“You’re not going to find stolen papers.” Adrian stood in the center of the Aubusson rug, turning slowly, considering possibilities. “If she’s keeping anything here—which I doubt—her hiding place will be obvious. Diabolically, cleverly, unfathomably obvious. Once I find it, I’ll kick myself.”
“You do that. I’ll start on the bookcase.” He pulled stacks of books from the top shelf and began going through them. Jess wasn’t keeping letters from the War Office on an open shelf in the corner of her bedroom between Curiosities of Greece and By Mule Through Serbia, but it’d be obvious enough to suit Adrian.
He might not find stolen papers, but he was going to discover Jess. Parts of her were scattered here, everywhere, in the place she lived and the things she owned. This room was going to tell him who she was. “What does Doyle say about the Irishmen?”
“Five dead on Katherine Lane, where they have become the magistrate’s problem.” Adrian strolled over to poke into the dressing table. “One Irishman is hors de combat somewhere in Whitechapel. Lazarus has picked up another. Lazarus is not amused when men come to his part of town to maim and kidnap, that being his prerogative. That leaves four walking around loose.”
“More than I’d want after me.” Four men, hunting Jess Whitby.
“And Ireland is not yet emptied of villains, alas. I’m glad she’s sleeping in your house tonight.” Adrian lined up the comb and brush on her dresser. “Among other things, it lets me search her bedroom.” He made faces in the hand mirror, laid it down, and sniffed at a scent bottle. “Jasmine. From Houbigant in Paris. I used to buy that for her when she was twelve. She has not quite rooted me out of her life. What else . . . ?” He slid a drawer out. “No powder. No pots of rouge. No arcane aids to beauty. From this we will infer there is no man she wishes to entice. A welcome breath of simplicity in this convoluted affair.”
“There’s nothing simple about Jess.”
“On the contrary. There’s no one more candid. She is a veritable tutorial in how not to tell lies. How is she?”
“Frayed around the edges. In pain, and trying to hide it. She’s probably asleep now. Eunice will let me know if she gets worse.” He went down the stack methodically, unfurling one book after another and replacing it on the shelf. “I put her to bed. Maybe I can intimidate her into staying there for a day or two.
“Good luck on that. We’re all behind you.” Adrian began to set the contents of the drawer on the dresser top. “Handkerchief. Always useful. A fan. Ivory and lace. That’s very pretty. Pound notes. Coinage of the realm. One glove. Where do all those lost gloves go, I wonder?” He opened the next drawer. “More of her feminine mysteries.” He drew out a cuff pistol. It was small, German-made, with fine engraving on the barrel and grip. “Nice.” He inspected. “Not loaded recently. She feels safe in London. I cannot help but feel that is unjustified.”
“She’s safe with me.”
“Thereupon I do rest my constant hope and reliance. Would I feel better if Jess went about armed with small but accurate pistols? I must think upon that.”
Her books were in French, German, and Italian. One by one they turned out to be somebody’s travels in Greece, Arabia, and Macedonia, by foot, camel, and donkey. No account books. No codes. No marking on any of the pages. No secrets stolen from Whitehall.
Next row. He thumbed across the titles. Tell me about Jess . . . and the books did. These were stories from lands at the edge of the map, halfway to fable. I was right to see the Viking in your face. Samarkand and Timbuktu and Persepolis. What are you looking for, Jess? Or what are you trying to run away from?
When he left her this morning, she’d been pale and shaken, holding herself together with pure bravado. That was courage, straight and simple, and it drew him as much as the beauty of her.
One moment burned in his memory like a live coal. He’d taken the curve of her cheek in his hand. Jess stared back at him. He could have seduced her, gently, carefully, taking account of that collection of bruises. She was so bloody desirable, and she wouldn’t have stopped him.
But she could be that beautiful, and still be part of her father’s filthy business. So he’d snarled and let her go. The other choice was laying her down in bed and stripping that borrowed dress off her.
Not wise, laying hands on that woman. It made him want more.
A Voyage Through the Crimea to Constantinople proved to be a trip through Crimea, and went back in place. Next came Pope’s translation of the Odyssey. It was the only poetry in the bookcase. Bold writing on the frontispiece read, “Find time to read this while I’m gone. Ned.” The pages were uncut. She kept the book, but she’d never opened it.
And who is Ned? He’d find out. “I want that woman out of my house.”
Adrian shrugged. “I want reliable mail service to St. Petersburg in the winter. We must both live with disappointment. ”
“If you care about this girl, you’ll get her out of my house. I may not have gathered all the evidence, but I’m the one who examined it and laid it out. When we hang her father, she’s going to know I was part of it. It’s going to make her sick, knowing she sat at the same table with me.” Knowing I had my hands on her.
“If Josiah hangs, Jess will be an indescribable mess anyway. I intend to see it doesn’t happen.” Adrian slid the empty drawer out and upended it, searching every side. “Nothing. Some more nothing. Ah. This is promising.”
From the bottom drawer of the dresser, Adrian pulled a slim lacquer box, half full of letters. He laid them in a row and flipped through the envelopes quickly, deliberate and engrossed.
Even from here Sebastian could see those were personal letters, and not recent. “She doesn’t keep state secrets tied up with a blue ribbon.”
“An excellent point. I shall take you along every time I ransack a bedroom.” Adrian sat on the wide bench and opened the first note.
“Then why are you reading her letters?”
“Incurable nosiness. Let me concentrate.”
Which left him to do the search. Last shelf. Still no packet from the Foreign Office, pretending to be Jottings from Arabia.
On a stand next to the bookcase was a wire cage with water dish and bedding, clean, but empty of any animal. She didn’t just have a dog or a cat, then. She kept something small and furry in there. Maybe something exotic she’d picked up in her travels.
Above the cage hung a small, bright painting, very old. A maiden stood in a garden, her hand resting upon the arched neck of a unicorn, a white hound at her feet. Jewel-colored birds perched in the branches around her and her long, golden hair was unbound, flowing like a river. “I didn’t know this was out of France.”
“Hmmm?”
“I’ve seen copies. This is the original.” He barely let himself touch the edges as he lifted it and checked behind. “It’s thirteenth century, from Arles.” That’s how powerful the Whitbys were. They owned something like this and hung it in a girl’s bedroom. “That other one, over there next to you, is a Bartolomeo Veneto. We could retire in luxury on the sale of these two.”
“Help yourself.” Adrian, cross-legged on the bench, had immersed himself in the next letter.
A Hepplewhite tallboy came next. The bottom drawer told him Jess’s taste in nightwear ran to soft batiste, silky as wind, so smooth it felt warm to the touch. Her shifts were threaded with bright, frivolous ribbon and expensive lace. But he already knew about her shifts, didn’t he? She didn’t keep stolen papers or account books among her underthings.
A jewelry box sat on top of the tallboy, in plain sight, next to the night candle. It was acacia wood with ivory, a work of art in its own right. He lifted it down and brought it to the bed. “Why doesn’t she lock up her jewelry?”