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“No, he was polite to me, but he would have shot his pursuers if necessary. Not that I entirely blamed him, at least about Mr. Wharton, who is vile. But as for poor Mr. Huber, our neighbor…” She was rambling. “Restive is working for our side, then? How do you know?”

Dorothea said nothing. Apparently, she wasn’t allowed to reveal…whatever it was.

“But if he’s on our side, why was a woman following me today?” Lucinda asked. “I can’t be certain, but?—"

“Oh, dear,” Dorothea said. “He will be so chagrined.”

“Who? Lord Restive?”

“No, Yolanda—that’s his, or rather her name when he’s dressed as a woman.

Well, possibly Restive will be chagrined, too,” Dorothea admitted.

"Or perhaps just relieved. One never knows when it comes to men, does one? I think we’ll have to explain it all to you, but I’d better ask Cecil. ” She went to the door and opened it.

A male voice sounded—neither Restive’s nor Cecil’s. “She eluded me.”

“She’s here,” Restive said. Lucinda followed Dorothea across the entryway to Cecil’s study, a smallish room crowded with a desk, several chairs, and a great many papers and books.

A slender young man stood by the fire. Next to him on the floor were the dove grey gown, the straw bonnet, the basket, and a blond wig. He grinned at her. “Well done, Miss Belair.”

“You make a convincing woman,” Lucinda said faintly. Heavens, it was the fugitive from Lord Restive’s house—but his face was clean, and his hair was reddish and tied back in a neat queue, rather than dark and stringy.

“And you’re unusually observant,” the fugitive said. His accent was much more cultured than the night before.

“I was on my guard,” Lucinda said.

“You even changed your appearance,” he said. “Again, well done.”

Dorothea smiled. “That explains why you were wearing a cap and shawl that didn’t go well together, Lucy. I wondered.”

“I didn’t have room to pack much clothing,” Lucinda said. “I just wanted to look different from the last time she—he—saw me.”

“Quick thinking,” the lad said. “It wouldn’t have fooled me, but leaving by a different door did, because it was so unexpected. The mews?” She nodded, and he grinned and stuck out a hand to shake hers. “Davis and/or Yolanda. Pleased to make your acquaintance again, Miss Belair.”

Dorothea handed Restive the paper. “Lucy decoded the message. Isn’t that brilliant?”

Restive narrowed his eyes at Lucinda. “It was you, just as I thought. You replaced the message with nonsense.”

She put up her chin. “Of course.”

“Was traitor to be added to my list of faults?” he growled.

“I didn’t want you to be a traitor,” she retorted. “But how could I know for sure?”

“You couldn’t.” A hint of chagrin crossed his face, and then it dawned on her: he had suspected her of being a traitor, too!

How dared he? Visions of oubliettes and torture instruments crossed her furious mind. He deserved to suffer.

And she was being ridiculous. Perhaps he felt just as badly as she did, and if he didn’t, that wasn’t her problem.

Restive glanced at the message. “Damnation, it’s in Old English again.

What ails the fellow?” He read it silently, mouthing the words.

How astonishing that he could read it at all—but it was a familiar passage, so it wouldn’t take much exposure to Anglo-Saxon to work it out.

However, boys were taught Greek and Latin at school, not ancient versions of English.

“Another bit from the Bible,” Restive said. “Jolly wench, yes, no huge surprise and what a bore. Moonrise on Beltane Eve is clear enough. Something will happen in the evening, latish, but before midnight.”

How unexpected of Restive to know immediately about the phases of the moon, but perhaps he traveled often at night. She couldn’t fault him for that.

She shouldn’t want to fault him for anything. What he did was his business and none of hers.

“That’s only a few days from now, curse it,” Restive said. “But what does cymru mean?”

“Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales,” Cecil Hale said. He was heir to an earl whose estate was on the Welsh Marches, so it wasn’t surprising that he knew this. “What could possibly be happening there?”

“It seems an unlikely location for an uprising,” Dorothea said.

An uprising? Lucinda had assumed they were uncovering a French plot. Might the enemy be fomenting unrest here in England?

“We have people in Wales to handle disturbances—and we can’t get there by Beltane in any event,” Cecil said. “Not only that, the wench is here.”

Restive narrowed his eyes at Lucinda. “Are you sure about this, Miss Belair?” As if she would lie about treason! Or sedition, if that were the case.

“Here’s the original.” She dug it out of her reticule. “Solve it for yourself.”

He waved it away, saying irritably, “For now, I’ll take your word for it.”

“How very kind,” she muttered, setting the paper down on a nearby table.

What a horrid man he was. Not a hint of praise or appreciation.

Even a simple thank you would have been welcome.

And he didn’t even trust her result! Not to mention that it was frightfully rude to utter profanities in the presence of ladies.

She shook herself. When it came to traitors, seditionists, and warfare, one might easily set conventional manners aside. Also, it was petty of her to consider her feelings when the fate of England might be at stake.

“Don’t mind him,” Dorothea said with a laugh. “You did excellent work, and he knows it.”

Restive opened his mouth to retort, but Cecil forestalled him. “Excellent indeed, Miss Belair. I hear you’re planning to be a teacher, but in the meantime, would you consider doing some work for me?”

“N o,” Restive said, and Davis, who was folding his female accoutrements and packing them in a valise, guffawed.

“What do you mean, no?” Cecil said.

“Too dangerous,” Restive said, and immediately regretted coming out with such a stupid reason. There was minimal danger, and if she really was good at codes, she would be a valuable resource.

“No more so than the work Dorothea did for her father for years,” Cecil said. “I would welcome help with both coding and decoding messages. Where did you learn about codes, Miss Belair?”

“My father taught me,” Lucinda said composedly. “When he was in the army, he created more complex codes than this. This one had two separate messages—one which mattered and one which definitely did not.”

Damn, of course she’d decoded the accursed love note from Restive’s fictional mistress. Was she blushing? Any self-respecting virgin would be appalled.

Lucinda went on without reddening in the slightest. “My father’s codes were often the sort that, if decoded the usual way, resulted in a message that was appropriate but not terribly important.

A second process would result in the genuine message—something vital.

This one was actually much simpler; the first coded message was meant to distract the reader from the clues to the second one. ”

“Your father shouldn’t have taught you about such sensitive matters!” Restive protested.

“If the Prince didn’t object, you have no right to do so,” Lucinda shot back. She turned to Dorothea. “My father’s knighthood for service to the Crown was thanks to his friendship with the Prince of Wales. Sometimes I accompanied Papa when he visited the Prince.”

“What fun that must have been,” Dorothea said, making a face at Restive. “For heaven’s sake, Algy, don’t be so Gothic. Just because she’s a woman!”

“It’s nothing to do with that,” Restive said, squirming inside because it both was and wasn’t true. Meanwhile, Davis convulsed with silent laughter.

“He may be telling the truth,” Lucinda said with a fairness he didn’t deserve. “Yesterday, he as good as admitted that men and women are equally likely to be intelligent.”

“He is usually quite reasonable,” Dorothea said. “I don’t know what’s got into him today.”

“Lack of sleep,” Cecil said. “Go home and take a nap.”

“I don’t have time for a bloody nap,” Restive retorted. “We have too little time as it is. Not only is this likely to be a crisis, but—never mind, we’ll discuss it later.”

“Discuss what?” Cecil asked.

“His French friend got something from the smugglers, too,” Davis said. Restive shot him a glare, which he blithely ignored. Evidently, he was as taken with Lucinda—as trusting of her—as everyone else.

“As you suspected,” Cecil said to Restive. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t know . I still don’t. But he’s been pensive, even a bit grim, and our contact in France is half French, and?—”

“True, but he has been reliable up till now.”

“I know,” Restive said, “but something’s going on. Something different from the usual.”

There was a silence, while they all mulled over this unwelcome development.

Confound it, thought Restive. Only a few days till God only knew what crisis, and now Fortin was suspect, and as if that wasn’t enough to deal with, he didn’t know what to think about Lucinda Belair.

Usually, he summed women up easily and then ignored them.

Yes, she was clever, too clever—she had always been bright, even as a girl—but he would be an antiquated fool to hold that against her.

She was pretty—very pretty, dash it, and brave and resourceful. Hades, she’d played him for a fool yesterday, as if she’d been in the espionage game for years.

Was that what bothered him?

Or was it that he found her so attractive, so very desirable , which meant that she was subtly, easily playing him in another way entirely?

Or that he was just a conceited oaf. Or both.

He would deal with his own folly later. Regardless, she was a distraction, the last thing he needed when a crisis loomed. But with all the others on her side—annoyingly so—he would have his work cut out to keep her out of his way.