She had stashed the invisible ink he had given her with the small vials of perfume she kept in her desk. She often dabbed their sweet scents on her correspondence as an added personal touch. If any of the servants happened across the bottles of straw-colored stain, they would think it her lilac water.
Granddad Thad had shown her how to use it, how to develop it with the counter liquor. He had also pulled out the code book he and her uncles and father and brother used. Flipping through the pages and then putting it away, he had smiled. Because, he’d said, he didn’t have to make another copy and didn’t have to fear it falling into an enemy’s hands.
Finally, a valid use for her perfect recall.
She extracted the vial and a new quill pen from the drawer, and then dipped. Between the lines of the note itself she penned her encoded message, careful to keep the invisible ink from passing over the black, lest it run. She kept it concise, merely explaining what she had found and where, and saying she would put the list of names on the back of the paper. After waiting for it to dry into nothingness, she flipped the page over and got down to work.
Names were difficult to encode, having to do so letter by letter and using a dictionary as key. Granddad had said it was unnecessary in anything she would send him, that the ink itself was insurance enough. So she just wrote. And wrote, until her hand cramped. Each and every name on the list.
Some he no doubt already knew, but some he might not. She crossed out the ones that had been crossed out, starred the ones that had been starred. Wrote until what she assumed was the entire castle filled her page.
While it dried, she unlocked her door. Mother Hughes would likely wonder where she had gotten to this morning, and Dev would be back soon.
She folded the page, put it inside an envelope, and warmed her wax. A glance at her clock told her time was running short. No matter. She would run the message out to Walker in the stable, and then she would go about her day.
Her first action as a spy. A Culper. Maybe eventually it would stop making her sick to her stomach.
Seven
Walker gave Elsie a playful toss into the mound of hay and smiled at her giggles. She was a happy child, but questions kept filling his head. What did she dream about? Were they soundless pictures? Could she tell his voice from her mother’s by touch? What did that little flutter of her fingers mean? Was she trying to tell him something or simply playing with the hay?
He wanted to talk to his little girl. He wanted to hear her call him Daddy. And if that would never happen, he wanted to see it.
“Walker?”
He turned at the voice, once so familiar but now so out of place. Marietta stood in the center aisle, too pristine for her surroundings, and looking about as comfortable as he would feel in her fancy parlor. “Princess. You need something?”
Irritation flickered through her eyes, and his conscience reared up. They were on the same side now, again. They should be friends. Again. Which meant they should stop trying to goad each other. “I’m sorry.” He shifted so that he filled the stall door. Instinct, that. Cora always tried to shield Elsie from anyone in the big house, so he had followed suit. “Old habits.”
The irritation gave way to amusement. “I know what you mean.” She waved an envelope. “For Granddad. Usually I would send it round with Pat, but…”
He stepped forward even as he bit his tongue against the warning that had leapt to the tip of it. “Yetta.”
That was all he said. Not a word about unnecessary risk or how they had specifically told her never to seek information. But she would remember what censure sounded like in his tone.
It didn’t get her dander up this time, though. It made her sigh. “I was careful. But I think it could be useful.”
Walker hummed in his throat and stepped forward. “I’ll take it over when I finish mucking.”
Something flitted across her face. He would have thought it regret, had that not been an emotion she had sworn off years ago.
Then her gaze went down, a moment before he felt Elsie’s little hands take hold of his trouser leg. He swallowed, watching her face carefully.
Recognition weighted her eyes. She swallowed and offered his girl a tight smile. “I haven’t seen her since she was a baby.”
“You never come out here. Cora doesn’t take her to the house.”
“I can see why.” Her eyes slid shut. No doubt comparing pictures in her head. Elsie’s flaxen locks, which didn’t bear a resemblance to Cora’s black ones, nor to his middling brown. He had more white in him than black, and Cora had some in her too, but a blond-haired child between them still wasn’t likely.
She might be able to make excuses for the coloring if Elsie didn’t have the Hughes nose. And chin. And smile.
For a moment, he thought she would ask. Just come out and demand to know who his daughter’s father was. Then he would have to figure out what to tell her, and how to make it clear that no matter her blood, she was his.
But her mouth stayed shut tight. Breeding wouldn’t permit such a conversation, and she had that by the bushel.