He read it twice,though it required only one reading to comprehend.
“No time to refuse,” he repeated quietly.
Renforth set aside his paper. “From Miss Vale?”
“Yes.”
Arch passed the note across. Renforth read it without expression, then laid it flat upon the table as though its significance might be reduced by the neatness of its placement.
“Tell the messenger to wait,” Arch said.
O’Malley inclined his head and vanished.
Renforth tapped the note once with his finger. “Ten o’clock. That gives us?—”
“No time at all,” Arch finished for his senior.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“What should we do?” Arch asked.
Renforth did not answer immediately. He reached instead for his coffee, took a measured sip, and set the cup down again with deliberate care.
“Fielding is following Kendall,” he said at last. “Wait until he sends word, or you will be seeking a needle in a truss of hay.”
Arch did not like the answer. He wanted to run through the door and give chase.
“Indeed,” Renforth continued, as though anticipating the objection, “we need all men on watch tonight.”
The reminder settled heavily. “It is unfortunate that she has gone with him,” Arch said, “but there is nothing odd in and of itself in her attending a meeting with him at the iron-works.”
Renforth inclined his head. “No.”
“I suppose not,” Arch said, though the words sat ill with him as he had been implicit in his instructions.
They resumed breakfast, though his appetite had quite deserted him. He forced himself to eat something, if only to preserve the appearance of normality, but his thoughts had already moved beyond the table, beyond the room, beyond the hour.
Francesca would not have written so briefly without cause.
“No time to refuse.”
It suggested pressure, urgency, and possibly coercion, though she would not have used the word if she could have avoided it.
Renforth rose first. “We proceed as planned,” he said. “If Fielding sends word, we will adjust. Until then, we assume nothing.”
Arch inclined his head. He understood the logic, whether he liked it or not.
The house did not remain quiet for long.
Within the hour, men in similar positions began to arrive in succession, each bringing some fragment of intelligence, some adjustment to timing, some refinement of the design. Maps were spread across the central table; diagrams were layered over them; notes were compared, discarded, amended, and rewritten. The fabricated dinner at Grosvenor Square occupied the centre of all discussion, its execution requiring a precision that admitted no indulgence for distraction. Arch took his place among them.
He did everything required of him, yet the absence of communication from Fielding began to press upon him with increasing force.
Ten o’clock passed, then half past. Then the clock struck eleven.
Arch stood at the table, one hand braced lightly against its edge as he considered the sequence of carriage arrivals.
“The second interval must be longer,” he said. “If the first two appear too close together, it invites comparison. We want assumption, not scrutiny.”
