Home.
He was finally there.
Home for him lay in Deliah’s arms.
December 19
Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk
In the darkest hour of the long night, Roderick Ferrar strode up to the back door of the house in Bury St. Edmunds that the cult had made its own.
The door opened before he reached it. He strode in, fighting to keep the shivers that racked him at bay. He went straight through the house to the drawing room, barely noticing the silks now draping the walls, the incense permeating the air, the servants and cultists who bowed low as he passed.
Alex and Daniel were waiting, playing cards at a small table set between two armchairs angled before the hearth. They looked up as he entered. Stiffly, he walked to the hearth, and bent to warm his icy hands at the blaze.
One look at Roderick’s face, and all expression leached from Alex’s. “You’re exceedingly late. What happened?”
Roderick straightened, drew a tight breath, then faced them. “It was a trap. They turned Larkins’s brilliant plan into a trap, and Larkins walked right into it.”
Alex blinked, slowly. “Where is Larkins?”
Roderick snorted. Gripped the mantelpiece. “He’s dead. He’d been seen by a bevy of them-St. Ives was there, for heaven’s sake! And Chillingworth. And a host of others of that ilk-including Delborough, of course. They all saw Larkins take the scroll-holder, open it, read the letter, then pocket it-then, of course, he moved to silence the boy. That’s when they showed themselves. There were a dozen of them, maybe more. I didn’t wait to count. I had to get to Larkins, had to kill him. They had more than enough testimony to take him up, to prove he was after the letter with my seal. And once they had him-”
“He would have given us up to save his miserable hide.” Daniel nodded. “I take it you managed to eliminate Larkins without being seen yourself?”
Roderick wiped a hand over his mouth. “Just. It was a near-run thing, but I got clean away.” He looked at Alex. “That’s why I’m so late. I stopped in Newmarket-in a tavern-to make sure I wasn’t followed.”
“Sound thinking.” Alex leaned back in the armchair.
Roderick started to pace before the fire. “This is unbelievably irritating. Where the hell am I to find someone to re place Larkins? Someone who understands our needs, knows how the cult operates, is willing and able to do what’s required, and above all, given these damned couriers and our present need, is an Englishman?”
The other two exchanged a glance, but neither leapt to answer.
Eventually, Daniel murmured, “Larkins did have his uses.”
“I didn’t want to kill him.” Roderick ran a hand through his hair. “Lord knows, he’s been with me for decades.”
“You did the right thing,” Alex reassured him, in a voice of infinite, collected calm. “If he’d been taken up, as inevitably he would have been-impossible to hide him forever-he would have given you, and us, up. There’s no doubt of that. You would have been a fool to wager your neck on his loyalty. You had to act as you did.”
Alex’s words had the desired effect. Roderick calmed, grew less agitated.
“There’s too much at stake in this game,” Daniel said. “We have to play to win.”
“Indeed, “Alex concurred. “Those who are weak enough to get caught…have to be eliminated.”
Neither Roderick nor Daniel argued.
After a pause, Alex continued, “You mentioned Delborough’s scroll-holder. What happened to it?”
“Larkins’s last useful act. He had it when he met me.” Roderick felt in the pockets of the greatcoat he still wore, pulled out the scroll-holder, and handed it to Alex. “I checked. It’s a copy, not the original.”
Alex’s lips twisted wryly. “So I was right. Delborough was a decoy.”
“Your prescience is not much use after the fact,” Roderick said. “But at least we now know why Delborough went to Somersham Place. What better reinforcements than a whole troop of Cynsters?”
Daniel shrugged. “So they rattle their sabers around these parts. We’ll just make sure all the action henceforth takes place far from here.”
“Exactly.” Alex looked at Roderick. “So where is Hamilton?”
Roderick gave a brief report. “So in the matter of the major, we’ve done all we can-put everything in place-that we can to this point. But Hamilton and Miss Ensworth are already at Chelmsford. They appear to be heading this way.” He glanced at Alex and Daniel. “The question is, are they heading to Somersham Place as well, or somewhere else?”
“It’s possible, of course, that they’re heading to Somersham.” There was a frown etched on Alex’s face. “I just wish we’d known about the damned Cynsters in time to act earlier, at least to keep Hamilton from getting this close.”
“Too late for that now,” Daniel observed. “He’s virtually on our doorstep.”
“True,” Alex allowed. “But what worries me more is these others our puppetmaster has drawn into this fight. We’re not, as we thought we would be, facing only the colonel and his three friends. We’ve the Cynsters getting in our way up here, and bodyguards escorting our pigeons from the moment they land. Delborough had two, and now you say Hamilton has another two-a different two-who were waiting for him when he landed.”
Head slowly shaking, Alex met Roderick’s, then Daniel’s eyes. “This is all too expertly organized. We’re facing an enemy more able than we’d thought, and being forced to fight on a front far wider than we’d anticipated.”
When Alex fell silent, Daniel prompted, “So?”
Alex pulled a face. “I just wish I knew who was behind this. It’s much easier to triumph over an enemy if you know who that enemy is. How else can you learn his weaknesses?”
Neither of the other two answered.
Roderick shifted his weight. “What we do know is that, whoever he is, he poses a very real danger to us-or will if the original letter gets through to him.”
Alex examined the scroll-holder Larkins had died for. “The usual contraption.” The cult used similar devices to transport sensitive communications.
With quick flicks, Alex manipulated the levers, unlocked the scroll-holder, opened it, and drew out the single sheet of parchment it held.
Daniel looked at Roderick. “While our men are taking Hamilton down, we should put more effort into identifying who our puppetmaster is. Chances are it’s someone with links both to the Cynsters and to these other men-the ones acting as bodyguards. What do you know of them? Are they from some arm of the services, or…?”
“At this point,” Roderick said, “I don’t even know who they are.”
While Daniel and Roderick discussed ways and means to identify their unexpected opponents, Alex unrolled the letter and, after checking-just to make sure-that it was indeed a copy with no incriminating seal, idly scanned the contents.
The rumble of the others’ voices filled the night’s silence. Alex’s eyes traveled the sheet, then halted.
Neither Alex nor Daniel had previously seen the letter. Neither had had any idea of its full contents.
A long moment passed. Alex’s eyes remained locked on the letter, on a single line. Roderick and Daniel continued to talk.
Abruptly, Alex looked up. “You used my name.”
The words resonated with accusation and incipient black fury.
Roderick looked at Alex, frowned. “Of course I mentioned you. If you recall, I was trying to persuade that bastard, Govind Holkar, to commit more deeply-men and money. We’d discussed mentioning you visiting Poona as an incentive-you knew I’d be mentioning it.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Alex bit off each word, gaze boring into Roderick. “You used my real name.”
Both Roderick and Daniel blinked. Then both froze.