She and her father had left England in the year after her mother had died, both hoping that new sights would help their lingering sorrow fade. Initially, Vienna had been merely a place to visit, one of medical interest to her father, but the expatriate community there had welcomed them with open arms, and after consulting on the treatment of a senior member of one of the premier aristocratic families, her father had found himself in great and insistent demand.
He’d leased the house in Kleeblattgasse, and they’d moved in and never left.
For her part, Diana didn’t regret one minute of the following years. In supporting her father’s work, she’d found her calling. Her naturally bossy nature, inherited from her mother, had emerged in response to the challenges of managing a household and a busy medical practice in a foreign land and in keeping both household and practice functioning and revolving around a man who, while brilliant, dedicated, and clinically observant in his calling, was prone to be forgetful and given to absentmindedness in all other spheres of life.
She’d thrived on the constant demands on her efforts and her ingenuity and had developed the observational skills, quick thinking, and tact required to deal with his haughtiest patients. She’d kept the house and the practice running smoothly and had reveled in the task.
I owe Papa so very much, but with his passing…
Almost as if he’d heard the thought, her father’s lids fluttered, then rose. His washed-out brown eyes sought and found her face, and his hand, which had been lying limp in hers, gripped, albeit weakly.
He wasn’t quite smiling, but his expression was relaxed and showed no hint of pain.
Diana met his eyes and hoped her love for him shone in hers even as she hid a frown. Had Herschel given him something when she’d stepped out of the room? She’d been gone for only a moment, but that would have been long enough.
Her father’s lips lifted slightly. “Diana, my darling girl.” His fingers pressed hers… in warning? “I suspect I haven’t long, my darling, and we need to talk.”
She was conscious of Herschel hovering in the open doorway at her back. “Don’t worry about me, Papa. Save your strength.”
Her father’s lips quirked in gentle amusement. “For what? We both know the end is close, my sweet.” Her father’s gaze went past her to the door. “Herschel, my friend, if you please, a moment…?”
Diana glanced over her shoulder to see Herschel still hovering.
After a fractional hesitation, Herschel touched his heels together and bowed in respectful fashion. “Of course.” To Diana, he said, “I will remain close enough for you to call should you need me.”
She nodded, and he leant in, caught the doorknob, and drew the door closed.
She returned her gaze to her father and saw his expression transform into one of extreme seriousness.
His fingers tightened on hers. “Promise me that you will not trust anyone, and that includes Herschel. Promise me that you will wait and place your trust only in the man Winchelsea sends.”
She frowned faintly. “Trust in what way?”
“With the packet that you know of.” Her father’s gaze, surprisingly clear, held hers. “Promise me you will give the packet only to the man Winchelsea sends and that you will return to England with him—you will not be safe here, in Vienna, once I’m gone.”
The packet he referred to had unexpectedly fallen into his hands. As the local doctor, he’d been called to attend the injured after a brawl at a nearby tavern, only to discover one of the participants had been stabbed. In extremis, the man—a German who, naturally, her multilingual father had spoken to in German—had pressed the packet on her father and asked him to see it delivered. Focused on saving the man, he’d accepted the packet, but despite his best efforts, soon after, the German had died.
Later, on returning to Kleeblattgasse and seeking to learn to whom the packet should be sent, her father had opened it and discovered a sheaf of political dispatches detailing German plans regarding British assets in Africa.
Despite not having set foot in Britain for over thirteen years, her father was a loyal patriot. After studying the documents, he’d informed her that they contained information about serious threats to the Empire and that he would seek to get word to the proper British authorities through the embassy in Vienna.
She knew he had done so and that a person named Winchelsea had replied. It had been arranged that Winchelsea would send a trusted agent to collect the dispatches and also escort her father and her safely back to England.
Diana had resigned herself to quitting Vienna, but she’d imagined she’d be leaving by her father’s side. On top of that, she still had one patient—one critically ill and dying patient—whom she would not leave. “Papa?—”
Alarm flared in her father’s eyes, and he gripped her hand even more tightly. “Promise me, my darling. It is, quite literally, the last thing I will ask you to do.”
There was no way she could deny him. She inwardly sighed and nodded. “I promise. When the man Winchelsea sends arrives, I will give him the dispatches and return with him to England.”After Adrian Fellows dies and I see his and Alicia’s children settled.Winchelsea’s man would simply have to wait; Adrian didn’t have many days left.
The tension in her father’s face eased. “Thank you.”
She waited, but his eyes, fixed on her face, slowly closed.
She shook his hand slightly. “Papa?” She leant closer and whispered, “You haven’t told me where you hid the packet.”
“Ah, yes.” His slight smile returned, and he opened his eyes.
Her heart caught and skipped a beat. She stared at his face, desperately committing the beloved sight to memory.
