Chapter Twenty Four

Emma, you must sleep at some point," Diana chided gently as she arrived at Emma's side at the small table Emma had taken for her own use. "You have been at this for a day and a half." With one hand, she set a plate near Emma's elbow, filled with whatever Emma supposed had been served for dinner.

Emma had not set a menu with her cook, but the woman and her staff were accustomed to feeding twenty children three meals every day. An additional forty adults was an inconvenience, to be sure, but nothing she could not accomplish. Blearily, through the haze of more than two days without sleep, Emma groped for the fork and knife Diana offered. "Has everyone else eaten?"

"Hours ago," Diana said. "It's near to midnight already."

Midnight. She supposed it must be. But the servants had kept the candles lit so that the room blazed with light at all hours, and it had altered her perception of the passing of time. "There will be time to sleep," she said. "Later." Two days from now, perhaps.

"Everyone else has," Diana said. "At least a nap, Emma. You are the only one who has managed so frantic a pace."

Emma supposed she had, however distantly, noted various people cycling through the ballroom, disappearing for a few hours at a time and reappearing later, when the undeniable need for sleep had been satiated. Probably the revolving groups of them had kept her staff quite busy with the constant changing of linens.

But for herself? "I can't sleep." With one hand, Emma wiped the weariness from her eyes. "That is to say, I couldn't. Not even if I wished to." Every time she closed her eyes for more than a few seconds, she saw the unnatural bend of Kit's knee, the odd angle of Rafe's fingers, wreathed in dark bruises. Somehow she cleared the images from her head and said, with a gentle pat to Diana's shoulder, "Perhaps it is time for you to take your own advice. You are with child; it cannot be good for you to keep such a schedule yourself."

"I will, shortly," Diana said, with a wan smile. "Ben insisted I nap earlier in the afternoon. I don't think either of us will manage much sleep either. And Hannah—"

Emma sucked in a breath. "How is she?"

"Worried," Diana said. "We've kept it from her as much as possible, but she's a clever child. She knows something is wrong. Thank God Marcus and Lydia's son is still too young to understand." Carefully, she sank into the chair beside Emma's. "Dannyboy has been very kind to Hannah," she said. "Of course we could not send her home again without us, so he came to fetch her this morning and took her to lessons with the rest of the children."

A much different sort of education than Hannah was likely used to. But it had been a clever way to distract the girl, and for that she could be grateful.

The drone of conversation drifted around her, and she managed to carve a slice of something—chicken, she thought—from her plate and shove it into her mouth. It had long grown cold, but at least it would save her from hunger pangs. As she chewed she watched two of Phoebe's sisters standing before the painting Neil had made upon the wall, consulting books their husbands held open, turning pages one at a time. "Has anyone…found anything?"

Gravely, Diana shook her head. "And we've run through most of the books," she said. "It's the numbers, you see. They don't seem to correspond to anything. Not pages, not lines. I don't suppose there were any more books?"

Ambrose had had hundreds of books in his office. These were just the ones Rafe had deemed most likely, based upon what of Ambrose's interests she had told him. But it would serve her no purpose to lose hope. It would serve Rafe and Kit no purpose.

"I will have Neil gather what there is," she said. From what remained, at least. She managed to force down one more bite, and it sat like lead within the sour pitch of her stomach. "Do get some sleep yourself," she said. "I will work a while longer, I think."

"All right," Diana said as she rose to her feet. But before she turned back to her husband, she bent to embrace Emma. "Thank you," she said fiercely. "I can't imagine this has been easy for you. I just wanted you to know how very grateful I am. And I hope—I hope that when this is over—"

Emma pursed her lips against the bitter sob that wanted to escape, closed her eyes against the stinging burn of tears.

"I hope that you can forgive him," Diana said in a rush, and her own dark eyes glittered behind the lenses of her spectacles. "Because I would very much like for you to be my sister by marriage."

The sob escaped anyway, muffled against Diana's shoulder, and Emma breathed through the terrible pain of it, the awful truth that had hidden itself away within the wounded part of her heart—that she had forgiven him already. But she could never forgive herself for letting him go to his grave without knowing it, with the certainty that he had secured only her hatred.

"Oh, Emma," Diana sighed. "Please take care of yourself."

With trembling hands Emma eased herself from Diana's embrace. "Go," she said, her lips forming the words in a mute whisper. "I will work just a while longer." Valiantly she attempted a reassuring smile, but by the frown that creased Diana's brow as she returned to her husband's side, Emma suspected she had not been successful.

Discarded scraps of paper littered the surface of the table before her, and her pen moved in a frenetic blur as she worked, her fingers cramping past the point of pain even into an odd numbness. She was aware—vaguely, distantly—by the renewed zeal of the voices that had mostly dimmed to a hazy rumble in the back of her mind that Neil had brought the rest of the books that had once adorned the shelves of Ambrose's study. Time passed in the delivering of fresh pots of tea, in the patterns of feet traipsing across the floor, in the lighting of new candles. There was a persistent buzz in her ears, an ache in her clenched jaw, and a curious dryness of her throat despite the copious cups of tea she had consumed. It was a struggle to keep the letters from swimming off of the page before her eyes, to check and recheck them against various texts.

And then, finally, the stomp of small feet scurrying toward her jerked her attention from the page. Her letters had gone crooked upon it, slanting in a messy jumble, like the slur of drunkenness rendered visible. She blinked twice, in an effort to clear her fogged vision enough to reveal her visitor.

"Dannyboy," she said in a strange rasp. "What are you doing awake at this hour? Have you had a nightmare?"

His brows lifted, disappearing beneath the untidy fluff of his bangs. "It's morning," he said. "Didn't ye know?" He lifted his hand to reveal a plate set upon it, which had been loaded up with eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and points of toast. "I brung ye this. From the children's table."

Emma's heart sank to the soles of her shoes. Had she truly worked straight through the night, so many hours passing as if in minutes? "Thank you, Dannyboy. How very kind of you." She managed to dredge up a soft smile for him along with a fond stroke of his hair, and he preened beneath the attention. "I suppose you must be waiting for Hannah?"

"Yes," he said, and ducked his head with an abashed expression. "But I don't expect she'll want to come today," he added.

"Whyever not?" Emma asked.

"She don't like being Guildenstern," Dannyboy confided. "But I got to be Rosencrantz, and someone's got to tell me my lines, since I can't read ‘em m'self."

For a moment, Emma could only stare vacantly, uncomprehending. "Oh," she said at last. "Hamlet." Miss Finch must have started the older children on Shakespeare. There was an odd sort of irony in it, since it had also been amongst Ambrose's favorites. And why not? It was a play rife with murder and spying, plotting and betrayal, with a tragic end for those involved. A tidy little parody of her present situation.

Hamlet—along with a few other favored plays—had been amongst those books upon the shelves in his office. Her fingers drifted toward the stack of notes Rafe had once made, scanning the lines. There; Hamlet. And Othello. And Antony and Cleopatra. All with neat scores of tally marks made beside them, indicating that they had been checked over and over, and by more pairs of eyes than only her own. Another dead end.

From the doorway of the ballroom, Hannah's voice sailed to her ears. "But Auntie Lydia, I don't want to be Guildenstern!" This was accompanied by a stomp of Hannah's small foot in perfect childish petulance.

Dannyboy rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh much too large for so small a boy.

"I thought you liked Shakespeare," Lydia said, as she conveyed the girl toward Emma's table where Dannyboy waited. Of course, Lydia, who managed a theatre which had performed rather a lot of Shakespeare's plays, would take offense.

"I like the comedies," Hannah groused. "And the poems."

"Sonnets, darling," Lydia said. "They're called sonnets." She turned a contrite smile upon Emma. "I caught her wandering the upper floor," she said. "I think she must have slipped out while Diana and Ben were sleeping."

"Only for breakfast!" Hannah said. "But I got lost. Can't I stay? I truly do not want to be Guildenstern."

"Ye gotta be," Dannyboy said. "Else how's I'm s'posed to be Rosencrantz?"

Hannah thrust her nose into the air. "I won't get killed just so you can be Rosencrantz!" she declared.

"Yer shammin' me. That's not what ‘appens, is it?" Dannyboy cast wide eyes at Emma.

"I'm afraid so," she said apologetically. "To both Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. There's rather a lot of death that goes on in the tragedies." And perhaps a touch too much even in the comedies. A perverse echo of life, she supposed.

"Well, I don't want to get killed, neither," Dannyboy said, setting his shoulders in a mulish stubbornness.

Hannah sidled closer, loosing Lydia's hand to take Dannyboy's instead. "Auntie Emma, haven't you got a copy of one of the comedies we could borrow? I promise we shall be very quiet, and I shall help Dannyboy with his reading."

"No, darling, I'm afraid I don't." She had never favored Shakespeare—though she had dutifully attended each of Lydia's plays, regardless.

Hannah thrust her lower lip out in a pout. "Nor even any sonnets?"

Emma shook her head. "But Miss Finch surely has quite a selection on hand. She likes to teach the children a bit of everything. If you can convince her to—to—"

A queer buzzing took up residence within her ears, drowning out the dull drone of voices around her. Ambrose had once had a book of sonnets. It had been a family heirloom, passed down from oldest son to oldest son; a rare quarto printed in 1609. She had returned it years and years ago, shortly after his death, since she would never have a son upon whom to bestow it. It had seemed fair, since she had got everything else of his.

She hadn't given a thought to it in years. Ten of them, more or less.

Her trembling fingers swiped through discarded balls of paper, through all of her failed efforts, searching for the list. The damned list of those wretched, incomprehensible numbers. There—she snatched it up, and it quivered in the clutch of her fingers. "Lydia," she said, through the tight vise of her throat. "How many sonnets are there? Exactly how many?"

"One hundred fifty-four," Lydia said, her brow pleating. "Why do you ask?"

"The list." Emma swallowed hard. "Mind you, there's numbers missing—but the highest is one hundred forty-eight." Not exact. Not proof positive. But a chance, she thought, however small.

Lydia sat abruptly, as if her knees had buckled beneath her, only managing to find half her seat in a chair as she wilted into it. "Do you think?" she whispered.

Emma could only hope. Nothing else had worked thus far. "Hannah," she said. "Tell Miss Finch I require every book of sonnets she has got on hand, and bring them here at once. And you may keep one for you and Dannyboy to read together for your troubles."

With a gleeful squeal, Hannah dashed for the door, dragging Dannyboy along in her wake.

Lydia reached for a blank sheet of paper and took up Emma's discarded pen as she repositioned the abandoned inkwell near her elbow. "Which number have you got?" she asked, with a nod toward the small section of the journal from which Emma had been working.

"Seventeen," Emma said. "Why? Have you got them memorized?"

"Nearly all of them. Some better than others." Lydia dipped the nib in the ink and began to write out the first line. "Just to verify," she said, her voice squeaking across a full octave. "I shouldn't think we'd require more just to—to be certain."

To be certain that it—like everything else they'd tried—wouldn't produce only nonsense, she meant. Emma took the page that Lydia offered and blew upon the ink to dry it. "I'm afraid to try," she admitted. "I'm afraid to be wrong."

Lydia placed one hand over hers. "You are so much braver than you know," she said. "Be just a little braver now, Emma."

Slowly, painstakingly, Emma copied the line Lydia had written and matched up the ciphered text beneath it, letter for letter. As she checked each pair of letters against the table that Neil had painted upon the wall, new text bloomed beneath her pen.

No, not simple text. Words.

Lydia gave a choked laugh, swiping at her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "It works," she said. "Emma, it works. You've done it."

And Emma collapsed into her arms and sobbed in relief.

∞∞∞

Things happened swiftly when the children returned, carrying some fifteen volumes between them. Not quite enough for every child within Emma's care, but then perhaps half of the children were still learning their letters and could not be expected to appreciate Shakespeare just yet.

Not enough for everyone present to have a copy of their own. Still, with three or so sonnets printed per page, it would require only a handful of books to manage all the work, provided they received the same treatment as the journal.

"Here you are," Emma said, sacrificing a single copy to Hannah and Dannyboy. "And now neither of you need suffer the fate of Rosencrantz or Guildenstern."

Lydia had taken the opportunity while they had been waiting—and while Emma herself had taken a private moment to allow herself a good cry—to rouse those who had not yet risen and assemble their party together once more. Most had clearly seen better days, wearied beyond measure and in clothing wrinkled beyond repair. But the mood had made a notable shift for the celebratory as they clustered around.

"Thirty-three," Phoebe said, muffling a yawn in her hand. "I have thirty-three."

Emma spilled the armload of books across a convenient table, rifling through the pages of one. "Here," she said, as she found the appropriate page and ripped it from its binding. "Thirty-three."

The crowd descended upon the table en masse, books passing through hands quicker than Emma could blink, the rending of pages a constant refrain.

"Twenty-seven," shouted someone shouted beyond her shoulder.

"And here! I've got fifty-six!"

"One hundred thirteen for me!"

Lydia clutched her own page in her hand, though Emma suspected she didn't truly require it. "Poor Shakespeare," she said. "To have his work destroyed."

But it was for a just cause—a tragedy that had turned upon itself and discovered, Emma hoped, a happy ending hiding in plain sight. "I'll buy new," Emma said. "It will keep the booksellers happy, I imagine."

Besides, many hands made light work. And so very many people had come to do it. Within hours, the journal in its entirety would be deciphered, an impossible task at last completed.

"What will you do?" Lydia asked. "When it is done, I mean. What will you do with the journal?"

There was only one thing she could do. In so precarious a position, rife with uncertainty over who might be trusted, and with limited time in which to save two lives, there existed only one possibility that remained open to her.

"I suppose I must go to St. James's Palace," she said. With a wealth of evidence finally revealed for its true nature in hand, to have a proper conversation, queen to king.