Page 47 of The Number of Love
“It wasn’t leave. Or a visit.” His fingers tightened around the delicate china cup she’d given him. “I haven’t been on a ship for years, Dot.”
Now her expression flattened into disbelief. “Nonsense. You are always such a joker.”
“I’m not joking. DID has instructed me to tell you the truth. He pulled me from theRoyal Oakin my first months aboard. Because he needed men on the ground in Spain, gathering intelligence. And my records included that I’d been educated there.”
Dot went still. Utterly still.
Miss De Wilde—Margot, in his thoughts if not in his speech—leaned forward. “Interesting. You’re part of Thoroton’s network, then?”
For a beat, he stared at her, surprised she knew the name. But then, she’d probably typed up the decrypts of his reports or something. Perhaps that was why the admiral had smirked when he’d asked if it was all right for her to know the truth. She most likely already knew a large part of it, just not his name. He shook himself and nodded. “Stationed in Bilbao mostly, where I could stay with Abuelo and use my already-existent reputation there as a cover for my real work.”
Dot had folded her hands into her lap, but it wasn’t a peaceful pose. Her every muscle looked tense, and her breath came too fast. “Do you really mean to tell me that you’re one of the admiral’s spies?”
“Agents.” Semantics, butspyhad such a negative connotation. It implied untrustworthiness, deceitfulness, duplicity.
His sister didn’t seem to care about his correction. Her nostrils flared. “And you were shot how, exactly?”
Though his throat was dry, he didn’t imagine the hot tea would really help it much. “I was...” How much to say? He was telling her the truth, yes. But discretion was surely still called for. “I was part of a team tasked with identifying and intercepting a shipment of sugar cubes tainted with anthrax. The German agent accompanying the shipment got in a lucky parting shot.”
“A lucky shot?” Faux peace abandoned, Dot leapt to her feet. “You could have been killed!”
“A fate just as likely were I a regular soldier. More likely.” He set the teacup down and swung his feet to the floor, wincing a bit in the process. “I’m far safer than most chaps I know. Eating well, living in Abuelo’s luxury while my friends are starving and dying in the trenches. If there’s guilt to be felt, Dorothea, it isn’t about being in a dangerous spot and not telling you—it’s over having it easy, all things considered. Over not being haunted by the experiences that eat up my friends—deaths on their consciences, second-guessing, wondering at—”
“Having iteasy? I know the number of agents lost in the field, Drake! I type up the reports every day!” Rivaling sparks of fury and fear in her eyes, she spun away, toward the window.
“Not in Spain.” This from Margot, whose dark eyes seemed to bore into him as effectively as Jaeger’s bullet had done, though it made his pulse hammer instead of slow. “We haven’t lost any agents in Spain. Though we have gained much valuable intelligence.”
He lifted a brow. “Is that a compliment?”
“For the effectiveness of the organization, yes. Whether any of that belongs to you in particular, I cannot say without more information.” She lifted a brow in return, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Though DID seems to like you well enough, so you can’t be too useless a source.”
A laugh sputtered out. And dug claws into his stomach. He pressed a hand to the spot that hurt the worst.
Margot nodded toward Dot’s back. “Your sister’s been typing up the reports from France. Different tale for our agents there, unfortunately. We’ve lost far too many, either to death or arrest.”
“I can imagine. But France is occupied territory, Dot. Spain isn’t.”
His sister drew in a deep breath and let it slowly out, but she didn’t turn back around.
Margot tapped a finger three times on the arm of her chair. She opened her mouth, closed it again, clenched her jaw. Even having met her only a few times before, Drake had a feeling that hesitation wasn’t her normal mode of operation. But after a few seconds she met his eyes again. “How long were you investigating the anthrax?”
He couldn’t think why she’d ask. But she’d have a reason. “Several weeks.”
“How likely is it that any of the tainted sugar or grain made it to England?”
He reached again for his tea, mainly to give himself a moment to consider. She didn’t seem to be asking from fear—or if so, her fear didn’t reveal itself like his sister’s did. “Nothing is outside the realm of possibility, of course, but I discovered nothing to hint at it. Why?”
Dot turned around, her drawn brows focused now on Margot rather than him. “Yes, why?”
What an interesting young woman she was. She didn’t flinch under their regard, didn’t shift, didn’t look away. She didn’t raise her chin or straighten her spine. She just blinked. And answered them. “Because the symptoms my mother was apparently suffering before her death are consistent with anthrax.”
Dot took a tentative step forward, her hand stretched out a few inches toward her friend. “Margot ... they’re also consistent with a heart attack.”
“She was perfectly healthy.”
“We both know these conditions aren’t always apparent.”
Still Margot showed no signs of either defense or offense. Her posture didn’t change, nor did her facial expression. “The statistical probability of her falling prey to the same ailment that felled my father four years ago, when considerations such as diet and location and exercise are so vastly different, is considerably lower than the probability that one of our abundant enemies has been at work.”
