Page 60 of The Number of Love
Drake let a bite of cake melt on his tongue. It would be easier if she were just another girl. Like Ada. But he’d never liked Ada. He had no interest injust another girl. This one, though. He apparently preferred dark eyes to ready smiles. Sarcasm to sweetness. Codebreakers to secretaries.
Codebreaker. He straightened a bit in his chair, barely even wanting to wince. She must be a talented one indeed, for DID to have hired her to the position contrary to convention. Obviously she loved it. That was the life she wanted to pursue, even after this madness of war was over. Numbers and equations and puzzles.
He could use that. Convince her he could be a part of it.
An hour later, their guests were all moving toward their coats and the door, laughter still ringing out. No one expected Drake to shuffle along with them, but he at least stood and added his farewells.And, when Lukas De Wilde stepped over to shake his hand while the others were all by the exit, Drake seized the opportunity before it slipped away. Who knew when he’d see her brother again?
“May I ask you a question?” He kept his voice low, though it was doubtful the others would hear him over Dot and Red’s laughter.
Lukas smiled. “Of course.”
The smile likely would shift in a moment. Drake braced himself. “May I court your sister?”
Well, the man didn’t shout in laughter at the absurdity. Or scowl either. He just went very still and held his gaze for a long moment. “Mr. Elton ... I personally have no objections. But my sister very well may.”
“I know.” His eyes drifted to her. She was standing at the door, between Willa and Dot, buttoning her coat. With them but not one of them. Loving them even if she wasn’t like them. It could be done. She was capable of such attachments. “But I have a plan.”
“Oh?”
He looked back to Lukas and smiled. “It’s a simple matter of mathematics.”
Margot had never had any particular feelings toward the night. It came, it went, at calculable times. She didn’t fear the darkness, and she didn’t love it. It was, and so she moved through it the same way she did the sun or the rain or the fog. Deliberately.
Tonight she strode home along the familiar streets with her birthday gifts tucked in her handbag, rather grateful for the solitude. The dinner party had been nice, all in all. Bout of tears notwithstanding, the night had been pleasant—perhaps even thanks to the ridiculous storm of emotions. She felt strangely better for having vented her anger to somebody.
Why it had to have been to Drake Elton—but it had. And she was ... all right with that. Her bag thumped against her side, heavy thanks to the book of poetry, and the corners of her lips tugged up. He at least had good taste in poets. And spoke French. Why thatshould count as a mark in his favor when there were certainly people aplenty in the world who spoke it whom Margot didnotlike, she didn’t know. Still. The tally marks under his virtues column had increased quite a bit tonight.
Eighteen. The number didn’t echo in that part of her mind where the Lord spoke. It just echoed. Would always echo, she suspected. The number she’d thought of the day she went inside to find her mother gone. The month plus the date of that terrible day. The birthday that came far too quickly on the heels of that loss. The number of the agent she’d prayed for, not knowing who it was. Eighteen. The number, even, of the year soon to dawn.
She reached a corner and hesitated. The air was cold, the night was dark, and the quickest route home was straight ahead. Maman never would have considered turning to the right instead, just to walk through the park. Not now.
Margot pressed her lips together, paused for one more second, and then turned to the right. There was noreasonto walk through the park. But she wanted to, and there was nothing to stop her.
At the park’s edge, she turned onto the little brick path, following it by the bench where Mrs. Rourke was obviously not sitting with her crochet hook. To the wrought-iron table where neither Gregory sat with his chessboard nor Williams with his Go.
Only ... that wasn’t quite true. There was nopersonseated at the table. But the Go board was there.
How very odd. She moved over to it, frowning into the shadows. Why would Williams have left his board set up? It was a stupid thing to do—anyone could come by and steal it. Even if few in London knew how to play the game, any thief could see that it was a valuable board.
But there it sat, safe and whole and set up for the beginning of a game. Or rather, she saw as she drew nearer, a game just begun. One black stone had been moved.
She edged closer and saw a slip of white fluttering in the breeze, secured partly under the board. A slip of white with black ink on both sides. She read the top first.
Margot De Wilde.I waited throughout the afternoon and found myself a terrible substitute for youas an opponent. Perhaps you’ll stop by soon—Ihad to flee the damp of evening for a while in favor of a cup of tea. But if youhappen by before I return, do make a play.
Her brows scrunched together. He surely hadn’t been out here all evening, waiting—with the cough he obviously struggled against, that couldn’t be good for him. But no, the paper was damp, proving it had been there awhile. Had he left the board unattended for hours? Stupid. Stupid enough to make her itchy. But perhaps he had fallen asleep after his cup of tea. Heaven knew he wasn’t well. And this time, at least, no one had stolen the game.
The breeze shifted and she saw the bottom of the paper.Sente.
Her eyes narrowed, and she snatched the slip of paper out. A lot of nerve Williams had, claiming with thatsenteto be on the offensive, to have the initiative, when the play had only just begun. She dug around in her handbag until she came up with a pencil. Using the empty space in the middle of the board as her table, she drew a line throughSenteand wroteMoyo. Prepare to be gote.
The plays were all potential now—moyo. But she didn’t ever play on the defensive.Shewould not begote—she’d force him into it. After anchoring the paper again, she touched a finger to a white stone. Cold. Hard. And slid it to her opening position.
Then she left the park and went home without a backward glance.
Das Gespenst waited until her figure had vanished from sight. Until her footsteps had faded into the night. Until the cold, damp English breeze had snaked for another long minute through his jacket. Then, for the first time in ten minutes, he moved. Away from the tree against whose trunk he’d been leaning, in whose shadow he’d been hiding.
If other people were out tonight, they weren’t in the park. He hadn’t been sure, of course, that she would come this way either. More often than not she didn’t. But when he saw where she’d goneearlier, rather than stopping by for a game ... well, he hadn’t wanted to wait for another day to get a read on her, and this had seemed like an easy enough way. And if she’d gone straight home after her dinner at the Eltons’, he simply would have packed up the board for now and set it up again tomorrow afternoon, waiting for her.
