Over the next few days, Sarah and Theo worked in the little room for hours at a time. As it turned out, slipping away proved shockingly simple for Sarah. She evaded her absent-minded father with ease, and placated her mother by accepting invitations for events of the shortest possible duration and the smallest likely guest lists. She requested her friend Chloe go with her to the events, so she would have someone to lean on.
As a gentleman and an aristocrat, Theo didn’t have to explain himself to anybody, so if he wanted to come to the Athenaeum every day for the rest of his life, no one would dream of telling him no. However, he told no one where he was going, other than his incurious driver.
Sarah didn’t ask how he managed to get in and out with no one seeming to notice or care. She only hoped they would somehow find a clue to the cache of letters the man named Rossi wanted.
She was making some progress. She worked at one particular code for a full day and night, after convincing Theo she could be trusted with one notebook at a time to take back to her house. He conceded fairly quickly, all too aware they had little time. She broke it late that night, after realizing it was a two-step combination of a Caesar cipher and a substitution code. Once she understood what Charlie did, she was able to create a key. She stayed up all night to decode as many passages as possible.
She showed Theo her results the next day, and proved her method by showing him translated passages.
“Look. There’s a whole section here on some items he bought and sold to a G. Villani. I’m not sure what. The cheapest item is ten pounds and the most expensive is one hundred.”
Theo was delighted. His smile nearly took her breath away.
“Villani,” Theo said. “That’s an unusual name. Italian?”
“Like Matteo Rossi?” Sarah asked.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“You think there’s a connection? It may be a coincidence.”
“Or it may not. I’ll check it out.”
“How will you do that?” she asked.
“I may not be as intelligent as you,” he said. “But I do have a few skills.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not teasing. I’d cover a bet you could best nearly any of my old professors.”
“They’d never let me speak,” she said.
“Only because they know you’d show them up.”
“Oh, let me work,” she scolded him, though her heart warmed at the ridiculous praise.
They worked. Using her newly devised key, Sarah translated a notebook dating from the spring before Charlie’s death. Most entries appeared to be personal notes. What he did, things he purchased, where he went. None of it seemed very important. Still, since any line might contain a hint, she worked out the passages word by word, and only read them through at the end. Then she found one that was not what she ever expected to read.
16 May — Spent night with G. She wanted me to stay longer, but had to leave to Fr. for assignment. Brought small oil by Ingres to sell there. Told G I’d buy her a present as well. She begged for emeralds — of course. She’s becoming expensive to keep.
“Oh,” Sarah couldn’t stop herself from saying, as realization dawned on her.
“What is it?” Theo asked, his eyes alert.
“Nothing,” Sarah said hastily. “That is, it’s not related to what we’re looking for.”
“Sarah,” he said, noticing her expression. “Tell me.”
“It’s just…” She closed her eyes briefly. “I think he had a mistress.”
“Did he.” He looked guilty, as if it were somehow his fault.
Sarah shrugged, trying to push the hurt away. “I’m not completely ignorant of the world.” But Charlie said he loved her. He made love to her. Why would he have a mistress?
Theo took the notebook from her nerveless fingers and read the passage himself, using the key. “Hard to put a different interpretation on that,” he concluded, with disappointment in his tone. “I’m not sure how to protect you from such revelations.”
“It’s not your duty to,” she said. Her eyes were itchy, wet. She wiped her eyes surreptitiously. Not surreptitiously enough.
Theo said, too casually, “We should stop. We’re losing all the light anyway.”
“I’ll…I’ll go see if my father is still deep in his own work,” Sarah said. She felt like running. Her body was completely tense. How could he have a mistress? she wondered again. What was wrong with Sarah that Charlie didn’t want just her?
But she mastered her composure, and then crept down the back stairs. The whole building was nearly deserted. Her father was nowhere to be found. She returned to find Theo waiting patiently, his attention given to Cassius, who had arrived with the offering of a dead mouse, which now lay in front of the window.
“Oh, Cassius,” Sarah said, happy at least something was working as expected. “Well done!”
Theo smiled. “That is not what any one of my sisters would have said on seeing a dead rodent.”
Sarah laughed. “I’m used to it. Listen, Papa may have forgotten me. He’s nowhere in the building, and I think he must have gone home alone.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Occasionally. He’s very devoted to his work, and it makes him forget little things like where he left his daughter. I can hire a ride home. I keep a purse in my office for such occasions.”
“No, let me drive you. Since I learned who Rossi is, I don’t like the idea of you being unattended, even for a short trip.”
She agreed to that. Once they were in the carriage though, Theo had another suggestion. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry,” she confessed.
“Then we should get something to eat.” He stopped her objection before she could voice it. “And don’t worry, no one will recognize either of us.”
He drove her to a very respectable tavern offering several private dining rooms for guests. Theo requested one, and they were shown there immediately.
Sarah looked around the small room. A fire burned in the grate, making the small space quite warm. The table could have accommodated four, but only two places were set.
“You’ve been here before?” she asked.
Theo helped her out of her pelisse, and hung it up before he removed his own greatcoat.
“The food is good, and it’s an excellent place to relax for a short while. You’re working extremely hard on deciphering those notebooks. You need to take a rest.”
“It would help to think of something else,” she admitted. “I just know I’m missing an element somehow. Those passages I can’t decode are maddening. No matter what method I try, I get only gibberish. There’s a twist. He was so clever about that type of thing. I wish—”
“Sarah,” Theo broke in.
“Yes?”
“Remember when I told you to think of something else for a little while?”
“Oh, I see what you mean.” She sat down at the table. “What should I think about?” she asked, feeling rather shy.
“How about dinner?” he suggested. “What do you like?”
“When it comes to food? Everything.”
A server came in to tell them what was on offer. Theo asked Sarah what she favored and then ordered food, and brandy for himself.
“Something to drink?”
“Only tea,” she said quickly.
The server brought the drinks. Sarah relished the heat of the tea, and Theo evidently enjoyed his brandy.
“You don’t drink?” he asked.
“Not when I’m nervous.”
“That’s usually what starts most people off,” he said. “Why are you nervous?”
Sarah looked up. “It’s just that…you think you know someone so well, and then you find you didn’t know them at all. As if you never even saw their true self.”
“You mean Wolverton.”
“And his mistress. I wonder what the G stands for.” Sarah was still mortified at both the secret and her reaction to it. “Would he have kept her after we married?” she wondered aloud, before she thought better of it.
But Theo heard her. “He may very well have put her aside. In a happy marriage, he would have had no reason to look elsewhere. It’s really not uncommon to have a mistress, though.”
“You’re speaking from experience because you have one?” she asked tartly, then put her hands to her face. “I can’t believe I said that. Don’t answer me.”
He answered her anyway. “I don’t. And if I did, I can’t imagine keeping a mistress after marrying, unless something happened to make the marriage go very sour. But I expect to be very happy.”
“Everyone expects to be happy,” Sarah said, her voice sounding far more bitter than she intended. “Oh, Lord. Forgive me. I’m horrible today.”
He reached over to take her hand away from her face. The feel of his hand around hers was absurdly comforting. “You haven’t got much rest these past few nights, have you?”
She shook her head. “No. Not since I met Rossi, in fact. But what else can I do? I have to find some clue in those notebooks.”
“You already have,” he reminded her. “I’m going to search for this Villani person immediately. I already have someone investigating Rossi’s whereabouts. You will find out where this cache exists. I believe it does…somewhere.”
She smiled weakly at him. “Please don’t be so kind to me. It’s not good for you.”
“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I be kind?”
“Because it makes me fond of you, and I shouldn’t do that. Once this is over, I should forget I ever knew you. Isn’t it safer that way?”
“Perhaps. But I don’t abandon my friends.”
“We’re not friends,” Sarah objected. “I’m just helping you find these papers. I owe it to Charlie to help, since he can’t defend himself anymore. If he was keeping something hidden, he must have had a good reason for it, don’t you think?”
Theo sat back, those green eyes suddenly unreadable. “I’m sure he thought it was a good reason.”
“So you don’t have to humor me to ensure I’ll help.”
“Humor you?”
“Well…you never told me how silly it was to play with codes. Nearly everyone else has eventually told me women ought not muddle in such things.”
“Sarah, I’m delighted you muddle in such things. If you had listened to any fool who counseled you to stop, where would we be today?”
The food was brought in then, and they stopped talking of spies and mistresses. Theo made every effort to distract Sarah from her concerns, telling her stories of him and Charlie at school, and all the old pranks they used to play. By the time he saw her home, Sarah was feeling infinitely better.
Theo made her promise to not think of codes until she returned to the Athenaeum the next day. “And by then, maybe I’ll have some news about Villani.”
“You’re going to keep working all night? Right after you told me not to?”
“That’s the difference between us. You need to rest because your work is all in your brain. I just need to slog through city streets and gather scraps of information. Any fool can do that.”
“Be careful,” she said, worried for him.
Theo took her hand and kissed it. “I will be. I promise. Now go inside. I trust you have an excuse ready if anyone was looking for you?”
“Of course. I was in the basement chasing after Cassius when whoever it was called for me. So I found my own way home.” She was fairly certain she could make that lie believable.
“Excellent. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.” He released her hand, ready to let her go.
“At the Athenaeum? In the evening?” she asked confused. They always met in the afternoon.
“Have you forgotten tomorrow is Monday? Lady Alyse’s party? You may need a day without the disruption of sneaking around. Tomorrow you should just behave normally, and I’ll see you in the evening, at the party. You do remember being invited, don’t you?”
“Yes of course. My friend Mrs Lamb is coming as well, so I’ll have an ally. But I can’t waste a whole day.”
He opened the box of notebooks and handed over the few Sarah had been working on. “Here. Just keep them safe.”
She was pleased he trusted her with them. “I will. Until tomorrow, then.” Sarah climbed out of the coach and walked the short way to her home.
As it happened, her father only just remembered he’d left her behind, and was relieved when he didn’t have to retrieve her. “Sorry, my girl, but I just got a new translation of Horodotus. Absolutely wonderful. You ate already? You always manage so well, dear. Your mother is out at some function, and I confess I forgot about dinner entirely.”
“No need to worry about me, Papa,” Sarah said soothingly. “I’ll read for a while and then go to bed.”
She went up to her room and rang for Naomi to help her get ready for bed. She was exhausted, and she knew she’d fall asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Right before she closed her eyes, Sarah recalled what she said to her father. He had no need to worry about her. Which was true, because Theo was worrying about her. That was the most reassuring thought Sarah had in the past week. She wondered where he was just then, but sleep overtook her and she wondered nothing more.