted like pain, like grief.

She could not lose them. She would not survive it.

"Neil," she said, and the words sounded so very fragile; just thin glass vulnerable to shattering. "I shall need you to have a room made up for Dannyboy. Close to mine, if you please. He will be staying with us indefinitely." She tempered this with a soothing stroke through Dannyboy's dark hair, though her fingers trembled. "You'll be safe here," she said, and tried to inflect her voice with a confidence she did not feel. For the boy's sake. "Perhaps you'd feel better if we sent a note to your mother?"

Dannyboy's eyes slid away from hers. "She won't even notice I'm gone," he said in a small voice, as if that fact shamed him to admit.

As Neil backed out of the room to make up a bed for Dannyboy, Emma wrapped her arms around the child once more, taking comfort from the embrace of his thin arms. "We are going to find our way through this," she said. "You and I. Together."

And she found there within herself, beyond the pain and the bewilderment and the fear, the strength to believe it. She had too long been a pawn within someone else's game, and that game had been one weighted against her from the beginning.

To win it, she would have to instead become the queen.