Page 98 of The Number of Love
“Me? No.” He glanced up at the sky. It was clear. That could change in an instant here in England, he knew, but for now it boded well. TheLuftstreitkräfteneeded to be able to reach them. Zeppelins or Gothas. Either would do, and he didn’t know which they would send. Perhaps both.
“Why not? You tried last night.”
“I was not going to kill you.” He looked back, met her gaze. “I am sorry, Dorothea. I have no argument with you, but you have unfortunate alliances. It is because of them that you must die, and I do regret that. You are a pleasant young woman.”
Her nostrils flared, and there was the brief trembling of her jaw, but she fought for composure, and she found it. “You just said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“Iwill not. But you will not live to see your wedding to the impressively loyal Mr. Holmes. I apologize for that. Every girl should live to see her wedding, and you have been twice robbed.” Mother would cluck at him, if she knew.
Until she realized it was necessary, that is. For Heinrich.
“Then let me go. Just ... let me go. I’ll not tell what you’ve done. I’ll not—”
“It is too late for that.” Poor girl. As if she really thought bargaining would save her now.
Her whimper sounded of a cry that was caught, muffled, swallowed. “My brother will find you.”
He smiled into the window. “I am counting on it,Fräulein.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Ah. That is the thing.” He lifted a brow her direction. And smiled. “He cannot kill a ghost.” And that was all he’d been for far too long. Before Heinrich’s death. Before theBoynton. It’s what he’d become when he first gave up his own name and took another for the sake of his country. He was naught but a specter, like Yurei had said. That was what war made them all. A generation of ghosts.
Yurei. Le fantôme. El fantasma.
Das Gespenst.
Margot sat on the bottom step, staring at the doors through which Drake always entered. The admiral was pacing. Back and forth, back and forth across the tiled floor. Fifteen steps one direction, a one-eighty, fifteen the other, repeat. Perhaps because he had far more concerns than she did. TheErri Barrohad met with more delays. The vice admiral, under orders by Jellicoe, would be setting up floodlights tonight to try to catch U-boats slipping by and force them down, away from the lights and into the anti-sub nets. New reports had come in from South America of cereal that they suspected was tainted with anthrax.
Anthrax. Margot didn’t pace. She sat.Too still, Maman would have said. Not a muscle moving that wasn’t required to keep herbreathing, so that her mind could tick through it all. Line it up into neat columns and add the numbers.
She had thought too highly of herself. Of her work here. She had thought herself important enough to try to be stopped. She had thought it her fault that her mother had died. Because ithadbeen her fault they’d been so hunted in Belgium.
But it hadn’t been about her. Not this time. If the man who’d stolen Williams’s name had targeted her, it wasn’t because of her actual abilities—he clearly didn’t know her or he wouldn’t have tried to mug her in an alleyway. She’d just been one of many possible targets for him—that was all that made sense. And even if hehadknown her real position here ... Margot was just one of many cryptographers. Part of a machine that would keep on ticking just fine without her. Stopping her wasn’t a priority anymore. Maman had simply ... died. Because everyone did. It hadn’t seemed right that she’d died now—but askingwhy nowwould be the wrong question.
The better one was, when would it have been better? There would never have been arighttime for her to lose her mother. There would never have been a reason that wouldn’t have struck her aswrong. A heart attack—too much like her father. A stroke—too much like her grandmother. Involved in some accident—too much a coincidence when there were so many enemies in the world.
She’d heard it said so often that there were no coincidences, and she must have begun to believe it. But there were. Of course there were. The law of large numbers—the certainty that everything would happen, sooner or later, given enough instances. Probability insisted on it. Two spouses could and would die of the same ailment, years and miles apart. Random fact.
Not to say that God didn’t factor it all into His plan. He woulduseit. But He didn’t cause it. The world caused it, their lives caused it, that inevitable probability caused it. Because He’d set a world of order into motion. A world of cause and effect. Actions and reactions.
Maman had died. But the question ofwhywas really two different questions.Why had it happened?That was what she had been focusing on—the question that led to theories and suspicions andstarting at shadows. Or—or. She could ask the other question,What was its purpose in God’s plan?
A completely different perspective. A ninety-degree shift. A question that looked to the future rather than the past, that forced her to focus not on the “this is my infirmity” of Psalm 77:10 and instead on “but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.”
Hall checked his pocket watch. “They ought to be here any moment. Let him see you home then, my dear. You needn’t spend another night on my couch.”
She didn’t move. Made no reply. Drake wouldn’t consent to her going to her flat alone, she knew. But Dot wouldn’t likely want herthereeither. He would have to take her to Lukas’s house, she supposed.
Not yet. After. After he handed her the codebook and she’d used it on the slips of yellow that now sat, still and neat, in her lap. After they knew.
At last, there was a hitch in DID’s stride and he moved to the door with purpose, obviously having spotted them through the window. He bypassed the ever-present guard and opened the door.
Margot stood, yellow slips of paper clutched in her hand. Her heart rate increased, more than the movement demanded. It was the thought of seeing him. Cause and effect. Increase in pulse, change in respiration, dilation of pupils. He would probably be able to tell just by looking at her how glad she was he was back. How much she feared letting him leave again.
Hall said something into the void left by the door, and voices answered. She couldn’t make out the words, but she knew the voice, and it ratcheted up her beats-per-minute a little more.
Then she saw him. Brown hair under his hat, silver-blue eyes, knotted nose.Drake.
