He had also forgotten his cravat yesterday. Two days ago, he had misplaced his most treasured possession, a text that had been passed down to him by his father before him outlining the methods of deciphering. She had located it in the library stuffed amongst the great philosophers with a pair of his spectacles haphazardly placed atop.
“Father,” she began again, meaning to address, at last, the fact something was very much amiss with him.
Once more, she was interrupted, but this time it was by the reappearance of the butler with their mysterious guest.
“Lord Kilross,” Graves announced before disappearing and closing the door smartly in his wake.
Her stomach clenched anew at the identity of their unexpected caller. Jacinda had met the Earl of Kilross on several occasions, and on this occasion, no less than those prior, he unsettled her. Something about the man was repellant. She tried to keep the distaste from her expression as he bowed, for he was the man responsible for Father’s continued position of honor as lead decipherer. Kilross had made clear if he was displeased with Father’s work or if Father showed any hint of frailty, he would be replaced without hesitation. And Father’s work was his life.
She would do anything in her power to keep Father happy and to hide his poor eyesight and absentmindedness from the earl. Even if it meant smiling as if she found the blackguard charming.
But Kilross had no time for pretense anyway. He pinned Father with a pointed stare. “You have spoken with her, I trust, Sir Smythe?”
Color suffused her father’s cheeks. He cleared his throat. “I am afraid I have not, my lord.”
“Then I shall have to tell her.” The earl clenched his jaw and swung his stare to Jacinda. “Your father assures me you are a proficient decipherer. And while I hesitate to believe the female mind capable of such complexity of thought, I am willing to witness a demonstration.”
Jacinda bit down to keep from offering a retort. What a despicable creature the earl was. “What manner of demonstration do you require, my lord?”
How she hoped it was one in which her palm connected with his insufferable cheek.
“One of your ability to break a cipher, Mrs. Turnbow.” His expression remained hard, as harsh as his voice.
She glanced to Father, who refused to meet her gaze, and knew a sudden, consuming flare of panic. Her hands tightened on the fall of her serviceable muslin gown. “Forgive me, but I do not see the necessity for such a thing. I am not a decipherer at all, as you must know.”
The last thing she wished was for Kilross to somehow use her ability against Father. From the moment he had assumed his position at the Foreign Office, the earl had been loathsome in his endless displays of the power he wielded. Was that what this was? One more way for the earl to attempt to remove her father from service to the Crown?Dear heavens, she hoped not. If Father should lose his position…
“I do not require your protestations of false humility, Mrs. Turnbow,” he snapped. “I require the demonstration for which I have asked. Have a seat, if you please.”
Swallowing her resentment, she did as he ordered, resuming the seat opposite her father at his large, ornate desk. Kilross extracted a folded missive from his coat and opened it, laying it on the desk before her.
“You have precisely one-half hour to tell me what this says, madam.”
“She will have it solved in less than ten minutes, my lord,” Father said with calm, paternal faith.
Jacinda stared at the paper before her, a mass of jumbled letters that contained no outward meaning. She was confident in her abilities, but she had never before been observed or timed. Her palms went damp. It would seem she had no choice but to play her role in Kilross’s despotic exercise.
“Your time begins now,” he clipped, hovering over her shoulder.
Doing her best to blot out his odious presence, she took up her pen and put her mind to work. Alphabetic ciphers were often formed with the use of a cipher wheel. Testing her theory, she sketched out a square of the alphabet running in varied rows and columns. Observing the variance of the letters and the frequencies, in no time she was confident she knew the meaning of the simple cipher.
“Full fathom five thy father lies,” she read aloud. “Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something strange and rich.”
The words were Shakespeare’s, and their subject sent an ominous quaver through her. Even so, they were not quite right. She glanced up at Kilross. “The last line ought to beinto something rich and strange. The rhyme is off, you see.”
The earl’s lip curled as he leaned over her to study the page. The sour scent of sweat and pipe smoke assailed her. “Clever, Mrs. Turnbow. But one must take care never to be considered too clever, for it hinders one’s usefulness, I find.”
An icy tendril of alarm licked through her. She kept her palms flattened to the desk, took a deep, calming breath. It would not do to betray her sense of disquiet to Kilross. The man was like a dogged fox who had scented the weakness in his prey. But she would not allow either herself or Father to be taken up in his jaws and made his sacrifice.
“What usefulness have you in mind, Lord Kilross?” she asked softly then, for there must surely be a reason for his appearance today and the demonstration he had forced her to make. Some motivation behind his use of the passage fromThe Tempestand his thinly veiled threat.
“Before we proceed, let me be clear to the both of you.” Kilross straightened to his full height and slanted a narrow-eyed glare of warning at first Jacinda and then Father. “This is a matter of supreme import and confidence. If a word regarding what I am about to say should be breathed beyond this chamber, I shall find out. And when I do, your days as a decipherer for the Crown will be done. I will crush the both of you beneath my boot heel without the slightest qualm. Am I understood?”
Jacinda shot to her feet, outraged at the man’s temerity. “Lord Kilross, my father has been an esteemed decipherer for the Crown all his life. Not only that, but he is the best decipherer in England, capable of assisting our army as no other. How do you propose to remove him after all his years of flawless service when he is currently engaged in deciphering Napoleon’s greatest cipher?”
It was a gamble to take a stand against Kilross, she knew, but she could not countenance the odious man threatening her father in such hideous fashion.
“Jacinda,” Father cautioned, sounding pained.
