Page 63 of A Courtship of Conspiracies
“James?” she echoed.
He did not respond. His body had gone rigid. Then he reached into his inner pocket and withdrew something she could not see. He finally raised his head. Despair marked every line of his face.
“I—” His voice broke. No further words came. He extended his trembling hand and slowly uncurled his fingers, revealing a small object.
Henry’s token.
Etched with a hissing serpent coiled around an oak leaf.
Chapter 21
James
The embers crackled in the hearth. His heart pounded in his chest. The scent of faded leather and dust hung in the air. Kate’s lips parted in a silent gasp. But all of it felt distant. Unreal.
The only thing his mind could hold was the weight of Henry’s token in his hand.
Shock gave way to revulsion. Then anger. Each sensation sharper than the last. He knew with dreadful certainty that the token, rather than the charm or keepsake he had imagined it to be, was connected to the mystery of Henry’s death.
His fingers clenched the metal object until it dug into his palm. He dropped his chin. Everything inside him fractured into a thousand tiny pieces, one for each moment of guilt and regret.
A soft hand closed around his free one.
Kate.
The slow caress of her thumb over his knuckles anchored him, pulling him back to the room. The grief and rage still simmered below the surface, but they no longer threatened to tear him apart.
He met her tender, tear-brightened gaze, a silent entreaty from Kate that nearly undid him. He focused on her touch and forced himself to breathe. She deserved more than a man held together by duty and grief.
It was time for answers.
Westmarch’s expression held a hint of sympathy, but his eyes remained watchful and calculating. He was assessing James, surely wondering what had shaken him so badly.
“Westmarch, I think it is time you share what you know,” James said, his voice carrying an authority he had never used with his mentor. Firelight flickered on the wall behind him.
Westmarch didn’t flinch. “First, I need to know where you got that token.”
“Henry.”
Westmarch raised both hands in front of him in a calming gesture. “James, I swear to you, before now I had no reason to connect Henry’s death to the Arcadian Circle. I believed he died because of the smuggling inquiry you were pursuing together, not because of the rumors I had sent him to examine.” The tension stretched between them like a taut wire. “But I can shed some light on the token’s symbol.”
James wanted to cast the cursed thing from him, to hear it strike the floor and roll into some forgotten corner where he would never have to feel its weight again.
Instead, he closed his fist around it until the metal bit into his palm. If the token was no longer his penance, then it would become his purpose.
Whatever had happened to Henry had not been random. The token, the names, and the shipments in that ledger were undeniably connected. The people behind Henry’s death were hiding in the shadows, and James would see everyone responsible brought into the light.
Westmarch took a seat in an upholstered chair that was dwarfed by his large frame. James lowered himself onto the sofa beside Kate. The velvet of the cushion was oddly soft against the stark coldness in his chest.
“You both understand the nature of my obligations at the Home Office in Whitehall,” Westmarch said, turning to face them fully. “Matters of treason fall strictly under my charge.”
James and Kate both nodded. Westmarch’s work was the very thing that had first brought him into the confidence of both families years ago, under circumstances no one involved was likely to forget.
“For a few years now, there have been whispers of a group intent on destabilizing the government. Rumors only. Nothing I could carry into Whitehall without being laughed out of the room. Or worse, alerting anyone involved that I was aware of the group.”
Westmarch tapped one finger against the edge of the chair. “Then, a few weeks ago, an old acquaintance wrote to me. Isaac Fletcher. He wanted to meet.”
James leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “Is that where you disappeared to these last few weeks?”
