I heard the trepidation in her voice.
“A friend also,” I replied. “He will not harm you.”
A hesitant nod as Adele DeMille seemed to consider that, then called to the coachman to stop. At a glance I realized that we had reached the Strand, mostly empty now at this time of night.
“Perhaps if I had such a friend...” She seemed to gather herself. “I have heard rumors, and then when I did not hear from him…”
She spoke of Burke, no doubt.
“He’s dead,” I told her as gently as possible, without yet knowing what their relationship was.
“It is as I feared,” she softly replied.
“Why did you leave the inn?”
She looked up and I caught the glimmer of something in her eyes.
Tears? I thought not. Burke was not the sort to cause that emotion.
Fear perhaps.
“You went there?”
“Lady’s clothes were delivered there on a laundry order that I found on his desk. It seemed logical after the note he gave me when he asked to meet at the Old Bell.”
“He said that you were very clever, and the only one who...”
“The only one?” I replied.
What did that mean, I wondered as I thought once more of his last words to me that night—“What will you do now, Mikaela Forsythe?”
There was obviously far more to this. And whatever it was, she was terrified.
“You asked to meet in that note you sent,” I reminded her.
I wanted very much to know the reason, and what her part in this was.
“He said that I could trust you. And now...I am not proud of what I have done,” she continued. “I did not know what would happen when it began.”
I could only guess at part of it. That part Brodie and I had uncovered at the residence at St. John’s Wood. Unfortunately, not uncommon. Even my friend Templeton had her relationships and affairs that she had proclaimed in a somewhat heated moment.
‘I am not proud, but these things are necessary for some of us who are not born to wealth...’She had stopped and looked at me and apologized. She did realize that my own situation, in spite of what I had been born to, had been quite precarious, if not for Aunt Antonia.
And now? Someone not so unlike Templeton, who was obviously in danger.
Completely unexpected, she produced a thick brown envelope and thrust it at me.
“He said that if anything happened, I was to see that this reached you.”
The sound of a coach approached. I heard the sharp breath she took as she cringed back into the seat of our coach, then slowly relaxed as it passed by.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Papers. There are drawings as well. I don’t understand them, but I know they are important. They spoke of it many times.”
They. Men she had entertained and now hoped to escape?
“Do not open it now. Perhaps Mr. Brodie will understand what they are. There is a letter as well, in German. I do not know what it says, but it is all very secret, and the reason they chose the house at St. John’s Wood.”
