When the knocker sounded, Eleanor’s pulse did not leap. It settled.
Mrs. Finch attempted to intercept the caller, but her effort failed in the most predictable way. Lord Rathbourne in a dark coat stepped past with the ease of a man accustomed to doors opening.
He entered without flourish and took in the room as if cataloguing it. His gaze sweeping exits, sightlines, shadows, servants, and finally Eleanor.
“Miss Hargrove,” he said.
“Lord Rathbourne,” she replied.
His gaze flicked to the torn page on her desk and back to her face. “I hope you slept,” he said.
“I spent the night in productive anxiety,” Eleanor returned.
A faint change touched his expression. It was too subtle to be called amusement, yet too honest to be dismissed. He took the chair opposite without being asked. “You have questions,” he said.
“And you have answers,” she countered. “Yet you ration them as though truth were scarce.”
“Truth is scarce in my profession,” he said, his expresion controlled.
Eleanor held his gaze the way one might hold a letter over a flame, just long enough to see what it revealed, not long enough to scorch oneself. Then she tapped the torn page with her fingertip. “Tell me who wants this, and why.”
He folded his hands, fingers precise. “The answer is neither simple nor entirely mine to give. Your father was… useful to the Crown.”
“Useful,” Eleanor repeated, grief and indignation tangling.
“You may choose another word,” he said. “The meaning will not change.”
She drew in a careful breath and forced her mind back to the paper before emotion could become a trap. “And this?”
“A key,” he said. “Not to all his work, but enough to make men climb through windows.”
“I gathered as much.” Eleanor’s fingers flattened over the page as if she could anchor it. “If you expect my assistance,” she said, “you will trust me with the truth.”
His jaw tightened. “What do you know already?”
“I know the numbers in the Edition column are not publication years,” she said. “They are too regular. Too purposeful. I know my father would never risk the estate for vanity. And I know you recognized this the moment you saw it.”
Silence held between them, and in that quiet, Eleanor became suddenly, acutely aware of him. She noted the discipline in his stillness, the faint rain-dark at his lashes, the way his attention could feel like touch when it landed.
It was infuriating—how a man could sit so still and yet fill a room.
She despised her own awareness. She did not have time for want. Yet her body did not consult her schedule as her pulse made its own quiet argument.
Then Rathbourne leaned forward, voice lowered. Not conspiratorial, but cautious. “This is Crown business, Miss Hargrove. Cooperation is what is required.”
Eleanor smiled without warmth. “Then you will find me remarkably difficult. If you do not tell me what you seek, I may, out of spite, or boredom, invite half the peerage for tea and present your precious catalogue as parlor entertainment.”
The threat was a blade dulled by propriety. She would never truly do it, but he behaved as if she might. For a long moment, he studied her. Not in admiration but in calculation. Yet beneath the calculation there was something else, a reluctant respect that made Eleanor’s skin prickle.
Finally, he said, “There is a sequence. The letters correspond to districts. The numbers indicate a time and a day. Together they point to meetings, drops, people to be protected.”
Eleanor’s breath slowed. “Or eliminated,” she supplied.
His gaze sharpened, then held. “Yes.”
“You believe,” she said. “But you do not know.”
“Not all of it,” he admitted.
