I know I’ve been chattering nonstop about Margot, so I thought I’d include a snapshot her mother took of us last week at her brother’s house. Her brother is Lukas De Wilde, the violinist—had I mentioned that? I think you’d like her, Drake. It isn’t just that she has learned to tolerate my quirks, as Ada has. It’s that she understands them and knows when to push and when to let me rest. And heavens, but I think she must be the most intelligent person I’ve ever met!

He leaned back against the well-worn wood of his chair, eyes shifting again to the photograph. Margot De Wilde, was it? It felt a bit unsporting to learn her name through no cleverness of his own, but he wasn’t exactly sorry to have a name to go with the memory. A friend for his sister, not like Ada. Pretty, intelligent, and with those dark eyes that cut him to the quick.

His lips curved into a smile. A reason to look forward to his next trip to London, whenever that might be.

7

Where was she? Margot stood just inside the door of the Old Admiralty Building, clutching her umbrella and staring out into the pouring rain. Most of the day shift had already arrived, though there were still a few stragglers jumping over puddles and hurrying inside.

None, however, were Sophie De Wilde. Margot sighed and glanced at her watch. Five minutes late. Not a lot for some people, perhaps, but quite a bit for her mother. And no doubt it was Margot’s fault—she’d grabbed the good umbrella when she left for her weekly night shift yesterday evening, hoping the weather would have improved by the time Maman would need to leave this morning. The other umbrella had been giving them problems for weeks, refusing to go up—or back down after they’d managed to wrestle it into position. It had probably broken outright, leaving her mother to scramble for one she could borrow from a neighbor. Or perhaps even detour to a shop to spend a few precious coins on a new one.

Exhaustion had settled over her shoulders an hour ago. The night shift had managed to break the new codes without too much problem, but Hall had passed her another packet from Thoroton to decipher. “If you have the time,” he’d said as he turned for the door. “If you don’t, I’ll handle it myself tomorrow.”

Had they not managed to break the German codes in ample time, she wouldn’t have minded handing the stack of HUMINT back to the admiral without its plain script counterpart, but she could hardly nap at her desk as Culbreth and de Grey had done with that packet sitting there. So she’d spent her remaining time scribbling like mad, trying to get it finished before her shift was over.