Ever since the two of them had turned out of Kleeblattgasse, her mind had been hostage to a chaotic jumble of images, fears, and concerns. But the farther they walked, the more insistent the present grew, and it eventually succeeded in drawing her back to the moment.
She glanced around. They hadn’t walked so far; she should recognize her surroundings, but the play of nighttime shadows made the familiar less so. She glanced at Toby; he continued to lead her on with an assurance that suggested he had a destination in mind and knew the way. “Where are we going?”
On so many levels, she didn’t know the answer.
He glanced at her, then faced forward again, constantly scanning the shadows. “That temple in the Volksgarten, opposite Fellows’s house. We need somewhere to sit and think.”
She felt the same and saw no reason to argue.
Minutes later, they reached the gardens somewhat to the north of the temple and walked quietly down the path to the colonnaded marble building. The porch within the colonnades lay in deep shadow. They climbed the steps and claimed one of the benches that stood against the temple’s wall.
She sat, drawing her skirts about her.
Toby piled her bags beside the bench, then, still carrying his cane, sat beside her.
For a moment, they stared out at the night-shrouded gardens.
She had to admit she felt safer in the familiar place, even more so knowing that no one could easily see her in the near dark.
Her previously roiling thoughts had subsided, leaving several critical questions starkly revealed. It took her a moment to marshal the words to address the first. Gripping her hands in her lap, she said, “Herschel was Papa’s physician.”
Toby leant forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, but his gaze remained on the lawns and trees.
She glanced at his profile, then moistened her lips. “Is it possible, do you think…?”
She was grateful when, without further elucidation, he filled in, “That Herschel had a hand in your father’s unexpected death? Yes, it’s possible, but with Herschel dead, I doubt we’ll ever know.”
“Papa had a dicky heart, but neither he nor I expected it to fail him—not yet. But it’s possible Herschel gave him something that brought on his decline, hoping that, as nearly happened, Papa would tell me, or even Herschel himself, where the dispatches are. I thought it odd that, as soon as Papa started to sicken, Herschel was there constantly, forever hovering, day and night.”
She was increasingly certain Herschel had, indeed, been responsible for her father’s death. She fell silent, captured by her feelings toward an already dead man.
Then Toby stirred. “Regardless of the truth, there’s nothing we can do about that now.” He turned his head to look at her. “Other than finish what your father started.”
Something in his tone reached her, anchored her, and shone a light on what she needed to do. Frowning, she grimaced. “I would give you the dispatches if I knew where they were, but I don’t.” Through the shadows, she met his gaze. “I truly have no clue what Papa did with the packet.” She paused, then added, “I didn’t ask earlier because I assumed he would be here, ready to hand the packet over to you.”
That assumption and the image it evoked was one she’d clung to until the very end. In her mind, now, that dreamlike vision faded to nothingness, and sorrow and regret rose in its place. So manywhy didn’t I’scrowded into her brain.
Toby let the silence stretch, giving her those moments to come to terms with her father’s passing. From all he’d gathered, she’d had precious little time to grieve, to absorb her new reality. He could imagine that the events of the night had made that even more difficult.
Eventually, however, he had to intrude and seek a way forward. After ordering his thoughts, he said, “With Jager and Koch actively engaged, we don’t have much time. We need to focus on locating the documents, and while I accept that you don’t consciously know where they are, we still have to try.”
She looked at him, and from the sharpness of her gaze, he knew she’d left the past behind, and he had her full attention. “How? If the packet was at the house, surely, Herschel would have found it.”
“But he didn’t.” He caught and held her gaze. “You need to put yourself in your father’s shoes. If he wanted to hide such a thing and hide it well, where would he have put it?”
She grimaced. “Sadly, he excelled at hiding things in the very last place you would think to look. He delighted in playing hide-and-seek with me as a child, hiding sweets for me to find, but often, he left me completely stumped.”
Toby frowned, then said, “Both you and Fellows seem certain your father would have hidden the packet in the house. But is there anywhere else he might have used as a hiding place for such a thing?”
She shook her head decisively. “No. I’m sure he hid it in the house, and Adrian thought the same, which means Papa led him to think so. I can’t imagine anywhere else Papa might have put it, yet judging by Herschel’s search tonight—and he would have been able to search the house more carefully previously, whenever I wasn’t there, and recently, that’s been most of the time—then the packet simply isn’t there.”
“Or,” Toby said, “it isn’t there anymore.”
She stared at him. “I don’t know how that could be.”
He didn’t, either, but he was starting to think that was the logical explanation. “Let’s set that possibility aside for the moment. I need you to go back to the moments before your father died.” He knew what he was asking would be painful for her, but he—and she—had to know. “You asked him where the dispatches were. I need you to tell meexactlywhat he said in reply.”
She sighed softly, but didn’t draw back from the memory. “First, he made me promise that I would trust only you—the man Winchelsea sent—with the packet and that I would return to England with you.” She frowned, evidently caught in the remembered moment. “He was concerned that I wouldn’t be safe in Vienna after he died.”
