To Sketch a Sphinx

by Rebecca Connolly

  John couldn’t.

  He should have known that things were more complicated than they appeared; they wouldn’t have brought him into this operation if things were simple. They wouldn’t have brought Hal in if the players were all known to those important enough to have influence.

  They wouldn’t have brought either of them in if they could have intercepted, memorized, and decrypted these letters themselves. And if he’d forgotten that, the stack of letters before him would remind him, rather like a slap across the face.

  He had nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  The letters were copies of the originals that Hal had picked and memorized, that mind of hers having far more ability than he’d ever expected. She copied them out for him the moment they returned home, and he’d begun to work on them.

  He had yet to break a single one of them. Which made him a completely irrelevant asset to this mission. Hal could have done this on her own.

  She should be doing this on her own.

  He’d stay, of course, if for no other reason than to keep up the pretense of their marriage, and to ensure her safety, though he wasn’t exactly a towering example of impressive musculature. He would assist her in any way he could, though at the present, that wouldn’t be much at all.

  How could he find nothing?

  Six letters. Six in the space of two weeks, and nothing at all to show for it.

  Every single cipher he could think of, he had applied to the letters. He’d looked at them individually, he’d looked at them collectively, he’d looked at them in batches… He’d even gone so far as to question Hal as to the accuracy of the words.

  She had recited each and every letter verbatim without looking at them, then hadn’t spoken to him for an entire day after that inquiry. In the tight quarters of their rooms, the silence had been deafening, and it had felt much, much longer.

  He wouldn’t be questioning her memory again, that was for certain.

  But he didn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t struggled with a project like this in his career, had barely struggled in the years prior to beginning his career, and this was a crushing blow.

  There would be no advantage for the Shopkeepers against the Faction if he couldn’t break the cipher. There would be no regaining the ground lost in Rogue’s compromise and Trace’s capture. There would be no knowing what was planned, and every office that had operatives investigating the risk would be working half blind. It could very well be the fate of England herself in his hands.

  And he had nothing.

  John groaned and put his head in his hands, the pressure and the weight of such a responsibility seeming to pull him further and further into the earth, yet refusing to actually swallow him whole.

  Yet another taste of the humor of heaven and fate. Hardly kind to him, but that was another matter.

  “Still nothing?”

  His wife’s voice might have been the screech of an irritating rat for all the pleasure it gave him. He lifted his head and glared at her as she entered the parlor from her bedchamber.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Any other woman might have stared back at him with wide eyes, surprised and hurt by the sharpness in his tone. They might have cried and made him feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for behaving badly. They might have fled the room in the face of their distress.

  Not this woman. Not Henrietta Mortimer Pratt.

  Not his Ange.

  “Exactly what I said,” she replied, somehow without actually snapping back, her hands going to her hips.

  “If I had made any progress, I’d have informed you,” he said, straightening his hair and folding his arms.

  Hal snorted softly. “How magnanimous. What a noble partner I have.”

  The sarcasm stung as though each word were a blade, and his lip curled with the offense of it. “I don’t need you reminding me of my failure, thank you very much. The throbbing ache ringing through my head on a semi-hourly basis is rather an apt reminder without your assistance.”

  As though the mention of it had bid its return, the now-familiar ache began between his eyes and spread up into the front of his head, pulsing ominously.

  Hal stared at him without any emotion whatsoever. “If you’re already declaring failure, we might as well go home.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Marvelous. The Shopkeepers can find another artist with an exact memory and a codebreaker without equal, and they can marry for respectability and find connections in Paris on their own, hopefully with the right standing to get them the information that is needed so that every operative in England can feel a bit safer when they begin an assignment. I’m sure there’s another pair ready to go at this moment.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No.” This time she did snap at him and strode over to the table, leaning her hip against it and folding her arms to match his. “This is meant to be difficult, Pratt, or they could have brought in anyone else. Do you think I am the only person in the ranks who can draw with skill? Or the only person with an exemplary memory? Are you the only person any Shopkeeper knows who can decrypt and decipher messages?”

  John didn’t answer, instead, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the pain.

  “You have not failed,” Hal insisted firmly. “You are being challenged, and that is all. When I ask if you still have nothing, I am not intimating that you ought to have found something by now. On the contrary, I am trying to be sympathetic to your evident discouragement. I am your wife, John, not your competition.”

  He swallowed at that, dropping his hand, unable to meet her eyes.

  “I know,” he whispered.

  Hal waited, clearly expecting him to say more. When he did not, she sighed. “If you’re going to be disagreeable about it, I’ll take no more interest. Lord knows I’ve enough to be getting on with.” She pushed away from the table and moved back towards her bedchamber, skirts swishing with the brisk strides that seemed to be her natural pace. “Blast these ridiculous petticoats,” she muttered, making him smile despite his pain and melancholy.

  The layers of additional fabric got in the way of how she preferred to walk, and even with practice and experience, she still had not grown accustomed to them.

  Secretly, he hoped she never would.

  “Hal,” he called softly, not looking in her direction.

  Her steps stopped, and he could almost hear her turn towards him. “Yes?”

  “Why did you say wife?” He waited a beat, his fingers rubbing together with a sudden anxiety he didn’t understand. “Why not partner instead?”

  “Hmm.” She took two steps in his direction. “I’m not sure. Is there a difference between them in our situation?”

  John looked over at her, the clean lines of her gown and the simple style of her hair somehow presenting the most agreeable picture he’d ever seen her make. Not the most beautiful, but the most agreeable.

  Most likeable.

  Most comfortable.

  “I suppose not,” he replied, more to himself than anything else.

  He half smiled and looked back at the letters, strangely not feeling guilt or shame about his outburst, though he couldn’t say he approved of it. He’d had no recrimination from her, and it didn’t appear to have caused her pain. On the contrary, she seemed to almost understand his frustration, and take it in perfect stride.

  His own brother had never handled him so neatly.

  “If you’d try coming back in here again in a moment or two, Ange,” he told her simply, “I think you’ll find a better-tempered husband sitting here.”

  “Oh, indeed?” came her bemused reply. “Could I find one with a larger fortune and darker hair while I am at it?”

  He turned more fully towards his work, hiding the broader smile his lips had taken on. “I’m afraid not. Nor one with a particularly gifted singing voice, either.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh. “That is a disappointment. One does hope for ful
fillment of one’s wishes in such things.”

  “Perhaps you should have married someone else,” he suggested, holding his breath a moment.

  “Oh, now, where would be the fun in that?” she asked in an almost bright tone. “Whatever would I do with a husband so very accommodating?” The swish of her skirts told him she had returned to the bedchamber, leaving him to grin like an idiot at the stack of impossible letters.

  John shook his head, both at her wit and at his folly. “What, indeed?” he murmured to himself, pulling the top letter towards him without any hope for it at all.

  It was some time before Hal ventured into the room again, and John had no progress to report to her when she did.

  “I don’t know what I’m missing, Hal,” he confessed when she sat in the chair beside him. “I’ve tried every cipher I’ve seen used in Faction-related correspondence and codes. I’ve tried ciphers that were used in the war with America, on their side and ours. I’ve tried ancient ciphers and I’ve tried ciphers that most of the world hasn’t seen yet. What they are using is either very sophisticated or very specific. Or both.”

  “Both?” Hal repeated, looking at the letter he was presently poring over. “How would someone do both?”

  John sat back again with a sigh. “The Faction are overly cautious and layer their codes. You remember the trouble with Cap’s family?”

  She nodded insistently. “Of course. It was my letter from Trick that sent them to you in the first place.”

  “That gave us the hint about layers in the code,” John confirmed. “It’s time-consuming to decipher, but not impossible.”

  “Until now,” Hal murmured with a hesitant glance at the letter.

  He nodded. “Until now.”

  She frowned and turned towards him more fully. “How would you know that it’s wrong or right? You’d have to decipher one way and then decipher those answers as well, over and over again until something worked, and that just couldn’t be feasible.”

  “That’s exactly how it works, in fact,” he told her with a laugh. “Ideally, there would be a team of codebreakers working on the same material, trying every process at the same time until someone broke through. As it is just me, it is neither efficient nor effective.” He rubbed at his eyes with a wry exhale. “Weaver wants us to find answers to questions we haven’t asked yet so that we can stop being a step behind the Faction. I feel as though I need to write him with the unfortunate revelation that we are four steps behind at least.”

  “Why in the world would they send just two of us when an entire team is needed?” Hal muttered, shaking her head. “A fool’s errand, if ever I’ve heard one. I can intercept every letter I can nick from Leclerc’s pockets, but without the means to translate them, it isn’t useful. And without that information, my drawing abilities don’t help us at all.” She managed a quick smile. “Unless we start tracking Leclerc like one of Gent’s children. Note every person he associates with and every location he frequents. Infiltrate his household, perhaps.”

  John had to laugh at the idea, which also helped to relieve his present tension somewhat. “It is likely because it is a fool’s errand that they only sent us. They can’t spare the operatives and assets, and it’s clear that if letters have been intercepted before, they haven’t had success in deciphering them.”

  Hal grunted a noncommittal sound. “Which leaves us nowhere and with nothing to go on.”

  “Correct.” He gave her a flat smile. “Any success on placing Monsieur Fontaine with a mission?”

  She shook her head, her frown deepening. “No. I can’t risk sending out the drawing I’ve made with his name, no matter how secure Ruse might think the connections between here and England are. I’ve never wanted to know the details of missions and assignments before, but now…”

  He let the silence hang between them rather than attempt an answer.

  “Well,” he finally said on an exhale, “should we go out? Attempt to find something else to occupy our minds or find other connections?”

  Hal raised a brow at him. “We’ve been to gatherings almost every night since we’ve arrived in Paris, and you want to go out again? To what purpose? Our list of potential suspects goes beyond two pages because we have no means of paring it down.”

  “Why not just go out for ourselves?” John inquired in a tone much lower than he intended, hesitancy nearly choking him as soon as the words left his mouth.

  He was not a social creature; Hal was not a social creature. Why would they intentionally be social without a purpose? A quiet evening at home was far more his style and his taste, and he suspected she was much the same.

  Suddenly, he could picture the pair of them sitting in a quiet parlor far from their present one, a book in his hand and an easel before her. A fire flickered in the room, and its crackling accompanied a clock as the only sounds to be heard. Peaceful, comfortable, and natural. Such contentment in one image!

  And Hal being there was the best of all contentment.

  How could that be?

  “I hadn’t considered that,” Hal murmured, bringing him back to the suggestion he’d had that he now wanted to take back. “What a relief it would be to be alone.”

  Or perhaps he’d been a genius after all.

  “Indeed,” he managed. “We could even go to the opera.”

  Now he was completely, entirely, and undoubtedly mad.

  Hal must have thought the same by her present expression.

  “The opera?” she laughed. “You have intentions to suffer this evening?”

  He chuckled and shrugged a shoulder, rubbing one arm absently. “It keeps us from having to be particularly social while still actually attending a sociable event. Alone in a room filled with people we have no need to associate with.”

  A thudding from out in the corridor followed by peals of giggles made them both sigh, though with amusement more than irritation.

  “The opera it is,” Hal all but announced. “Rossini or the other one?”

  “Whichever suits you, Ange,” he said, waving off any responsibility of the decision. “I attend so seldom in London that almost anything will be new to me.”

  His wife grinned and nodded, rising from her chair. “We’ll try the other, then. I’ve never even heard of it, and it may be interesting if Leclerc enjoys it so.”

  “It could also be a perfect opportunity to nap in public,” John pointed out.

  “Which would also be a pleasant use of our time,” Hal shot back. Then she wrinkled up her nose. “I suppose it would be polite to at least extend the invitation to the others…”

  John groaned but nodded all the same. “It would defeat the purpose, but politeness must be observed.”

  They shared a look that was so clearly in unison, it was a wonder they didn’t express the feelings behind them more frankly.

  What in the world could that mean?

  As Hal left to offer the invitations, and no doubt to change for the evening, John stared at nothing in particular, his mind spinning on an entirely different puzzle altogether.

  When had Hal ceased to be a trial and become his Ange in truth? When had he found comfort in her rather than conflict? Why did spending more time with her seem to be the best use of his time, and the desire to be alone with her more prominent than to be alone himself? How had he found himself so changed so quickly, and yet feel more like the truth of himself at the same time?

  For the first time in many long years, he found himself wishing his brother were somewhere in the vicinity to confer with. Though Jeremy was a rogue and a rapscallion, his advice was usually sound. And he would have a far better idea of these matters than John could ever hope to.

  But Jeremy wasn’t here, and he had nothing to go on but his instincts and his desires.

  At the moment, they were aligned and told him to spend the evening at the opera with his wife.

  His wife.

  What a concept.

  With that in mind, John took himself off to his rooms to
let Leys make him into as much of a peacock as he might wish, not entirely caring what he looked like this evening so long as he was with Hal. Undoubtedly, she would look overdone as well, and the pair of them could laugh about it without the worry of behaving in a certain manner.

  An hour later, which seemed a ridiculous amount of time for a man to be situated in apparel no matter what the occasion, John stepped back out into the adjoining parlor.

  “Ange?” he called.

  “One moment more,” came the almost cheery response. “Collette needs to put on a finishing touch!”

  John smiled to himself and began to pace the room aimlessly, the strange lightness in his heart feeling entirely foreign but not unpleasant.

  Not at all unpleasant, actually.

  He’d never felt anything like it, especially during an assignment. He should have been climbing the walls in agitation over his lack of progress in his work, but instead…

  “All right, now I am ready.”

  He turned, thought unfinished, and instantly lost any ability to think at all.

  What stood before him was a vision belonging on a canvas with meticulous paints attempting and failing to capture the brilliance, magnificence, and beauty in a transcendent, timeless manner. Not a living, breathing, perfectly mortal being sharing the same air he was.

  The gown itself was lovely, a shade of blue pulled directly from the palest part of the sky, beaded and embroidered with white flowers and vines that created the illusion of an ethereal garden. The tiny sleeves hung precariously at her shoulders, the expanse of porcelain skin more arresting than the details of the gown itself. Flawless skin, bare from shoulder to shoulder, her neck free from any accessory that would have detracted from her perfection.

  Simple, undeniable perfection.

  The neckline was surprisingly modest considering the shoulder line, the hint of lace bordering it tempting any imagination to drift there, though John surpassed all that by returning his attention to her face.

  Her cheeks held the faintest blush, her smile tucked in a shy expression of inner delight, either at his reaction or her own. And that smile would have undone any man with blood in his veins.