She expected him to glance at it and nod. He didn’t. He went suddenly still, his eyes widening a bit, his nostrils actually flaring.
Her stomach dropped. She almost pulled her hand back and ran.
“Where did you say you got this?” he demanded, reaching out to take it.
Felicity took a breath. “I told you,” she said, grudgingly handing over the locket and broken chain. “My pupil. Mary Lassiter. She got it at a local fair.”
“No.” He didn’t even look up. “She did not.”
Felicity very much feared she had just lost her most precious possession. “How do you know?”
He spared a quick glance for Mrs. Windom, who was wrapping his arm. “I’ll show you when I have two hands.”
Mrs. Windom didn’t even look up from where she was tying off the linen bandage. “Haven’t given away state secrets to the French yet, now, have I?”
Even so, with a scowl at her employer, she gathered her things and departed, her skirts swishing briskly as she walked. Flint waited until the door closed before moving. Handing the locket back to Felicity, he recovered his shirt and gingerly donned it. Felicity resented the little locket of a sudden. Without it she would have happily drunk in the play of Flint’s taut muscles as he lifted his arms and slid the shirt over his head. Instead she found herself rubbing her thumb over the swirling pattern of a lion rampant and thinking of Mary.
“How do you know she didn’t get it at a fair?” she asked the minute his curling auburn hair appeared through the neck of the shirt.
He pointed with one hand while settling his shirt with the other. “See the lion?”
“Yes.”
He reclaimed the locket before she could object. “That particular lion is the identifying mark of a group of traitors known as—-unimaginatively enough—the Lions. Each member carries something like this to identify himself.”
And little Mary had given it to her.
“Traitors how?” she asked, her voice suddenly very small.
He shrugged, still examining the locket. “Traitors the way traitors usually are. Trying to take over the throne. Well,” he amended, slipping his thumbnail into the locket’s opening. “Trying to put Princess Charlotte on the throne so they can control her and bring back the Golden Age of the Aristocracy.”
“But we already have someone on the throne. Several someones, in fact.”
The locketsnickedopen. “Indeed.”
Another chill chased down Felicity’s spine. She leaned over to see how he would react to what he uncovered.
“A key?” Flint asked.
Not an actual key. The engraving of a key on the inside of the open locket. Other than that, the locket was absolutely empty.
“Indeed,” she echoed. “What do you think it means? I always assumed it was the key to someone’s heart. I imagine you are going to say it is not.”
After running his fingers over all the surfaces as if seeking an opening he hadn’t expected, he snapped it shut. “What can the G be for?” he asked himself, still turning the little gold-colored trinket in his hands. “G…G.” He shook his head. “Can’t think of anyone among the Lions with the initial...”
“You know who these people are?”
“We have an idea. You say that Bucky visited the Lassiters while you were there. Did anyone else?”
“Of course. The Lassiters were a very social couple. But I don’t know anyone else’s name. The only reason I know Bucky is because of his music. He would sometimes help the children perfect lessons on the pianoforte when he was there. None of the Lassiters’ other friends would have been that considerate. Nor thought to be introduced to the governess.” She paused, suddenly appalled. “You cannot think Bucky is a traitor.”
“At this point, I can count no one out. If Mary had told you the truth about where she got this, we might have a better idea. Any of the Lassiters or their friends could just as easily be our target. Or all of them could be.”
“Or she really did get it from the fair.”
He was already shaking his head. “No. No little girl would be able to afford a gold locket. And no one would mistake it for anything but gold.”
No one but Felicity, evidently.
