#TuesdayTeaser - A Code of Love
She peeled away a sky blue silk to find a worn, brown leather book. She tightened her grasp on the book, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She opened the dog-eared volume, looking for a letter, some word of Michael.
Leafing through the pages, she examined the columns of numbers-a code table. She immediately recognized that this extensive code table was unique. The pages had endless numbers matched to French letters and words. To the untrained eye, this table would appear no different than the one she used to decipher messages sent to Uncle Charles from the Abchurch offices.
She focused on the book trembling between her fingertips. Was this some sort of strange and oblique joke, one of Michael’s McGregors? But Michael never joked about linguistics or codes. No one in the Harcourt family joked about such matters.
A memory floated to the surface-her brother’s high voice fluting down the hallway, calling out to his horrified sister that he had broken one of their mother’s favorite vases. “We’re in a McGregor.” And it seemed nothing had changed over the years. He had her involved in another McGregor.
“Just in time for the Firth ball.” Mrs. Brompton startled her from her reverie. “Shall I send over the deep green silk to Madame de Puis?” Mrs. Brompton folded the silk carefully over her arm. “Remember how your mama always favored her designs? Your mama was always heads above all the other ladies.”
Henrietta nodded. From the look of the cover, the book was old but why would Michael send her old French codes. Was this a book of the new codes the French were working on?
The code developed in the 1700’s was too lengthy and complex to be useful at the battlefront. The French had shortened their coded messages to track troops and communicate strategy. England and France were at peace since the Treaty of Amiens had been signed, but no one believed that Napoleon was finished in his drive for world power.
She fanned the pages of the book, looking for a letter, a note of explanation.
“So you agree? I should send the green silk?”
“Whatever you think, I’m sure…” Henrietta turned back to her desk and reached between two massive volumes retrieving a slender packet-the code table she had meticulously edited based on Abchurch’s previous tables.
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