Lucy stared at the message. She might have smiled at theno regretsif he hadn’t preceded it withadieu. Her forte was languages, and she’d spoken French almost as long as she’d spoken English. He hadn’t writtenadieuby accident. He might have saidgood-byeorau revoir, but he’d chosen a word that was traditionally used when saying farewell to someone dying or a person one did not expect to see again.
She sat back and drew in a long breath, surprised to find her eyes stinging. She didn’t need a code to understand his message. The night before had been their last together. If they saw each other again, and she rather thought Duncan would try to ensure they didn’t work together again for as long as could be managed, it would be formal and as colleagues. There would be no kisses, caresses, or gazing in each other’s eyes.
She knew this was the inevitable end. Duncan loved her, and she didn’t love him back. He deserved to find a woman who did love him and who could give him what he wanted.
That didn’t make it any easier to accept. Lucy sniffed and told herself she would just miss his prowess in bedsport. Or maybe she was emotional because her lower belly cramped with the start of her cycle.
But there had been something there last night. She hadn’t imagined those feelings, had she? What did it matter now? He was gone.
She crumpled his letter and her code and threw it in the fire then started on Uncle Winn’s note. This took her longer, but she finally had it. He’d kept it mercifully brief, and she didn’t bother decoding everything once she had the gist of it.
Return to the Farm...soon...mission...complete.
She was being called back to the training camp. Duncan wouldn’t be there. He’d said he had a new mission.
Her eyes watered, and she swiped at them. “Just like a man to leave a woman with all the cleanup,” she muttered, thinking of the magistrate she’d have to deal with. Then there would be the packing and arranging to travel back to northern England. She had no hope of leaving until tomorrow and that was only if she pushed very hard today.
She gathered the rest of the parchment, even the pieces under those she had used to decode in case she’d made indentations with the pen, and threw them into the hearth. She watched until they were ashes then strode out of the bed chamber, her jaw set.
***
LUCY ARRIVED AT THEFarm two days later. It was dark when the coach finally stopped in front of the farmhouse, but even after eleven, a lamp burned in the window of Uncle Winn’s study. She took her own valise from the coachman, and it was impossible not to remember that Duncan had carried hers when they’d left the Farm.
She heaved it up the stairs, pushed open the door to the house, then dropped the valise on the steps. “Hullo!” she called.
She wanted tea or Margaret or dinner. She didn’t think she’d have any of it. She made her way to the closed door of Uncle Winn’s study and tapped.
“Come,” he said, sounding distracted. She opened the door, and he looked up from a stack of papers. “Ah. I wondered if that was you in the coach.”
“Yes, I’m back, as requested.”
“Good. I received a summary of the events at Pembroke Lodge from Mr. Slorach, but I’ll want a full report from you.”
Lucy felt her cheeks heat. She knew Uncle Winn meant he wanted a report on Vanderville and the plot they’d sabotaged to murder Johnny. But her mind couldn’t help but recall the nights she and Duncan had spent in the summerhouse.
“Lucy?”
“Of course. Shall I give the report now?”
Uncle Winn looked as though he wanted to say yes, but then he glanced back at his papers. “In the morning. I’m in the middle of this and will lose my train of thought if I stop now. Get some sleep.”
“Yes, sir.” She started for the door, and he called after her.
“Lucy, good work.”
She trudged up the stairs, pulling her luggage with her, and pushed open the door to the room she shared with Margaret. But Margaret wasn’t there. Her bed was empty, and the linens neatly folded at the foot of it. Lucy and Duncan had surmised she’d been sent to London. This seemed confirmation. Lucy went to the window and looked out over the Farm. The bunkhouses with the male agents were dark. She’d stood here a hundred times before, looking out over Building D, which had at one time housed the male agents she’d started with.
Now her brother, perfect Willoughby Galloway, was gone. He’d married a lady-in-waiting, but that hadn’t slowed his rise in the Royal Saboteurs. She didn’t hear much about his missions but enough to know he was distinguishing himself. Lucy sniffed. Well, now she was too. The men who’d become their friends were also gone. Callahan Kelly, the most unlikely agent she’d ever met, had proved quite capable. He’d married Bridget Murray, who had been Uncle Winn’s clerk and Lucy’s friend. Now Bridget was an agent as well. Hew Arundel had been called away to investigate an act of railroad sabotage. He’d returned briefly now and then to give reports and take new missions. He’d taken an interest in tea and had brought her a package of excellent Darjeeling.
Then there had been Duncan. For the last few months, it had been Lucy, Margaret, and Duncan left at the Farm.
Now she was all alone.
Temporarily, she told herself. Uncle Winn would send her on another mission soon.
She went to her valise and unfastened it, lifting out a piece of paper. She smiled at the picture Johnny had painted. The sun shone in the sky and two stick figures, one tall with brown hair and one short with blond, walked hand in hand through a green field. At least she thought that it was a field. Were those brown blocks trees? But there was no mistaking the other figure behind the figures of her and Johnny. It was a tall man with ginger hair and tears falling from his circle of a face.
She would miss Johnny. Lord John was taking the family on holiday to the sea. Lady John said the entire family needed a breath of fresh air. She also thought it would make the arrival of a new nanny easier for Johnny if he’d been away for a few weeks. Lucy had explained that she wasn’t only a nanny. She’d also been his personal guardian. That was why she’d had to throw the knife at the bad man who’d come into the lodge.
