“No.” The rough word rushed from Sinclair as he gently tugged on Rose’s hand. He didn’t want to delay this. Rose was in danger, and he didn’t want any further harm to anyone. “You said you thought I could recognize the codebook. How?”
Rose sank back down and studied his face. When she spoke, her tone was careful, as if she was afraid of pushing him too far. “You said that Reggie taught you to read. Was there a particular book that you used in the beginning? One that you remember?”
A bittersweetness choked Sinclair as he thought about huddling with his brother at night in this very room, a single candle shared between them. “Yes. It was a thin book no bigger than the width of my smallest finger. The cover was a blue linen fabric, and it had silver lettering. We accidentally dripped candle wax on the top left corner one evening, but other than that it is unremarkable.”
“Well”—Rose stood up and brushed out her skirt—“let’s split the room into two and find this code.”
About thirty minutes later, Sinclair stroked a finger over a familiar worn cover before he called out to Rose. It was odd touching it now—this tangible connection to a time long gone. Sinclair closed his hand around the book as he pulled it gently from the shelf. His thumb brushed against the smooth wax. He and his brother had been arguing over whether the fictional Long John Silver or the real-life Blackbeard made for the more fearsome pirate. They’d been too distracted to notice the melted tallow dripping onto the book.
He could hear Reggie’s childhood voice coaching him, helping him through the tangle of letters. Once again, his heart felt near bursting. Before it could explode with more unwanted emotions, he climbed down the ladder he was standing on and called to Rose. She immediately dashed to his side.
He opened the book with Rose leaning over his shoulder. As he flipped through it, she sighed heavily. “There doesn’t appear to be anything written in it, but it does smell remarkably like a lemon tree.”
A sense of bittersweet accomplishment filled Sinclair. He recognized the odor immediately and its significance. “Reggie always likened the scent to lemon meringue pie. We used to exchange messages with each other by writing in lemon juice in case the earl intercepted them. Do you have a candle handy?”
“Do you think Reggie wrote in disappearing ink?” Rose asked, her voice a bit stunned, as if she could not believe they were finally this close to solving Reggie’s message.
“Aye,” Sinclair said, understanding all too well her conflict as he battled back a cluster of mixed emotions.
“Fortunately, Myrtle and I have several tapers stashed in this room. We’ve had a devil of a time getting the old generator working again.” Rose hurried over to a side table and opened a compartment underneath it to retrieve a candle and matches.
Drawing in an uneven breath, he accepted the lit candle from Rose. The flame bobbed a bit as his hand shook with all the sensation bargingthrough him. Steadying his fingers, he carefully brought it behind the first page. Both of them froze, and he swore neither of them breathed as they waited a beat. Then another. He doubted either of them could completely describe the emotions clashing around them.
Slowly and then quickly, his brother’s bold scrawl appeared. He’d always penned his letters with extra flourish. Reggie had drawn lines to certain words and phrases and then written alternative ones in the margins. It was, no doubt, the codebook.
Rose pressed her palm to her mouth and let out a sound halfway between a giggle and sob. The incongruous sound echoed the reaction burning through Sinclair—joy and pain, anxiousness and relief.
“It’s all a bit of a jumble.” His voice sounded like he’d swallowed a fistful of dry sand. Trying to hold the maelstrom inside, he handed the thin volume over to Rose and focused on the logical steps. “But it is definitely Reggie’s writing and his style. He wasn’t one for organization.”
Rose swallowed audibly, and he could see her seeking refuge in the practical too. She tapped her finger over the exposed words. “Itisrather a messy hodgepodge. I can go through and organize this into a proper form—a dictionary of sorts. It will take a few days, but I do not see any other solution.”
“Don’t tell me that you’ve rushed back from the delights of Edinburgh only to create a lexicon, Rose Petal.” The cultured male voice seeped into the room like honey through a crack in a jar. “That would be a terrible bore. Worse, I feel complicit in confining you to these doldrums since I flew you here. You’re in danger of becoming just as much of a bookworm as Myrtle.”
Sinclair whipped around. The past and future slammed into each other with such force that he took an involuntary step backward. Some might have said that the blond-haired man in the doorframe looked like a gilt Renaissance statue come to life, but Sinclair saw only a monster. He tried clearing his gaze with a blink of his left eye. After all, the earl’sfavorite crony should have aged through the years. But no, the chap before him still was the very spit and image of the Duke of Newsberry.
The newcomer sauntered into the library and slung his arm around Rose’s shoulders before bussing her cheek. Defensive rage ripped through Sinclair. He stepped forward, his hand fisted, ready to protect Rose from the man’s overly familiar grip. Sinclair wasn’t a lad anymore who had to stand by and watch nobs just take what they unjustly thought they deserved.
However, Rose merely laughed and patted the man on the chest. “Not everyone prefers a party to a textbook, Percy.”
Percy—the Percy—not the Duke of Newsberry.Sinclair tried to force himself to calm down, but it was more than a trifle difficult with the interloper’s arm still slung over Rose’s back like a possessive mantle.
“Thank the good lord for that. The world has enough hellions running hither and thither—although I never thought I’d seeyousequestered in the Orkneys of all places and compilingdictionaries.”
“Orkney.” The correction slipped out of Sinclair’s mouth before he could stop it.
Percy turned toward him. His light-blue eyes widened, as if registering Sinclair’s presence for the first time. “Ah, very well.Orkney.But whatever you call this place, it’s deuced far away from civilization—not to mention it’s terribly windy. I cannot understand, Rose, why you are so dead set on establishing a retreat here of all places.”
Sinclair waited for Rose to correct the pompous man—to explain that nothing had been officially decided about the future of the hotel. But she did not. She allowed the ass to prattle on, and a flame of worried anger flickered to life inside Sinclair. Had she made a final decision regarding Muckle Skaill during her time in Edinburgh in contradiction to her promises to the islanders to leave the decision to them?
“Although I can see how it is wonderfully private and away from all the hubbub and gossip of London,” the nob added with a smile that most people would have regarded as charming, but all Sinclair saw was asneer. But it wasn’t the man’s facial expression that made Sinclair nearly retch. It was the words themselves—a torturous echo of how Mar had crowingly described his island estate to his cronies.
News never leaves these shores, fellows. This is our Valhalla, where we rule as gods and can do whatever we desire.
Rose had promised it would be different—that shewasdifferent. Why was she not challenging the bruck spewing from this toff’s mouth?
But Rose didn’t counter it.
Sheaffirmedit.
