Felicity just nodded and kept walking.List.Bucky thought she had a list. And a code. She’d have to think about that. After she told Flint.
But when she reached the study, Flint was gone. He and the locket had disappeared along with his horse, and no one could say when he’d be back.
“Did Mr. Burke go too?” she asked Higgins when she met him in the hall.
“Yes, Miss.”
She nodded absently. “I know that you take the safety of this house seriously, Higgins.”
“His lordship has increased the security,” he assured her, straightening. “We’re all tucked in like badgers in a sett.”
“Of course. Do you know a person named Reed? I understand he comes to visit Lady Winifred.”
He frowned. “Mr. Francis? Of course.”
“Well, if you see Lord Flint, warn him that Mr. Reed is the one who shot at me.”
Higgins stiffened as if she’d accused him. “Mr.Francis?Oh no, Miss. That couldn’t be. Why, Mr. Francis is here all the time visiting Lady Winifred. He wouldn’t...”
Felicity faced him down. “He did, Higgins. There is also something about a John Harvester. Do you know him?”
“He used to visit as well. Served with Lord Flint.”
Used to.Past tense. At least not a current threat.
“Please secure Mr. Reed if he appears. It will be up to Lord Flint what do to with him. And if you would let me know when Lord Flint gets back...”
She didn’t wait for his answer, just turned to the stairs and her room. She needed to change into her one other dress. Cook was right. This one needed to be sponged. There was blood on it. Flint’s blood. Flint, who was a spy. Flint who had just ridden right back out as if the person who had shot him no longer posed a threat.
The person who was not Bucky, but Reed, who evidently felt right at home at Hedgehog Haven because he visited Aunt Winnie.
Maybe Flint would understand. She certainly didn’t.
“Miss,” the maid said as Felicity passed. “Miss St. Clair was hoping to see you when you have a minute. Something about the larder.”
Felicity almost smiled. Aunt Winnie was never that polite. “In a little bit, Sukie.”
Should she say something to Aunt Winnie? She wondered heading on past. No. Not until she spoke to Flint. Reed wouldn’t get past Higgins 'til then.
Deciding she’d had quite enough, she escaped into her room. She closed the door behind her and slipped out of her dress. Then, feeling as if she didn’t have an ounce more energy left in her, she stretched out on her bed and closed her eyes.
And promptly remembered quite clearly where the list was.
Chapter 13
She should have toldhim right away. After all, this was treason they were dealing with. Lives were at risk. Very important lives. But Felicity decided that since Flint failed to present himself at dinner, she had the right to escape his aunt’s rambling complaints afterwards to hole up in her room with her music.
Specifically, the music sheets she thought she had accidentally included from one of her students. When she had realized what it was Bucky was so desperate to retrieve, she’d thrown on her clean dress and run right down to the music room, where her sheet music sat in the hinged bench. Mozart and Bach and Purcell and...Bucky.
She should have taken a closer look at the piece before, she thought, pulling it out of the pile. She would have noticed the almost Gregorian chantlike repetition of notes which, when played, made no melodic sense. She would have remembered that it was sheet music Bucky had pushed into her hand that last day and asked her to take down to the music room to get her away from Eddie Lassiter. Evidently when the staff had piled all her belongings together to get her out of the house the next day, they had not separated out her music from anyone else’s.
The piece was no more than two pages written in the key of B, beginning with the line:
d d d c f f f ? f f g f f e¦ a a a f f f g b b a a a¦
b b b a d d d e e e a a a g g
She had to assume this was the list Bucky had wanted. Words, she thought. Places? Names? Dates? She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, a habit she’d developed when working out mathematical problems. She wished her friends Fiona and Mairead Ferguson were here. They would have known how to go about this in a minute. But then, the two of them were geniuses. Even in school they had corresponded with some of the greatest mathematical and astronomical names in the kingdom. In Europe, for that matter. They used to construct their own personal codes and challenge their fellow students to solve them. Then they had all communicated that way to avoid discovery by their headmistress, the dreaded Miss Chase. Felicity had been one of their most enthusiastic students.
