Marek waited patiently, unable to fathom where this was going.
“Nevertheless, I asked Mr. Kettle if I might see the manifest for theAnna Marie.That’s the ship, you know, the one we discussed the last time you called. Of course, Mr. Kettle refused, which, between us, I think it is simply his nature to be disagreeable. So I bribed him with cake.” She paused and glanced at Marek’s untouched piece of cake. Marek did, too. “Notthiscake. A different cake.Thiscake is not a bribe, if that’s what you’re thinking. It happens that Mrs. Plum makes a delicious cake and I am forever looking for an excuse of have one.” She laughed. “But he did allow me to look at that manifest.”
Marek had to pause a moment so that his brain could catch up to her free-flowing stream of consciousness.
“Can you guess what I discovered, Mr. Brendan?”
Mr. Kettle’s handwriting wasn’t very neat? Mr. Kettle put a tree in his house at Christmas?He eyed the cake on his plate. “Not only can I not guess, I won’t even attempt it.”
“Just as well, because you’d never guess. Here it is—there were no Weslorians listed on the ship’s manifest.”
Marek waited for her to say something more, to explain why she found this news so remarkable that she’d summoned him here to eat her cake, which, he would admit, did indeed look delicious. When had he last had cake? Must have been the party to celebrate the birth of the Tarians’ son. That had been several months ago.
Mrs. Honeycutt waited with visible impatience for him to say something. When he didn’t, her eyebrows rose high.“Well?”
“You have me at a disadvantage, Mrs. Honeycutt,” he said. “I don’t understand the importance of this finding.”
“Really?”She seemed shocked. “Surely you have some thoughts on the matter. You must make something of it.”
“I do make something of it. I assume that whoever told you there were four Weslorian soldiers on that ship was incorrect.”
She leaned back and considered him. “Well, that’s one interpretation, I suppose. However, another one is to assume those four soldiers either stole onto that ship or were invited on, and they were not placed on the manifest for corrupt reasons.”
Yes, well, when one had a vivid imagination, one might immediately leap to theories of corruption.
Marek picked up the plate of cake. “That is indeed one way to look at it. However, I choose to look at it from the most logical angle.”
“Hmmm,”she said, her eyebrows sinking into a fiendish littleV. “Is it possible, Mr. Brendan, that you believe your theory is the most logical because you are male and I am female? Or would you, by chance, have another theory that I would be very keen to hear?” Her voice carried a pitch that he knew instinctively was the pitch of a woman who was displeased. That particular tone was the same the world over, in any language, at any hearing ability.
He took a bite of cake. It melted in his mouth and sent a rush of pleasure through him that made his scalp tingle. He glanced at his hostess. As much as he hated to admit it, her hypothesis would make sense under the right circumstances. “I don’t think your idea is inferior,” he said carefully, although he did think it was a very long stretch. “But I think it’s not as logical as mine.”
“Naturally,” she said crisply, and leaned forward, pinning him with a look. For a moment, he thought she meant to take away his cake.
He reluctantly set the plate aside and inched forward on his seat. Bracing his hands on his knees, he chose his words with care. “May I ask why you are so insistent in believing that there is a conspiracy against my king? You have presented scant evidence of it.”
“But you believe it, too, Mr. Brendan,” she pointed out. “Otherwise you would not have come again tonight. Why are you so insistent on believing I can’t help you?”
He glanced longingly at his cake. “Please don’t take offense when I say you cannot possibly help me. There are...circumstances that make it impossible.”
“What circumstances?”
He couldn’t possibly explain them to her. It would take a lifetime to explain his circumstances. It was complicated, convoluted, torturous, and tangled. Almost as tangled as the bit of silky dark hair that curled around her ear. “Nothing that I can share with you, unfortunately.”
“Is that so,” she said pertly. “I may be of more help than you can possibly imagine. I happen to know the owner of the Scottish ship, and he happens to be in London just now. We could simply ask him if there were four soldiers on his ship.” She leaned over the arm of her chair again. “Aren’t you just atinybit curious, Mr. Brendan?”
Yes, he was a tiny bit curious about many things in that moment. His eyes traced a line from the curl of hair around her ear to her lips. He didn’t know what to say to this lunacy. To think that she would go off on her own and perhaps stumble onto something villainous was unacceptable.
How in hell had he gotten himself into this predicament?
He was thinking how to respond carefully when something distant and thudding reached him.
Mrs. Honeycutt gasped. Her feet hit the floor. She sat up, wide-eyed, and looked at Marek.
“What is it?”
“Someone is pounding—”
She was suddenly on her feet, and Marek was aware of that distant thudding again. She was gone in a flash, disappearing out the door.
