He was a diplomat. Margaret said, her voice softer than she intended. A minor one. He spent his life trying to smooth over the petty squabbles of kings and tsars.
He believed that if people could just understand each other's languages, they wouldn't need to kill each other. An idealist. A fool. Margaret corrected, though there was no malice in her tone, only sadness.
He died in debt because he paid for translations instead of paying the rent. He dragged me across the continent. I learned to bargain in Italian so we wouldn't overpay for bread. I learned Russian so I could read the eviction notices the landlords nailed to our doors.
Simon watched her hands. They were not the soft pale hands of a debutante. They were capable. There was a small faded scar across her left knuckle and calluses on her fingers from holding a pen.
You did not have a childhood, he noted. I had an education, she replied fiercely. I do not regret it. I only regret that society values a woman's ability to embroider a pillow cushion over her ability to dismantle a trade embargo.
Simon let out a low hum. Society is largely comprised of idiots. Margaret looked up surprised. It was the first thing they had agreed upon since they met.
I grew up in the mines, Simon said quietly. Margaret frowned. You are an earl. I am the fourth son of an earl, Simon corrected.
My father despised me. My older brothers were the heirs. I was the spare he didn't want. He sent me north to manage the coal pits when I was 14.
He expected me to fail or die of black lung. He looked at his own hands. They were large, the knuckles slightly knobby. I didn't fail.
I learned how the seams ran. I learned how to deal with the pit bosses. When a fever took my father and all three of my brothers in a single month, I inherited the title. But I am not one of the Miss Lindfield.
I sit in their ballrooms and all I can smell is the coal dust. Margaret stared at him. The arrogant, untouchable lord from the ballroom was gone. The man sitting across from her was bruised, hard-edged, and deeply cynical.
He was a survivor. Just like her. Why did you insult me in French? She asked softly.
Simon didn't flinch. He met her gaze squarely. Because I saw you standing against that pillar looking like you wanted to set the room on fire. Because I recognized the look on your face.
You hated everyone in that room. Including you. Especially me, he agreed. And I wanted to see if you would break or if you would fight back.
I wanted to see if the fire was real. It was a cruel test. I am a cruel man. No.
Margaret said, her voice barely a whisper in the quiet library. You are just tired. Simon's breath hitched. He stared at her, the air between them suddenly feeling very thin, very highly charged.
He leaned forward, the distance between them closing over the scattered ink-stained letters. A sharp knock at the library door shattered the moment. They both jerked back as if they had touched a hot stove. Simon stood up immediately, his face snapping back into a mask of polite indifference.
"Enter. He called out, his voice a gravelly bark. Lord Peter opened the door. He looked between the two of them, sensing the heavy crackling tension in the room, and awkwardly cleared his throat."
"Apologies, Simon. Miss Lindfield, I didn't mean to interrupt. Peter said, looking everywhere but at them. "But there is a gentleman in the foyer, a Mr. Thornton.
He claims to represent the Neapolitan Trade Authority. He says he needs to speak with you immediately. Margaret looked down at the ciphered letters on the desk. She looked back up at Simon.
The fragile bridge of understanding that had just formed between them vanished, replaced by the immediate cold reality of the war they were waging. "Keep translating. Simon ordered her, his voice devoid of the vulnerability he had shown 10 seconds prior. "Find me every name in those documents.
He strode out of the library, leaving Margaret alone with the smell of ink tobacco, and the sudden terrifying realization that she no longer hated the Earl of Kelsall. The heavy oak door clicked shut, sealing Margaret inside the library. The quiet was immediate, but it was no longer peaceful. It was the taut humming silence of a stretched wire just before it snaps.
Margaret stared at the door for 10 seconds. She looked down at the ciphered letters. The ink seemed to mock her, a chaotic jumble of Russian and Italian that held the fate of hundreds of sailors and a vast fortune. She picked up her quill.
She dipped it into the inkwell, the dark liquid clinging to the nib like a heavy drop of blood. She dragged her eyes back to the parchment. "Find me every name." he had ordered. She combed through the jagged script of Volkov's letter, her eyes scanning past the metaphors of grain, silk, and iron.
She looked for the connectors, the men who facilitated the bribes. The text was incredibly dense, the Neapolitan slang twisting the Cyrillic alphabet into a bastardized code. Three paragraphs down she found it. It was not a proper name.
It was a title followed by a physical description written in a crude phonetic spelling, "The hound who guards the English gate. "He eats our grain. "He has the mark of the pox on his jaw. "We pay him on the first of the month to look away from the harbor.
Margaret frowned. The English gate meant London Customs. The man was on the payroll. He was the one ensuring the false manifests were approved, allowing Volkov's ships to dock without suspicion, while Simon's ships were targeted abroad.
She shoved the parchment aside and pulled Simon's ledger toward her. She flipped through the heavy cream-colored pages, scanning the columns of neat clerkish handwriting. She found the section on port authorities and customs liaisons. Her finger stopped.
There it was. William Thornton. Senior liaison, London Customs Authority. Margaret's stomach dropped.
Thornton wasn't representing the Neapolitan Trade Authority to help Simon. Thornton was the inside man. He was here to find out how much Simon knew, or perhaps to steer him toward a false solution. Margaret stood up.