Page 73 of The Number of Love
Having had enough of pacing for a while, he settled at the table to finish today’s stack of intelligence review before the quiet was interrupted by Dot and Margot bustling in to start the meal.
Something more to make him smile.
He’d found a routine for the work. Reading through each telegram, each diplomatic report, with a pencil always in hand. He’d underline anything that struck him as important, note it on a separate paper, and then mark each paper with a few words at the top to sum them up, in case they needed to be referenced later.
Not exactly like being out in the field, finding the HUMINT to prove or disprove the SIGINT. But he at least knew he was being useful. And it kept him busy, which certainly improved his disposition.
Soon enough the clock struck the hour that was his signal to finish for the day. He gathered all the papers together and slid them into the folder for Dot to take back to the OB tomorrow. He then went and tidied himself a bit, caught between wishing for the wardrobe still in Spain and glad he didn’t have the choices to worry over. It wasn’t as though Margot were the type to really care about whether his jacket was single- or double-breasted anyway.
Still. He knew he looked sharper in the suits Abuelo had provided than he did in these—the ones he’d left in London for when he visited. At some point he’d have to fetch his uniform from the flat where he’d stored it, but he couldn’t exactly get across the city easily just now, and Hall hadn’t mentioned it.
He emerged from his room a few minutes later and didn’t evenhave the chance to consider how to fill the time before he heard the key in the lock and laughter outside it. Dot and Margot. His pulse sped accordingly.
She followed his sister through the door, still smiling. And directing it at him. “Hello, Drake.”
A smile. That was all. A hello. Simple things. But they felt far from simple, and his speeding pulse went bumpy. “Evening, ladies. May I help with anything?” Now that he could spend a bit of time on his feet, he wouldn’t mind helping his sister with meals in general.
But she always waved him away, as she did now. “Just be ready to answer the door when Red arrives. And keep us company, of course. After you put away the work DID sent home for you.”
Dot’s hands weren’t shaking—sometimes they were, if Margot didn’t walk home with her to keep her distracted. Sometimes she had to take a few minutes in her room, to take some deep breaths and just be out of the out-there. But tonight she was smiling and seemed at ease. It didn’t look like a front.
Though he’d make sure. “Can I at least get anything out for you while you relax for a moment and catch your breath?”
She knew what he was doing, of course, giving her an opening to excuse herself. Hence why her smile was soft. “I’m fine. We slipped out right on time, and I’ve been looking forward to this.”
He took the new packet of work and put it with the completed bundle and then took Dot’s coat from her and held out a hand for Margot’s. She held his gaze, those dark eyes intent. She apparently understood too. Of course she would. Dot hadn’t tried to hide her difficulties from this new friend. She shrugged out of her coat and held it out to him. “Thank you.”
“Certainly.” The way she held the coat, he couldn’t manage a brush of her hands. But if he positioned himself right when she left, he could help her back into it. Maybe let his hands rest for just a second on her shoulders.
Knowing well that his smile probably revealed the nature of his thoughts, if she cared to decipher them, he turned toward the coatrack.
When he turned back, it was with a question on his tongue. “So what frustrated you two today?”
Margot paused mid-reach for a pot, brows lifted. “Do we look frustrated?”
“Not at all.” He smiled and leaned against the table edge. “But there’s always something.”
“The ribbon on my typewriter broke.” Dot, never too shocked by anything he asked, pulled the flour canister forward. “And it was brand-new too. What about you, brother of mine?”
“Hm. Well, the neighbor above us kept playing that same phonograph record over and over, at top volume. I was about to tell Alexander that his ragtime band was sacked.”
Dot laughed. And looked to Margot. “What about you, Margot?”
She had such an interesting way of moving. Not fluid and graceful like a young lady who had studied the social arts, but rather each move was brisk, efficient. As if she calculated the most effectual order of movements and performed them accordingly as she did the simple tasks of meal preparation. A striking contrast to Dot, who paused in the center of the kitchen area even now and spun in a circle, obviously trying to remember what she’d been about to do next.
Margot set the small saucepan onto the stove. “Well, we added two more telegrams to our unbreakable stack—more and more keep coming in that are encrypted in a code we’ve yet to break. I’m sure we could crack it if we had time and examples enough, but we don’t.” She pursed her lips a bit at that last part.
Drake smiled. “Does it bother you to have unbroken codes?”
“It makes me itchy.” She wriggled a bit in demonstration, as if she had an itch there between her shoulders, in the most difficult spot for one to reach on one’s own back.
A chuckle joined his smile. “Why not do it on your own, then? In your own time, I mean?”
Margot was already reaching for the sack of potatoes and selecting a few. “I’m not certain we’ve enough to work with. And besides, DID hasn’t given me permission to take them home. I offered, but he insists that a bit of free time is necessary for one’s mental healthand ought not to be filled with the same sort of work that employs one’s days.”
That did indeed sound like something Hall would say. He demanded the best from his people, but he was also always cognizant of their need for time away from the office. “At what point does it become critical enough to demand attention during working hours?”
“Soon, I should think.” Margot carried her potatoes to the sink. “If the codebook isn’t recovered from a U-boat or zeppelin before long, anyway. That’s of course the fastest way to solve the problem, if we can get our lads to the wreckage before the Germans.”
