Page 9 of How to Seduce a Viscount
She took a slow bite of her sandwich, seeing the source of his bitterness more clearly now. ‘Is that what happened to you? Wereyouforced to be a Horseman?’ Why had that not also occurred to her growing up? In Sandmore’s household, she’d been raised on stories of the gallant four who rode forth dealing death and destruction in order to protect England. She’d not considered their consent in that role any more than she’d considered hers. Survival was the lens through which she viewed everything.
‘It was different for me than it was for my brothers,’ Luce said. ‘I was the youngest of four boys. Many decisions were already made by the time I was old enough to participate. Caine and Kieran had been working for Grandfather for a few years already. Everyone, even myself, assumed I’d follow in their footsteps, and Stepan’s. It seemed unconscionable to not support my brothers and, at the time, it was something I’d spent my life yearning for.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I thought being a Horseman would solve all my problems. That I would be one of them, not the little brother always lagging behind, trying to catch up, trying to prove myself.’
‘Did being a Horseman help?’ she prompted, intrigued by this glimpse into a very private side of Luce Parkhurst.
‘In some ways. It gave me an identity and it gave me membership into a group. It met some of my belonging needs. Now the die is cast,hasbeen cast for some years. There is only going forward. Once a Horseman, always a Horseman. My brothers and I are bound to it by birth and bonds. Together for ever, which is a very long time even with brothers one loves.’
‘At the price of your individuality,’ she divined. How illuminating. He had not said as much, but she heard themessage beneath his words. Loyalty did not come without its own price. In that regard, he and she were not so different, each of them thirsting to belong and yet searching for their individuality, both of them struggling to understand who they could be outside the bonds of the groups they belonged to.
Despite his struggle, Luce had chosen his family over himself. How very admirable of him. Luce Parkhurst was loyal, brave and protective even at a personal cost to himself.
She was collecting impressive attributes in regard to him. All of them things a Horseman should be and yet she sensed they were both the source of unhappiness and happiness for him. She’d never questioned her identity, not until now when she faced losing it, but it seemed Luce had questioned his.
She tipped her head to one side, taking him in. The long elegance of his nose, the wire-rimmed spectacles, the loose wavy dark hair and rolled up shirtsleeves. He looked very much the part of the wild academic. It was undeniably a sexy look, mostly because it was uncultivated and, she suspected, it came quite naturally to him. One did not curate such a look in the mirror. Sitting in the library, she felt as if she were seeing Lucien Parkhurst, individual man, in his native habitat without the trappings of the Horsemen, without his brothers.
It occurred to her that this was where he preferred to be—among his books, his mysteries. It was no wonder his expertise for the Horsemen was in code breaking—a puzzle to be solved. Solving required thought and research. In that way, the two halves of his life—his life as a scholar and his life as a Horseman, intertwined. It made her wonder what he would choose if he could. She posited the bold question, ‘Would you leave the Horsemen if you could?’
His gaze turned stern and shuttered. ‘It is a futile question and you well know it. There is no leaving the game. Perhaps that’s why I object to you having had the lack of choice in joining.One cannot simply choose to get out.’ His answer told her all she needed to know. Hewouldleave if he could, just as she’d stay if she could.
‘Speaking of the game,’ she moved on smoothly, filing that bit of information away, ‘how is the code coming? Have you cracked it yet? You promised to tell me.’
‘No, but I feel I am close to having a cipher.’ He passed her the paper. ‘It’s written in Perso-Arabic, at least that’s what the letters are.’ He reached for a book and opened it to a marked page. ‘The Perso-Arabic alphabet is here. You can see the symbols match. This is really nothing more than just verification I have the language right.’
He presented her with another sheet of paper. ‘Here, I have written out each translated word so that we can read the message in English. It took a while. I am not as conversant in Arabic as I am in other languages.’
Insixother languages to be exact. Luce Parkhurst was a polyglot. He had mastered French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin and Greek before he was twenty, while having a more than passing ability in Russian, the Nordic languages and Arabic. He was far too humble about his talents.
Wren took a moment to read the message. ‘It doesn’t sound cryptic to me. Two men meeting, sharing a meal.’ Her specialty was unravelling people and obtaining information, not interpreting it.
‘You’re right. It’s not cryptic. One could read it and assume it was just a message, one with no high-level information in it. However, the fact that someone intercepted it, coupled with the fact that you were followed and stabbed in an attempt to retrieve it, affirms that there is hidden value to this. It is unusual for the Ottomans to use codes at all. The Greek resistance uses them often, but not the Turks. The codes in the region are commonly designed around the structure of akrifó scholióor a ‘hiddenschool’. The Ottomans might have used one as well, especially if they were in enemy territory and worried the message would be intercepted.’
She was having trouble concentrating on the details. Her mind was far more interested in the man who was speaking. He was breath-takingly intoxicating like this, entirely in his element. Intelligence was damnably attractive to her and he had looks and intelligence to spare. ‘Show me.’
Luce searched for a clean sheet of paper, printing out a sentence as he spoke and a ripple of want shivered through her. ‘For instance, maybe I use religious references and on the surface, my letter appears to be about a church service and the vicar’s sermon. But someone who knows the cipher would know that any reference to the vicar is actually a reference to a certain general and the church service is actually a reference to his troop placement.’ He pushed the paper towards her, ‘Now, read this with that in mind.’
‘“Attendance at church was sparse today. Many folks are down with an ague given the dampness of the season. There were perhaps only twenty in attendance for the vicar’s sermon and for that reason, I believe he cut it short.”’ She looked up from the paper with a grin. ‘“Our general did not follow through on an attack given his lack of troops due to illness in camp.”’
‘Very good. They’re not always that simple or straight forward but now you see what I mean by a hidden school. The trick is to figure out what the ‘school’ or context is. Is it religious? Is it historical? Is it mathematical? What is important and well-known enough in that region? Once we understand the context, we can decode the references. This is very much a cipher that has to be built in layers.’ He gestured towards the pile of books on the table. ‘Hence, the research.’
She laughed. ‘Hence? I like that. It’s a word we don’t use nearly enough.’ But itwasa word Luce Parkhurst would use. An old word, a scholar’s word, and it was awfully sensual.
He leaned back in his chair and pushed a hand through his hair, smiling. ‘Well, that depends if we’re using it as a verb or a noun. As a noun, it’s still active, less so as a verb.’ He was in his element. Anyone could see it. Surrounded by books, playing with words, solving puzzles. This was what brought him joy.
Wren stood, stiff from sitting too long. She needed to work her muscles if she was to regain her strength. She made a slow walk to the window. It was late afternoon but already the long shadows of night were gathering. ‘It gets dark so soon in the winter.’ She wrapped her arms about herself as if the cold could reach her through the windows. ‘Still, it’s an extraordinary view. You can see all the way down to the village.’
Luce was beside her, draping the throw about her shoulders. ‘I don’t mind the dark. Winter is my favourite season.’
‘It’s not mine.’ She tugged the blanket tight around her. ‘I remember freezing in the winter. The cold would go on without end until I thought I’d simply die of it. Many did. Some of the children in the cellar would go to sleep and not wake up. My blanket, my singular possession, very likely saved my life until your grandfather came. Then he saved me in truth.’ She slid him a smile to soften her words, knowing now that Luce carried a deep-seated love-hate relationship with the role he played within his grandfather’s network.
She’d learned a lot about Lucien Parkhurst today. He was not all he seemed. He was in fact, quite a sexy, intellectual bit more, which only served to increase her intrigue with him. If she had any sense, she’d take that as a warning and leave as soon as possible. She floated the idea casually. ‘I should be able to travel within two or three days.’
‘I doubt it,’ Luce answered with equal nonchalance as if this discussion was of no great import. ‘You are in no condition to sit in a jouncing carriage or on a bouncing horse. Even if you were, Mother Nature has other ideas.’ He nodded towards the outside where night and snow had conspired to fall together. White flakes lit the darkness. ‘We’ll have six inches on the ground by morning and another six by the end of the day tomorrow. Supposing you were fit to travel, which you are not, the roads won’t be any good to you for a while, even after the snow melts. I think you are here for the duration.’ He gave her a friendly smile. ‘I can think of worse places to wait out a snowstorm. You can help me crack the code.’
That was the problem, the verybigproblem. She could think of worse people to wait it out with, too. She’d wished for exactly this—time to work alongside the legendary Luce Parkhurst. But one ought to be careful what one wished for because wishes came with strings. Now that she’d gotten what she wanted it was so much more than she’d expected.
Chapter Five
Wren Audley was much more than expected, although Luce supposed that wouldn’t take much given that he’d expected no one at all and she was definitely not ‘no one’. Not if his sleep patterns were proof. Thoughts of her had been keeping him up at night although the reasons for those thoughts had changed as her stay lengthened and her proximity increased. He could no longer confine her to her bedroom and pretend she didn’t exist when her presence got to be too much. He was intrigued by her and everything he learned about her fed that intrigue instead of sating it.
