Brodie left the Queen Anne Room to find Mr. Conner, and then Steiner.
What had happened at their first encounter would not happen again.
MIKAELA
Sir Andrew Smith-Thomas nodded curtly as he turned and left by way of a discreet side door at the far end of the reception room instead of the double, while the Foreign Secretary left by those double doors that led to a gallery and State Apartments.
I searched for Brodie but couldn’t find him among the guests or with my sister and Aunt Antonia. I glanced back at that sidedoor and made my decision as I crossed the floor and stepped into a narrow hallway that adjoined the Guard Chamber.
That hallway was apparently used by royal staff, or possibly the monarch to escape when a banquet or reception became boring and tedious.
I thought of Henry VIII, who had the original palace built for such occasions, and was known to simply leave a function for his bed with his latest queen or latest mistress.
There were voices as I approached the side door to the Guard Chamber that had not fully closed. Two men were engaged in a conversation, one with a slight accent. The other man was Sir Thomas.
“You must see that this leaves the country without delay,” he told the other man, who nodded and replied with that slight accent.
“I will make certain of it. There are people waiting.”
Waiting? For what? I thought as I listened.
I glimpsed their exchange inside the Guard Room, the clean-shaven features of the man with the accent, and the mark on the inside of Sir Thomas’s wrist as he handed a leather portfolio to the man he spoke with.
It appeared to be a tattoo of the head of an animal, the ears distinct.
A wolf’s head?
It was identical to the one the Foreign Secretary hastened to cover with the edge of the sleeve of his tailcoat, and as Sir Thomas turned, light from the overhead fixture gleamed on the gold buttons with that same image scattered across the front of his uniform.
The shorter man with that accent had tucked the portfolio into the front of his own coat and turned to leave.
What was in that portfolio? What was so important that the Lord of the Admiralty had passed it to the man who now crossed the Guard Chamber and would be gone?
Was this what Adele had learned about? Secret meetings held away from London by men of position and power. Then fled, terrified, and had gone to Burke? What was worth a man’s life?
What had the other man said? There were people waiting...? Steiner? Others?
Sir Avery had confiscated my pocket revolver, and there had been no opportunity to replace it.
Aggravating man! Along with his comment when Brodie and I were released, that a weapon was a dangerous thing in the hands of a woman.
I had only the slender knife tucked into my boot that Munro had given me.
But if I left to find either Alex or Sir Avery, both men would be gone, as well as whatever was in that portfolio.
I slipped into that ancient armory, the doorway guarded by a pair of crossed lances decorated with royal banners, and on the wall, a satin bell pull that was undoubtedly used in past centuries to assemble the yeomen of the guard for the drawing rooms when it was the residence of the royal family.
I pulled on it even though I had no way of knowing if it was still connected to that ancient, medieval bell system.
The armory reminded me of the Sword Room at Sussex Square, with panels on the walls filled with racks that contained dozens of flintlock rifles, long rifles, and hunting rifles. As well as flintlock pistols and dozens of swords. Along with a sword stand that contained several sabers, as if the men who had once carried them would return any moment.
Sir Thomas had waited several moments after his accomplice had departed, and now followed him, as I reached for one of the sabers.
I do not know if it was the sound of my movement, the rustle of the skirt of my gown, or the faint sound of the blade—thatfaint sigh of death, my instructor had called it. Sir Thomas suddenly stopped and slowly turned.
He laughed, a cold, hollow sound.
“We have not been formally introduced. Lady Forsythe, if memory serves me. Your reputation precedes you.”
