My Lady, My Spy (Secrets and Seduction Book 4)
Page 19
The coach took off a moment later. Just as it rocked to a halt in front of the house, Robert, Antonia, and Turner came rushing out the front door. Turner untied his horse from the back of the carriage, and Robert and Antonia scrambled inside with him.
Frederick grinned at the pair expectantly. After the silence dragged on too long, his smile faded as his stomach sank. “Well? Do you have it?”
He closed his eyes, not wanting to hear their answer. He already knew it.
Everything had gone wrong. They’d lost the book.
§
Frederick collapsed onto his bed an hour later.
They’d failed. Well, not entirely. Not exactly. Call this one a Pyrrhic victory. Yes, they’d recovered the book, but at what cost?
His hands still smelled of ash and smoke from handling the church register. The ruined church register. It had fallen into a fireplace and been burned. The book was completely unusable.
No one would ever learn its secrets.
The Queen couldn’t use it to halt the imminent war between England and Russia.
Frederick shook his head. He needed a new plan. It seemed ludicrous to proceed with his original one. Not now. How could he report to Queen Victoria, give her the burned book, and then turn over the forged Great Seal? She’d want his head, and he’d be handing it to her on a platter. Perhaps he should offer her a shiny red apple to put in his mouth as a garnish. He grimaced at the gallows humor.
His plans were in ruins. His future in jeopardy. How could he possibly win Josephine back when he had nothing to offer her? No security. No hope of a stable life together. Just a future as the wife of a spy who was the son of a traitor.
After this debacle, he might not even be a spy any longer.
Frederick flipped open Josephine’s basket of poultice supplies and gazed down at the blue piece of fabric covering the contents. As he tightened his fist around the cloth, he realized the pain in his burns had eased considerably. He wouldn’t need the poultice tonight.
Whiskey would work just as well.
A short glass of the amber stuff sat on a tray on his nightstand. Herbert must have placed it there. The man could always predict Frederick’s moods, which was both astonishing and a bit disquieting.
Frederick dropped the piece of blue cloth on his pillow and snatched up the glass. He downed the liquid in one swallow, grimacing as it burned a path down his throat. He kicked off his low boots and dragged off his pants and shirt, tossing them on a chair.
When Frederick turned back to his bed, he picked up Josephine’s bit of blue fabric and pulled down the covers, sliding between the cool sheets.
The scrap of cloth was soft in his hand. He laid it flat across his bare chest and smoothed it with his palm as he stared up at the ceiling. What would he do about Josephine? The Queen? The Great Seal? They were intertwined. He grabbed the corners of the blue square and draped it over his face. All he could see now was blue. Infinite blue. Josephine’s blue.
He needed to focus. To think. He snatched the cloth from his face and tucked it under his pillow, out of sight.
The warmth of the whiskey wended its way through his body. He’d never had much of a head for the stuff, and even this single glass was ample to put him to sleep. He leaned forward and blew out the lamp next to his bed.
Sleep. A beautiful oblivion. Tomorrow he’d be able to see the solution. He’d step through it like a chess game.
Tomorrow.
§
Frederick flew high above London. He recognized the city below him. Once summer he’d climbed the 334 limestone stairs to the top of St. Stephen’s clock tower to take in this view. The ascent had been a hot one, but well worth it.
Now, the streets below lay empty. The cold winter sky, dark and cloudy. He’d flown like this in his dreams before, but always in the daylight, never at night.
That darkness pressed down on him. Heavy. Dismal.
He dropped lower, hoping to catch sight of someone, anyone, through the many lighted windows below.
As he glided closer, the lights blinked out. Each time he thought he might catch sight of someone through an uncurtained window, the light winked off.
He dropped lower, flying toward the glow of a church. He’d find people there. Light. Solace. Comfort.
But the church doors slammed shut while he was still flying above the building. He circled it, flying lower and lower as he searched for another entrance.
A moment later, he realized he was descending too quickly.
He couldn’t stop.
He crashed. But not onto the ground. Into it. The earth nearly swallowed him whole... but not quite. He found himself standing in a pit. An empty grave.
He gazed up at the starry sky from inside his deep hole, drawing solace from it, until the damp soil began falling down and filling in the opening he'd made.
He reached up, trying to push aside the dried leaves and soft earth, but the weight of it overwhelmed him.
He was lost to the world.
Buried alive.
His hand flailed, thrashed.
A moment later, a hand grasped his. Soft, but strong. It pulled, and despite the delicacy of its small, gentle tug, it lifted him out of the ground, plucking him from the soil as efficiently as a gardener’s fist pulls forth a carrot.
He didn’t emerge back into the churchyard. Instead, he was in a bedroom. His bedroom.
The earth below clung to his feet, trying to drag him back, and he lost his grip on the gentle hand. He grabbed at the solid bedpost, hauling himself up and onto the sheets.
But where was the hand?
He glanced around and caught sight of Josephine slipping from his room.
He called to her, but she didn’t turn back.
She was gone.
Frederick looked down, and the pure white sheets on his bed changed before his eyes, becoming a soft shade of blue— celadon blue. Josephine’s blue.
He moved to follow her, but something prevented him, holding him in place.
He was bound— tied to the bedpost. Tied with long strands of blue ribbon.
“Josephine,” he called, but no one answered.
Frederick’s own voice woke him. As his eyes flickered open, he found his hand buried beneath his pillow, wrapped in the blue square of cloth.
Josephine.
Nothing else in his life would be right until he made things right with her. That much was finally obvious. Everything had gone wrong when he’d turned away from her.
It didn’t matter what happened with the book. It didn’t matter what Queen Victoria said or did. What mattered was Josephine. Being true to her. Being honest with her.
He’d needed to be on the verge of losing everything before he’d finally realized what was important.
He believed in her. If he took her hand, she’d never let him go. She’d always be there for him.
Had there ever been a bigger fool? He’d nearly let her slip through his fingers. Slip out of his life. He’d nearly lost sight of what was truly important.
Josephine.