Wrapped

by Jennifer Bradbury

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  She nodded. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Doesn’t your A Lady say something about lovers’ quarrels in Pride and Prejudice? ‘Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.’” She cocked her head. “Did I get it right?”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “It all makes it come out sweeter in the end,” she said. “You’ll see.”

  “Thank you, Clarisse,” I said. She gave a quick curtsy and sailed out of the room.

  I stared at the closed door for several minutes, still not eager to face Caedmon. I laid down on the bed sideways, hugged my knees to my chest and wondered if he could forgive me.

  I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and woke in a panic a few hours later, the house quiet around me. Worried I’d given Caedmon even more reason to be upset with me (and aware that Mother and Aunt Rachel would be home soon from the card party), I hastened out of my room and into my brother’s, dressing once again in his clothes.

  By the time I’d hired a cab, I was feeling so rushed that I ordered him to take me directly to the museum, rather than the circuitous route I’d favored to avoid being followed. Along the way, I convinced myself that Caedmon and I had too much to do, faced risks too great to allow anything to distract us. He wouldn’t let his irritation with me for my earlier behavior stand in our way. And I wouldn’t let my silly hopes for his affections, or my futile wonderings about what lay ahead for us enter into our partnership. I knew he would agree, would allow us to once again find the proper balance in the partnership we’d established.

  Because what lay ahead for us was of no consequence compared to what might lay ahead for the world if Napoleon were not defeated.

  Caedmon was exactly where I expected to find him, hunched over the Stone, his chin in his hands.

  “Miss Wilkins,” he said, without looking to me.

  “Good evening,” I said, “or morning, I suppose.”

  Caedmon didn’t even comment on my tardiness, and somehow this made it worse. I stood dumbly a few yards from where he worked at the Stone, his papers and a book I didn’t recognize opened on its surface. He’d been here awhile.

  “I am sorry for . . . this morning,” I said.

  He took a breath. “It was surprising,” he said.

  “That I came or who I came with?” I said, instantly forgetting my promise to myself to focus only on our task.

  He shook his head. “That you provoked me,” he said, “and that I let you.”

  “Please forgive me,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Showalter could have me sacked for less,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He hesitated. “He bluster like that all the time?”

  I smiled. “Not all the time.”

  “Hmph,” he said.

  I started to explain, started to apologize, but found I really didn’t want to.

  “How is Deacon?” I asked instead.

  “Same,” he said quietly, explaining that he had looked in on his godfather before reporting to the museum this morning and that his neighbor had asked after me once again.

  “I wish I could have gone with you. I hope my absence wasn’t too keenly felt.” I immediately regretted my choice of words. I hadn’t been angling for him to declare that he missed me, but now that the phrase hung between us, I knew how it sounded.

  “Always,” he said simply, careful not to look at me. Always? I thought. Was there as much longing in the word for him as I wished I heard? Did he know it was hopeless, as I did? Or was it? If we could do what we’d done so far—evade Napoleon’s spies, come close to finding an ancient hidden object—could we figure out some way to do the impossible again?

  Caedmon’s next words brought me back to reality. “I think I’ve found two more references to the ninth Ptolemy.”

  “Both in the hieroglyphs?”

  He nodded. “Which supports the hypothesis that both the references and the glyphs were added at a much later date. If only the Stone were intact,” he said, fingering the edge of the black rock above the broken jackal glyph.

  “You really think it would have provided a clear location of the standard?”

  Caedmon patted the Stone’s surface the way Father did his favorite mare at our country estate. “I don’t know. But I can’t help feeling that it would have at least gotten us closer than it already has.”

  “What are these?” I pointed to the giant books he had stacked by his side, and what looked to be a leather-bound ledger beneath them.

  “A hunch,” he said. “I thought if I tried to focus on holdings related to Ptolemy the Ninth, then maybe something obvious would present itself. This book”—he tapped the open surface of the topmost volume—“is the most complete work we have on the Ptolemaic dynasties.”

  I examined the illustration on the page. “And this?” I asked, pointing to an engraving of a grand structure surrounded by pillars and pointed roofs.

  “Ptolemy the Ninth’s temple. A private expedition uncovered it several years ago. Most of his items we have came out of there.”

  I studied the architecture, surprised to find Greek again where it didn’t seem to belong, this time as columns and porticos among the iconic pyramids. The artist had rendered it as it might have appeared thousands of years ago upon its completion, with its structures intact, altar swept clean, tiny figures scurrying about.

  “Is this the entrance between these pillars?” I asked, pointing at a door between two massive columns.

  He leaned in next to me and nodded. “Obelisks,” he corrected, “like the one your mother asked after this morning. Like Showalter boasted of having.”

  I cringed at the mention of the morning fiasco.

  “Tough things to move,” Caedmon said. “We even tried to move these.” He pointed at the illustration in the book. “There’s a fellow in Egypt now named Bankes who’s discovered a fine one weighing around six tons that he’s managed to put on a ship. He’s just waiting to sail home with it until after things calm down with Napoleon’s return. I heard he’s going to put it in his garden.”

  Garden. At the mention of the word, something clicked in my brain. I peered again at the picture. Beneath each obelisk was a massive base, twice as wide as the obelisk itself.

  My heart began to race. “Did you say England tried to move these obelisks before?”

  He nodded. “But we lost one of them at sea in a gale. The other broke off from its pedestal and into pieces when they tried to move it. They left the fragments behind, but did bring back a portion—”

  “What part?”

  “The base, I think.”

  “Where is it now?” I asked, my mind a tumble of thoughts.

  He shook his head sadly. “I already checked. None of the pieces of those obelisks are in the museum.”

  “But what if it were one of the items on permanent loan to a patron? The message indicated that the standard was in the museum—”

  He stopped, then snapped his fingers, his eyes now reflecting the fire I felt in my own. “And there’s no reason an operative halfway round the world would know that several of the objects that are supposed to be in the museum are actually elsewhere!”

  “But you can verify where it is now?” I had to be sure. . . .

  He pushed back off the Stone and collected his candle. “There is another ledger for holdings outside the museum.”

  I followed him to the hallway, toward the patch of streetlight that fell through the office door window. I started to tell him what I thought I knew, that I might have seen that very obelisk, but halfway there, an unexpected sound stopped cold the blood that had begun to race in my veins.

  An urn or some pot clattered to the floor in the darkness, perhaps twenty feet from where we stood. Caedmon and I froze. And though I could not see his face where we stood—on an island of darkness between the glow cast by his candles on the Stone and the light from the office window—I felt Ca
edmon’s body tense next to mine.

  Once again, we were not alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Caedmon reached out and grabbed a long, crooked staff from the stand at the end of the shelf.

  “Wait here,” he whispered so silently it was almost like he forgot to give the words breath. A second later he was gone, and I stood, frozen in the darkness, the only light I could see glinting from the gilt eyes of a dozen Isis idols on the shelf. I knew his leaving me had less to do with chivalry and more to do with the fact that I’d surely stumble over something and give our position away. So I strained to listen for Caedmon’s certain footfalls or any other sounds that might reveal the location of our intruder.

  It seemed hours passed before I heard the scraping of a tinderbox and smelled the unmistakable scent of brimstone catching fire on the end of a match. When the flame flared, the scene it revealed terrified me.

  Caedmon stood a few feet away from the point of a mean little dagger, poised in the hand of the man who held the match. I knew the profile instantly.

  “Where’s your fella?” Tanner asked, his sneer unmistakable.

  “Who are you?” Caedmon asked, holding the crooked pole higher.

  “Asked you first,” he said. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here alone,” Caedmon said.

  “Bollocks. Followed her, straight here. She’s getting careless,” he said.

  “She ran when we heard you,” Caedmon said, though even as he spoke, I was edging closer.

  “She’ll be easy enough to round up. You’re the one I don’t know about,” Tanner said. “Didn’t figure she’d be so smart as to find all the help she has on this. And now I suppose you’ve a bit of information and a key I’m in need of.”

  A key? The note had mentioned the key. Caedmon and I had assumed the message was referring to the standard being the key to victory in the battle. We were to have found something else?

  “I don’t know anything,” Caedmon said. “It’s true we’ve been trying to figure out what that note means, but we haven’t come up with anything.”

  “A body doesn’t visit Miles Deacon without getting a few questions answered,” Tanner said, grinning.

  My mouth fell open. Caedmon’s eyes grew wide. “What do you know about Deacon?”

  “Miss Wilkins’s carriage driver gave her up when I asked him a few questions. Servants won’t tell their masters what’s what, but we learn a lot from each other. And anybody who knows anything about the craft knows Deacon’s still lurking about the Tower.”

  “You’re the bastard who banged him up,” Caedmon seethed. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he could see me as I edged toward them. I stood next to the wooden puzzle box sarcophagus; Caedmon was opposite me, about eight feet away, and Tanner was between us.

  Tanner nodded. “For all the good it did me,” he said. “Deacon’s seen my methods before. But I don’t think you’re made of as strong a stuff. I think you’ll be telling me everything we need right quick.” The match in his hand sputtered, and all was dark again. I realized at once that this might be our only chance.

  “Caedmon! The box!” I shouted, hoping Tanner would turn at the sound of my voice, that Caedmon would have the presence of mind to know which box I spoke of. I reached for the wooden casket, grabbing the open lid in both hands.

  Caedmon grunted as he lunged forward. I heard the sound of his staff swinging out and prayed it hit its mark. Something metal—the dagger, I hoped—clattered on the wooden floor. There was a crash of bodies tumbling toward me, and then I heard the weight of one of them fall into the coffin, followed by Caedmon shouting, “Close it!”

  I slammed the lid home with as much force as I could muster before the box’s new occupant could realize what had happened. It clicked into place.

  “Caedmon?” I said, my voice shrill with fear and hope.

  “I’m here,” he said, clearly in front of me.

  From the inside of the box, Tanner began thumping wildly. “What the devil!” he shouted. The sarcophagus was still upright, but began to rock side to side with Tanner’s flailing inside.

  “Help me lower it afore it goes topsy-turvy and shatters,” Caedmon ordered. I groped blindly at the edges and hugged the box. We gently lowered it to the floor as curses and oaths flew from within.

  Caedmon seized my hand. “Stay close,” he said, leading me expertly through the darkness toward the office.

  He shoved open the door, fumbled with a tinderbox, and lit another candle. He looked at me.

  “You realize what this means, don’t you?” I asked him.

  “That I’m likely to be sacked for using a priceless artifact to contain a dangerous criminal?”

  “Apart from that,” I said. “We know who the burglar is! Who was meant to receive the message originally. It means we’re safe.”

  “Agnes, I have no idea how long that box will hold. And anyway, you reckoned we were safe when your room was tossed and the jackal’s head was with me,” Caedmon pointed out.

  I paused, humbled. “Then Tanner knew from the beginning that I was up to something.”

  “Besides . . .” Caedmon hesitated a moment, thinking. “He said ‘we’! He said ‘you’ll be telling me everything we need.’”

  “He has an accomplice,” I said, realizing he was right.

  “Probably. And the only thing we can hope to do is move faster than whoever it is. And hope that he’s not here with Tanner now.” He pulled me into the office and shut the door behind us.

  There were four desks, one pushed up against each corner of the room. Caedmon bolted for the one closest to the door and set his candle down. The surface was piled with papers. He looked sideways at me, seeming to note the mess all at once.

  “I’ve not been back here all day,” he said. “Banehart’ll skin me for being late with his transcriptions, but—” He stopped abruptly and looked down at the desktop as he pulled down a large red leather-bound volume from a nearby shelf. He dropped the book when a plain brown envelope bearing his name scrawled in wild script caught his eye. He snatched it up. “That’s Deacon’s hand!”

  He broke the seal, read quickly, and looked to me. “Deacon’s awake,” he said, eyes shining.

  I glanced down at the note, saw that it bore today’s date and read simply, Come at once.

  “We have to go,” Caedmon said, bolting for the door, both the note and the ledger in his hand.

  I held the candle aloft so he could see, and struggled to keep pace as we hurried toward the back entrance.

  He flipped through the ledger furiously, scanning down each carefully written column of lot numbers and descriptions.

  “Here!” he said, pulling at my wrist to bring the light closer. “Lot 11987—obelisk pedestal from Ptolemy the Ninth temple. It’s in London still!”

  “Is there a name?” I asked, but I knew. I knew.

  He shook his head. “No. But there is an address,” he said as we barreled down the stairs and wove our way back through the crates of books.

  “Park Garden Circle?” I asked.

  “Number sixteen. How did you—,” he began, pausing before we stepped outside. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “No . . .”

  I felt my skin chill and prickle at the confirmation of my suspicions. “Yes,” I said, nodding. “The obelisk base is at Lord Showalter’s house.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Despite the urgency, despite finally perhaps knowing where the standard was, we went to Deacon. I told myself that it was so he could advise us. But in truth I was as eager as Caedmon to see that he was well. Still, we had to hurry—if Tanner somehow managed to get free of that sarcophagus, he’d alert his accomplice. Worse yet, he might make straight for Showalter’s, catching us again even if he didn’t know to look for the standard there.

  The front doors of the hospital were shut tight, the lamps all dark. There was no one to admit us as before. “Driver,” I called up, “take us aroun
d back.” We found a woman in a gray dress wrestling a sizable urn of milk over the threshold of the servants’ entrance.

  “Perfect,” I whispered as we quickly disembarked.

  “How do you figure?” Caedmon asked.

  “Go and help her,” I ordered.

  He started to protest before he got my intent, and trotted over. I followed at his heel.

  “Here, let me,” he said, reaching for the urn. The woman looked up, revealing that she was in fact probably a year or two my senior, and despite her plain dress and calloused hands, she was unaccountably pretty. Wisps of blond escaped from beneath the wrap of muslin that kept her hair bound up on top of her head. Her blue eyes were as lovely as the tiny mouth that opened in a surprised O at the arrival of this strapping young man come to carry her burden for her. The delight in those eyes at seeing how handsome that young man was irked me more than I could say.

  She stepped aside as Caedmon hefted the urn to his chest. He even managed to smile a little in return. He stood dumbly for a moment, looking at her, before she realized he was awaiting instruction.

  “Oh! Through here!” She returned to life and ushered us into the kitchen. Caedmon deposited the urn on the floor in front of a table where she’d already laid out small stone pitchers for creaming tea.

  “You’re like angels, the pair of you,” she said. “Dora took ill and I’m left to get the breakfast ready and up by myself.”

  I elbowed Caedmon, hoped he’d realize he needed to offer to help her. He did so, but with all the conviction of a bad actor in a melodrama.

  “I couldn’t dream of it,” she said, not even thinking that we had appeared on her doorstep for any other reason than to help her with her chores.

  “Do it,” I whispered to Caedmon, this time perhaps too loudly, as the kitchen maid shot me a curious glance.

  “I’m Molly,” she said brightly.

  I nudged Caedmon hard in the ribs a second time. “Caedmon,” he said with a slight bow, “and this is my . . . brother, August.”