“Please give me a little while longer,” she begged Phoebe. “And then I shall be finished, and we can play.”
“All right,” the girl said agreeably. “Might I stay here on the bed if I’m quiet?”
“Of course.”
The girl was not quiet in the least, but Cecelia focused the best she could, tapping her pen against her lip, trying to think of a word. Of any word Henrietta might have used as the key.
The key is in the color we both hold dear.
She bolted straight, remembering the letter. Of course! Henrietta was the Scarlet Lady, and Cecelia was a Red Rogue. Hortense, Henrietta, and Cecelia were natural redheads. Not to mention Francesca and, to a lesser extent, Alexandra. That had to be it!
She attempted to use the letters red first, but it was too short. And scarlet didn’t work, either; nor did ruby, vermillion, or burgundy.
However, as soon as she established the word crimson into the Beaufort grid and used it against the integers, entire words began to form.
Elated, Cecelia sat back and stared at the first completed sentence.
The Crimson Council.
Beneath the bold letters was a list of names she carefully uncovered, and a few were so incredibly familiar, she gaped down for a lost expanse of time.
Sir Hubert, the Lord Chancellor, obviously.
The Duke of Redmayne? Though a line had been slashed through his name, and Cecelia presumed that was done once the previous Redmayne had hung himself. This she surmised because she recognized a few other notable names crossed out who were also deceased.
And then, Luther Kenway, Earl of Devlin.
Hadn’t Kenway’s garden been the one in which the young girl, Katerina Milovic, had been found?
“Oh dear,” she breathed, realizing she was on the precipice of several truths she didn’t want to know.
“What’s wrong?” Phoebe inquired.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “But would you go and fetch Lord Ramsay and Jean-Yves for me? I’ve learned something they’ll want to know about.”
“Did you solve the puzzle?” She jumped up and down, and her enthusiasm restored all of Cecelia’s goodwill toward her.
“I think I have.”
“Oh wonderful, I’ll tell everyone!” She scampered out into the main house, which was empty as Ramsay and Jean-Yves were both out of doors.
Cecelia turned page after page, realizing that Henrietta had devoted entire sections to a certain person. To pass the time, she quickly decoded each name at the top of a page, gasping at the contents. Everyone was in here.
Everyone. The royal family. The upper crust of aristocracy. Titans of industry and politics.
Cecelia was still writing things down when Ramsay burst into the room. Even though their hearts were at an impasse, her body didn’t seem to understand.
Once their eyes met and held, little electrified sensations danced across her flesh and quivered in her belly. Her sex bloomed and released a soft rush of readiness even as her heart plummeted.
His eyes had regained their glacial frost. She could no longer decipher their depths.
He’d effectively shut her out.
“What did ye find?” he asked, striding to tower behind her and peer down at the notepaper she used to scribe the messages from the codex.
“The Crimson Council.” she said. “I’ve found what Henrietta knew about them.”
He scowled down at the paper, seeing Redmayne’s name on it. “I’ve heard of it spoken in whispers, but everyone considers it tripe. A conspiracy conjured by madmen and rabble-rousers. I’d never lent credence to the rumors.”
“What rumors?” Jean-Yves had shuffled in behind him and he joined Ramsay at the elbow, peeking down at her notes.
“It’s been said a society of men who consider themselves loyal to Britannia beyond her monarchy, her Parliament, and her politics conspire in secret to puppet-master the empire’s rise.” Ramsay crossed his arms. “A week ago, I’d have said it was bollocks. Now…” He eyed the codex. “How fast can ye unencrypt this book?”
“I could teach you how,” Cecelia said. “With the two of you helping, it shouldn’t be but a day.”
“Right, let us move this to the kitchen, then.”
Cecelia, Ramsay, and Jean-Yves worked tirelessly on the papers. They wrote down things they never wanted to know. Not just scandalous secrets and hefty debts, but discoveries of every crime from theft to murder to, in a few cases, high treason.
The Crimson Council, according to Henrietta’s findings, had been established some several centuries past to manipulate the outcome of the War of the Roses. It had since groomed many a man to join, but seemed to be less active in politics by modern standards, and more a fraternal order dedicated to money, prestige, and power. The members had done despicable things … including hiring a procurer of young foreign girls for the pleasure of sick, wealthy men.
Henrietta kept a blackmail tally in the codex, but it seemed that she’d often avoided the members of the Crimson Council. She never mentioned being part of these procurements of young girls, but it seemed she believed she was being framed for these crimes.
But by whom? Cecelia wondered, doing her best not to be distracted by Ramsay’s scent. By his nearness and his distance.
Anyone in this codex could have murdered her aunt and made her death seem like natural causes.
Cecelia turned the page and began to work on a new page … With each letter she spelled out, another boulder of dread weighted her stomach, until she felt as though she might be sick.
CASSIUS GERARD RAMSAY?
The question mark had been traced many times, as though Henrietta had reason to puzzle over him.
“You’re pale, mon bijou,” Jean-Yves noted from across the table. “Should we stop to eat?”
Ramsay leaned in from next to her, the hair on his arm almost touching her.
Cecelia stared at the name, attuned to the sound of his breath, to the warmth of his body close, but not touching. She didn’t want to decipher any more. She didn’t want to uncover his secrets.
She didn’t want to hate him.
“What does it say?” His voice was low. Terse and harsh.
“There’s not much here,” she said, pointing to a total of three lines of script. “Perhaps you were telling the truth when you said you had no secrets.”
“What did she write about me, Cecelia?”
Cecelia swallowed, unable to look up. Clenching her pen tightly enough to turn her fingers white, she began the process of using the key. He verbally read each word she revealed.
NO ENTRY TO OFFICE OR DOCUMENTS.
NO EVIDENCE OF CLANDESTINE MEETINGS WITH LC OR OTHER CC MEMBERS.
“We can assume LC means Lord Chancellor, and CC is Crimson Council, yes?” Cecelia babbled.
“Aye, what else?” he asked impatiently.
Cecelia returned to the cipher.
NO LONGER TRUSTS MATILDA.
“Matilda?” Cecelia echoed. “That is the woman Henrietta sent to—”
“Matilda was my mother’s name,” Phoebe joined the conversation from over by the fireplace where she’d been whispering to Frances and Fanny.
They all might have been a tableau of statues frozen in stark astonishment. Even the motes of dust seemed to hang still in the air, afraid to move.