Anthrax. Sugar cubes. A perfectly healthy woman falling prey to death for no good reason after contracting the flu.

Maman hadn’t just died. She’d been killed. Targeted—and perhaps more of them would be too. One of the agents the admiral had left in play must have been contacted, given something tainted with anthrax. And he must have decided to use it against Room 40. The people under Admiral Hall, who was waging war so effectively against the Germans’ intelligence operations.

The soda in her cup sloshed as her hand trembled. She slid the glass onto an end table nearby and pushed through the crowd of familiar faces, toward the lavatory, muttering her apologies as she bumped into a few colleagues on her way.

They all just smiled and moved aside, oblivious.

But she wasn’t. Not anymore.

14

Drake had never considered himself a coward. But apparently he was one, as evidenced by the fact that every time he opened his mouth to tell Dot the truth about his wartime activities, he closed it again, the words still unsaid. He’d meant to get it over with as soon as he’d settled into her flat on Saturday, but she’d been busy alternately fussing over him and then herself, preparing for her outing.

His sister. Out for an evening. Of her own free will.

Perhaps it was the shock that rendered him speechless.

No, because he’d been speechless still the next morning as she dressed for Mass, and he had remained so even after she’d returned.

Now here they were, mere hours left in Sunday, right up against his admiral-imposed deadline for telling her, and he knew he had only an hour or two of wakefulness left. He’d managed to shuffle his way to the sofa in the main room, given that Margot De Wilde was due any minute, and it had cost him a ridiculous amount of energy.

He should tell her now, before Dark Eyes arrived. He should.

He would.

To prove it to himself, he cleared his throat. “Dot . . .”

“Here you go.” Cheerful and smiling and utterly oblivious, she handed him a cup of steaming, fragrant tea. “Just the way you like it.”

“Gracias.”

She kept smiling, but her eyes frowned. “De nada.” She shook her head. “Thinking of Spain, are you?”

A slip—one he usually only made in the first week or two after returning from time in Spain. His subconscious must be trying to help him along. “Perhaps so. After spending so many years there at university, I—”

“Oh! That reminds me!” Dot sat in the chair at right angles to his sofa, bouncing upon the cushion in whatever excitement she’d just recollected. “I’ve been informed that Margot’s birthday is next week!”

For a long moment he could only blink at her. “How does my being at university in Spain remind you of Margot’s birthday?”