Page 98 of All Scot and Bothered
What had been his question?
Frazzled, Cecelia looked to Jean-Yves for help, and he set down the knife on the counter where he arranged sandwiches on a plate. The old man took pity on her, though he didn’t spare her from his look of droll disappointment. “If you did not decipher the codex, nor identifythe code, what possible news could be excellent,mon bijou?”
Determined not to allow herself to be distracted by the previously petulant Lowlander, she brandished the book like an American preacher on the Sabbath.
“I’ve been looking at this all wrong.” She hurried to the table and flipped open the book to where the bevy of numbers made an odd-looking list. “I’d assumed Henrietta had used a Pollux code, which is usually dots and dashes, but I thought she might have replaced them with numbers. It was the only explanation for these repetitions.” She pointed to the numbers she referenced. “But no matter what I tried, the code remained indecipherable. So then I simplified it to a Caesarean code, which helped not at all, but somehow also seemed to make sense. Which could mean only one thing…”
She looked up expectantly, and met three identical blank looks.
Jean-Yves now stood over her, his arm slung to his body in an odd parody of a maître d’ as he held his tray aloft, waiting impatiently for her to finish.
“Don’t you see?” she prompted excitedly. “It’s bacon.”
“Bacon?” Ramsay looked at her as if he feared she’d lost her mind.
“Like Frances Bacon!” Phoebe held up her doll triumphantly, doing her level best to make some sort of connection.
Cecelia smiled fondly at the girl. “Just like,” she praised. “Baconian ciphers are tedious but ingenious because the meaning isn’t in the numbers or letters themselves, but how they are assembled, most often in clusters of five representing one letter.”
Jean-Yves motioned for her to pick up the book, whichshe did, and he replaced it on the table with his plate of sandwiches. “I suddenly regret not putting bacon on these,” he muttered.
“Me too,” Phoebe emphatically agreed. “Bacon is delicious.”
“So—” Ramsay reached for the book, and Cecelia handed it over the platter. He opened it, his brows bunching together as he scanned the formulae as if he might now understand. “If ye employ this Baconian cipher, ye’ll decode the message?”
“I’ve done it already.” She beamed.
“Aye?” Ramsay straightened and then turned his head sideways as if he could see the code more clearly. “But ye said ye didna solve the riddle,” he reminded her slowly.
“My problem was that I assumed Henrietta only used one code. However, upon employing the Baconian cipher, I uncovered a second set of coded information, but this one is much shorter. So all I have to do is figure out this code.” She tapped her finger to her chin. “That is, unless there is a third layer, but that isn’t very likely.”
“Have you gotten to the good news part yet?” Jean-Yves asked impatiently, taking the seat next to her. “I’d like to eat my supper.”
“I’m that much closer, likely halfway. Tomorrow I get to work on turning numbers into letters!” She shook her fists in front of her in a gesture of celebratory victory as the room at large blinked at her for another moment before collectively deflating.
“Halfway?” Ramsay repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before, frowning his obvious discontent. “What do ye have to do in order to finish?”
Jean-Yves held up a staying hand. “You’ll regret that question, my lord. I suggest we eat before another lengthycryptography lesson puts us early to sleep.” He winked over at Cecelia, who falsified a smile.
She didn’t mind the teasing, really she didn’t. However, she suddenly wanted to slump back into the room and hide from them all. Fromhim.
Was Ramsay’s desire to be free of her so consuming that the thought of another three days in her presence caused him such obvious chagrin?
Reaching for a sandwich, she put one on Jean-Yves’s plate, and called Phoebe over while dishing her meal in silence.
It would forever be impossible to get a room excited about maths. Such was her life. If she’d been in the room with another mathematician, he’d have realized that she’d concluded what might have taken most ingenious code breakers the better part of several days in only three.
She mentally congratulated herself and bit into a delectable ham and olive sandwich. “If this is supper, what’s in the cauldron over the fire?” she asked.
“Water for yer bath.”
A silken undertone in Ramsay’s voice caused Cecelia to swallow prematurely, and a chunk of sandwich made a slow and painful descent of her chest.
She reached for a drink of Jean-Yves’s ale to wash it down, ignoring the Frenchman’s protestations.
When she glanced back up at Ramsay, a glimmer in his eye made her certain he was picturing her taking said bath. How she knew, she couldn’t say, but the wicked gleam remained, brushing her in places she’d rather not consider in a crowded room.
Confused and increasingly distraught, she searched his features for answers. Did he want to be free of her because of temptation, or in spite of it? Why insinuate hisdispleasure with her one moment, and then scorch her clothing from her body with his gaze the next?
