A Tangle of Serpents by Andrea Penrose

Author:Andrea Penrose [Penrose, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andrea penrose

Chapter 18

Arianna gasped for breath as Grentham removed his hand and set her roughly back on her feet.

“No, no, you don’t understand! I—I’ve p-pulled your cods from the f-fire,” she replied. Steadying her voice, she started to explain about Fitzroy—

“Enough!” he growled, giving her a hard shake. “What you’ve done is sink all our chances of victory in one swing.”

“What?” She stared at him in utter confusion. “But—”

“Unless,” muttered Grentham, “by some miracle we can move quickly enough to salvage the situation. Give me the papers and then go fetch your husband.”

Arianna didn’t move. Shock had frozen her in place.

“Forgive my impertinence.” The minister thrust his fingers beneath her bodice and fished out the documents. “Now go!” he growled, punctuating the order with a shove. “Bring him to the library as quickly as possible.”

Her head was still spinning, but she gathered her wits enough to do as she was told. She found a footman standing just inside the drawing room’s entrance and dispatched him with an urgent summons for the earl.

“Ye gods, you look like death warmed over.” Saybrook found her braced against the wall in the archway, and guided her into the corridor. “Let me take you home. And in the morning, I’m summoning a physician—”

“Never mind that now.” She grabbed his hand. “Follow me.”

By the time they reached the library, Grentham had removed the gag and the sash tying her erstwhile prisoner to the chair. Fitzroy had regained consciousness and was groggily sipping from the glass of brandy held to his mouth.

The papers, she noticed, had been smoothed out and placed back on the table.

“Would you two—or three—care to explain what the devil is going on?” growled Saybrook.

“Explanations will have to wait until later. Right now, we have—” Grentham glanced at the tall case clock. “We have perhaps 10 minutes to clear the cobwebs from Fitzroy’s head, get the calculations completed, and make our escape before Prince Orlov returns.”

“But the two of them are conspiring—” began Arianna.

“Yes, they are!” snapped Grentham. He pushed a pencil toward her. “Try to repair some of the damage you’ve done by helping Fitzroy do the necessary mathematics.”

“It’s very advanced calculations, milord,” uttered Fitzroy with a wince. “I doubt—”

“Trust me, your half-sister is even more skilled with numbers than you are,” replied the minister. “Tell her what equations to run and she’ll come up with the right answers.”

“I—”

“Dammit all, just do as I say!”

Fitzroy rubbed at the lump on his skull and then rattled off a set of equations. Arianna had taken a seat at the table, and pulled over a blank sheet of paper to work through the necessary steps.

Another gulp of brandy seemed to clear the fuzz from Fitzroy’s head. He shifted his chair closer to hers and together they worked through the rest of the calculations.

‘I think we have it all,” he murmured, leaning back after transferring the newly-calculated information to Orlov’s original specifications. To Arianna, they were merely abstract numbers. But the addition of gunpowder stirred a dire foreboding.

“Excellent.” Grentham swiveled the chair around and looped Fitzroy’s missing cravat around his neck.

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