"I wish you had told me about your feelings for Mr. Barber," I said, sitting with Beatrice in her garden. "I've just come from his studio. You were in love with him."
"Michael is the truest friend I've ever had."
"More so than your husband?"
"Husbands fall into a different category altogether. You know that." She gazed out over the flowers in front of us. "There is always the desire to bring more comfort than distress to one's spouse, and the result is that, on occasion, one chooses to bury painful experiences."
"But I thought that you and Mr. Francis were so close, perfect companions."
"As perfect as husband and wife can be," she said.
"And Mr. Barber was your confidant?"
"In the past few years, yes. He was always on hand to listen to those fears and anxieties with which I did not want to burden David."
"Forgive me for being so direct, but did this have to do with your inability to have a child?"
"What else could cause such pain? I could see the disappointment in David's eyes. I wanted to mourn, to cry, to shout at the injustice of it, but to do so would only have made him feel more helpless."
"Did your husband have a confidant, too?"
"You mean did he have a mistress. He didn't."
"You thought he might when you first came to me."
"I was upset." I watched her as she spoke. "I should never have questioned him. It was disloyal of me." There was a measured tone in her voice, too measured, that made me continue to doubt the veracity of what she said.
"I'm sorry that I brought it up. It was wrong of me," I said. "But I'm afraid I'm going to continue asking difficult questions. Is your financial situation comfortable?"
"Dear me! I'd no idea you were such a competent detective!" She smiled but did not answer my question.
"You mentioned that the pink diamond was not something that your husband could have afforded to buy anymore. What happened to cause that?"
"David had some capital that, coupled with my dowry, enabled us to live without worrying about money. As the years went by, though, and it became evident we wouldn't have a child, he started spending more. Not on us, but on people he wanted to help. Like Michael. He left enough for me, though. I've no cause for complaint."
20
"This is becoming a terrible habit," I said as Hoskins led me into Colin's library. "Shouldn't you be calling on me?"
"I would if you weren't here so often. Dare I flatter myself by thinking that you are irresistibly drawn to my library?"
I looked at him. He was a bit disheveled, jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled up, hair tousled. The result was devilishly handsome. "Yes, drawn to the library, of course. Which reminds me, I need to peruse your much-lauded fiction collection. I want to find something quite sensational for Ivy."
"I'm just lowbrow enough to have an abundance of that," he said. "What were you thinking? Braddon's your favorite, am I right?"
"I do adore her."
"You just like books where husbands get pushed down wells."
"You've found me out."
"How about Wilkie Collins? The Woman in White? That might be good for her."
"I'd nearly forgotten about that. I don't think it's in my library. I read it when I was still at my parents' house."
"I'm surprised your mother allowed it," he said, stepping up a ladder to reach the book in question.
"She didn't. I borrowed it from a maid."
"Here you are." He handed it to me. "Have you something for me?"
"I do." I gave him the letter I'd brought. "Unfortunately, Cécile doesn't have much to report." He leaned against the edge of his large, leather-topped desk so he could read. When he got to the end, he laughed softly.
"I can't believe that I've managed to hide something from you."
"What?" I asked.
He gave the letter back to me. "Read it again." I did but still saw nothing of particular interest.
"I'm pleased, of course, that Cécile's ordered a new dress, and that Caesar is triumphing over Brutus." I frowned. "She makes no mention of Odette continuing to pine for Davis. I do hope he's not going to have his heart broken."
"Is that all you see?"
I leaned next to him, against the desk, so close that my elbow touched his sleeve. "It's perfectly obvious that you're bursting at the seams to reveal that which I have missed, and you know that I'd never want to keep any pleasure from you."
He breathed deeply and crossed his arms. "You will be the death of me." I met his eyes, doing my best to look all innocence. Neither of us spoke until I dropped the letter. He bent over, picked it up, and, leaning against my shoulder, held it in front of me. "The new dress refers to the planned coup. She knows that the plot has been set in motion but must not yet have an idea of the date. The reference to her dogs means that she is winning over Monsieur Garnier."
"It's so obvious now that you've told me."
"Codes generally are once you know how to decipher them."
"Do tell me that Davis and Odette aren't code for anything. I'll be despondent if I find out that what she said in her previous letter had nothing to do with my poor butler."
"You're quite safe. Davis and Odette are not part of the code."
"That's a relief." I loved the feeling of him so close to me and for a moment allowed myself to think of nothing but the warmth of his arm against mine. I was not, however, so carried away as to overlook the implication of what he had just shared with me. When I realized what it meant, I was quite overcome. "I am such a fool!"
"Don't be so hard on yourself. I understand your reluctance to marry."
"You're absolutely terrible," I said, but couldn't help smiling. "I'm talking about the correspondence between Marie Antoinette and Léonard. They must have written in code."
"It's possible."
"How can I tell?"
"Well, if the letters are encoded, it's likely that there's a simple sort of key. The queen wouldn't have been able to hide anything in her cell, so she must have been able to decipher and write without consulting a key."
"Her jailers would have read everything she wrote and received, so it can't have been too simple or obvious."
Colin crossed the room to another bookshelf, ticking off each volume with a finger until he found the one that he sought. After glancing through it, he passed it to me, then returned to his search. "This might be helpful, as well, so long as it doesn't distract you from the matter at hand." He gave me a second book, this one in French, Les secrets de nos pères: La cryptographie; ou l'Art d'écrire en chiffres.
I glanced at both of them while he opened a drawer in his desk. "This is a definitive work, though it's more pertinent to military cryptography. Fleissner von Wostrowitz is a master, and it's possible that reading his articles will inspire you, though the more I think about it, I'm inclined to say your letters rely on both steganography and cryptography."
"You've absolutely baffled me. I've not the slightest idea what you're talking about."
"Cryptography is codes. If you pick up a document and see a series of numbers or letters that look like gibberish, you know at once that they need to be deciphered. Steganography, however, provides a way to send a hidden message that does not look like a code."
"Like your letter from Cécile?"