Her Wicked Highland Spy (The Marriage Maker #10)(26)

“Oh, no, Papa,” she said quickly. “Ollie doesn’t sound his usual cheerful self is all. I was taken aback.”

Her father nodded. He drummed thick fingers on the desktop. “Read on. Let me judge.”

“I did not enjoy the gaming hall Lord Belview recommended,” she read. “In fact, it was no longer in the location he said it would be, which strikes me as odd. Lord Belview’s information is generally quite accurate. As I spent my time seeking it, to no avail, I haven’t had opportunity to contemplate the name Lord Winston suggested for his new hound. Please forward my apologies for that and ask him if he’s settled on that name or awaits my viewpoint on the matter.”

The agitated tap of her father’s fingers halted. Her gaze snapped to his downturned mouth. His deeply lined face and ponderous jowls gave him an ominous look by candlelight.

“He then goes into the usual adieu, Papa,” she concluded, lowering the letter to the desk. The sweet honeyed scent of the costly candles, normally a source of pleasure, mingled with her worry to form a queasy knot in her gut.

“Couldn’t locate the gaming hall?” her father repeated. He slapped his hand flat on the desk.

Bridget jumped.

“That’s three times now,” her father said. “In a row.”

“Yes.” Bridget forced lightness into her tone and subdued the desire to shift, for the hard wood chair would creak and reveal her unease. She mustn’t let her father suspect she realized Ollie’s words were a code. He would find someone else to read for him and she would lose her tenuous glimpse into what her brother did for the Crown. “I daresay it’s been so long since Lord Belview toured the continent, many of the places he once visited have changed.”

“Hmm?” Her father blinked, focusing on her. “Yes, of course. You’re a smart lass.” A hint of satisfaction ghosted across his features. He levered his still powerful form from his chair. “Write Belview and Winston before you retire, will you? Tell them what your brother wrote.”

“Yes, Papa. Should I reply to Ollie?”

He shook his head. “Wait to see what their lordships have to say.”

She stood as her father crossed the candlelight-filled office. His dragon-topped cane pounded a sharp rhythm, even through the thick carpet. With a parting nod, he left. He closed the door behind him.

Alone in the intricately paneled room, Bridget tossed her thick blonde braid over her shoulder and went around the desk. After taking her father’s chair, which was considerably more comfortable than her own, she pulled out clean pages, ink and a pen. She slid her brother’s letter across and read the lines a fourth time.

She wasn’t meant to, but she knew Ollie spied for the Crown. It had started years ago, when they were both quite young. Her father and Ollie had spent hours locked in this very office, or so it had seemed. Not until Bridget, a child of four, squeezed under one of the massive, hard-backed sofas, did she learn of the secret door.

Her eyes traced the decorative millwork along walls, cabinetry and mantelpiece. A complex pattern of corbels and rosettes opened the indiscernible secret door beside the fireplace. That door led to an entirely different world. One of hidden chambers, carved from the rock below the keep.

Chambers Bridget wouldn’t be visiting that evening.

She brought her attention back to the page before her. Careful to convey Ollie’s precise words, she penned a note first to Lord Winston and then to Lord Belview.

She didn’t know exactly what Ollie did for the Crown, only that he’d trained for such service his whole life. Their father had instructed him in secret, in the hidden rooms below their ancient keep, Lomall a 'Chaisteil. Having been warned by Ollie to stay away, Bridget had never witnessed that training, but sometimes the bruises were visible above Ollie’s collar or if he took off his socks and rolled up his pants to splash in the garden pond. Occasionally, there’d even been a black eye or broken nose, always blamed on a riding accident, but she’d never once seen Ollie lose his seat.

Bridget slid a candelabra nearer and double checked her letters before she sealed and addressed them. She wished she knew what Ollie’s code meant. She suspected Lord Belview’s continuous recommendations were locations and Lord Winston’s obsession with the nomenclature of his prize hounds a code for people’s names. Usually, Ollie wrote back that he’d visited the place and approved of the new name. Bridget suspected that meant he’d found the person and done, well, whatever it was he was meant to do. If so, her brother was very successful.

Until the last few months, that was, and again in his new letter. Even not knowing what success meant, given the secrecy surrounding her brother’s profession, she could imagine the danger of failure. How long could things continue to go wrong for Ollie before they went very, very wrong?

She let out a sigh, aware of her helplessness. She could only assist their father, whose eyes were too old for reading and writing. She placed the letters to one side and returned the pen, ink and paper to their drawers. Lastly, she pulled a key free of her bodice and unlocked a different drawer. She put Ollie’s letter inside with the others and turned the key in the lock.

Bridget tucked the key back into her bodice and went to collect a candle from the candelabra. The others she extinguished, licking her fingers before snuffing out each wick to save her soft skin from burns. The office, windowless paneled walls rendering it lightless even at noon, was plunged into deep shadow, punctuated by the sooty, honey-touched smell of the snuffed candles.