Page 84 of The Number of Love
She sat still for a long moment, searching his eyes. Probably trying to find the tell of a lie or guess at how patient he really meant to be. Then, with a deep breath and a slow move, she put her fingers in his.
With every gasping, painful breath Das Gespenst cursed this wretched island. The coughing fit finally subsided, but still the chill wracked him. And yet perspiration trickled down his back from the unexpected dash down the street. Hot and cold. Feverish, probably.
It had slowed him. He knew it had. He was lucky Elton had decided to chase Margot De Wilde instead of him, or this night would have ended far differently. He wouldn’t be hunkered in some random alleyway trying to quell a coughing fit. He’d have been caught, forced to draw his thirsty dagger without a careful plan—dangerous in itself. And then they just would have had to see whose weakened state inhibited him the least. Elton, with his bullet wound. Das Gespenst, with what he had to think was pneumonia.
After he’d managed to breathe without a new coughing fit for a few minutes, he pushed himself off the cold stones and stepped outon the street to get his bearings. He’d grown fairly well acquainted with the whole neighborhood that the Eltons and De Wildes both claimed as home. It took him only a few glances to realize that he’d ended up not far from the entrance to the park opposite the one the girl favored.
His chest ached as he walked, begging him to turn toward his flat instead of the Go board. But he didn’t want to leave it out all night. And he wasn’t altogether certain he’d be able to drag himself down here again tomorrow. He’d barely managed to convince himself to search her flat while she spent the previous night at the Old Building.
What he’d found had been interesting. What sort of secretary played at codebreaking? It was rudimentary, the code Elton wrote to her in, but still. His instincts must have been right—she must work near codes. She would be his way in, as soon as he had strength enough.
He approached the park carefully, moving from one tree’s shadow to the next until he could be certain they weren’t here. The wrought-iron table beckoned him forward. She couldn’t have been in any state to make a move, not given how upset she’d been when she flew so unexpectedly out of the Eltons’ building—she had never been there for less than an hour before.
But shehadmade a play. And a clever one at that. He nodded his approval and made a note of what she’d done before reaching for the slip of paper anchored under the board.
Heinrich would have loved this touch—the perfect irony to the ghost story, when the liar told the truth. Confessing his weakness knowing she wouldn’t know whose weakness it was or believe it if she did know. Using it to his own advantage.
She’d written something on the back. He flipped it over. Paused.
She was praying for him. He’d asked for it simply because it seemed the thing to say—not because he expected her to respond to that.Get wellwas more what he’d thought she’d say.
His breath still burned when he drew it into his lungs. His muscles still ached. Maybe she wasn’t really going to do it. And it surelywouldn’t matter if she did. There may well be a God up in heaven, but if so, He surely didn’t concern Himself with a ghost roaming the earth. If He’d favored anyone, it was Heinrich. And look how that had ended.
Even so. It meant something that she would pray for him. Meant something about her. He folded the paper into a precise square and slid it into his pocket.
His gaze traveled through the darkness to where the Old Building stood out of sight, proud and stiff. He’d known from the start that Margot De Wilde wasn’t his enemy. But she was proving herself the best sort of opponent.
The kind he could admire.
He gathered the stones yet again, slipped their pouches into his pockets, and tucked the board under his arm.
He wouldn’t hurt her, if it could be helped. Not directly. Despite the company she’d been keeping—what a strangely small world was this sphere of intelligence—she was a worthy opponent. He would respect that. He would do what he must to get into the Old Building or get her to go in on his behalf, but Der Vampir wouldn’t taste her life’s blood.
Heinrich wasn’t the only one with a streak of honor after all.
26
Margot’s lips twitched up at the string of curses echoing down the corridor—colorful enough to make her glance over at Camden, who wasn’t paying any mind to the diatribe underway. She could only imagine how Drake would chide the men out there if he heard them. There were ladies in earshot, after all.
But the reason for the cursing was far more interesting to her than the words themselves. She pushed away from her desk and peeked into the corridor.
“What is the point of it all if they don’t listen?” Commander James stood in his office door, facing both Hall and Knox.
“There are at least fifty-five a month! Fifty-five U-boats slipping through those blasted antisubmarine nets, and the Admiralty is doingnothing!” Knox hadn’t saidblasted, of course.
“Because the vice-admiral won’t believe it.” Hall bit off a choice word of his own. “Jellicoe has to take a stand and make a point of it. Force their hand, prove us right. Turn a few floodlights on, I think. That’s all it will take to force the U-boats to dive into the nets instead of skimming over them as they’ve been doing.”
Margot turned back into the room. She’d decrypted countless telegrams about this over the last few weeks—messages from one German U-boat to another, giving advice on how to avoid the explosive nets—but there were still those high up in the Admiralty’schain of command who couldn’t be convinced that their intelligence was worthwhile. Hall’s eternal headache.
“What’s going on out there?” Camden had finally looked up from his work. He’d only just been moved out of the storage room, now that the others had gotten used to his insults. Or learned to ignore them, anyway. More or less.
Margot took her seat again. They’d take their lunch break in a few more minutes, but she had time to finish her current decrypt first. “They’re yelling.”
Camden gave her the same look Lukas always did when she answered the question he’d asked rather than the one he’d meant. “Brilliant. Aboutwhat?”
“The usual. A vice admiral failing to heed the warnings we send them. This time about the U-boats still bypassing the nets.” She picked up her pencil.
“What’s the blasted point of all this if people are just going to ignore it?” He, of course, didn’t sayblastedeither.
