have to say, then decide whether to believe me.”
I shook my head in defiance; but a hint of a smile touched his mouth. “You can go if you wish,” he said. “But you are also a woman of insatiable curiosity. Shall I begin, then?”
Silence was my grudging assent. Too well did he know me!
“Since 1842 I’ve worked in France and Italy,” Mr. Slade said. “Those countries are rife with secret societies made up of radicals whose purpose is to dethrone kings, foment wars, and spread revolution across Europe. My job was to infiltrate the societies. This I did by pretending to be a radical myself. I gained the trust of the leaders and reported their plans to my superiors. It was in Paris last year that I met Isabel White. She was a governess for an English diplomat’s family. She was also a courier who conveyed money and messages between the French societies and their counterparts in Britain.”
Amazement filled me. Though I’d known that Isabel had secrets, never had I imagined such a life for her. But I cautioned myself against taking Mr. Slade at his word.
“I befriended Miss White because I wanted to know who was employing her and financing the radicals,” Slade went on. “She confided to me that she felt like a traitor for helping their cause, and she wanted to stop. I decided I could trust her to help me instead. That was in the beginning of this year, when it looked as though revolution would come to England. I told Miss White my true identity and hired her to work as my informant. When she had messages to deliver, she would copy them into the margins of old books. We met in crowded public places, where she would slip the books to me.”
I thought of the book of sermons, which lay in the upstairs study at the parsonage. How would Mr. Slade know that Isabel wrote messages in books unless he was indeed an agent of the Crown and had done what he said? But Isabel’s writing made no mention of secret societies, and if she had intended that book for Slade, why had she sent it to me? Still, his mention of messages in books weakened my suspicions.
He paused, scrutinizing me in an apparent effort to know my thoughts; then he proceeded: “Miss White gave me names of French radicals and Chartist agitators, as well as their plans for acts of violence, but she refused to tell me who was employing her to work for them. From hints she dropped, I deduced that she feared him too much to expose him.”
A chill ran through me. This unidentified employer could be the man Isabel had called Master in her confession.
“In February of this year,” said Mr. Slade, “Miss White said she had an especially important message for me. We agreed to meet at Notre Dame Cathedral, where she would give me a book containing the message. I arrived at the appointed time, but she never came. She had vanished from Paris. I feared that her employer had discovered she was giving away his secrets.”
Mr. Slade regarded me closely as he continued. “I traced her to England, and I learned that she was a governess in the house of Joseph Lock, a Birmingham gunmaker. I kept secret watch upon Lock. At first I thought him to be directing subversive activities in England and abroad. My suspicions grew when I discovered that he was smuggling guns out of England through an intermediary, a China trader named Isaiah Fearon. But Lock shot himself dead the day before Isabel’s murder. I later found Isaiah Fearon strangled in his warehouse. I now believe that all three were players in a conspiracy devised by a leader whose identity remains unknown. I believe Lock killed himself because he wanted to get out, and he saw suicide as the only way. This leader had Isabel White and Isaiah Fearon killed because he suspected them of disloyalty. It’s my wish to capture him, because I’m certain he’ll commit other, far worse, crimes unless I do. And it’s in your interest to help me, Miss Bronte.”
I could only gaze at him in alarm at learning of the string of violent deaths.
“Isabel White knew this leader, and she could have exposed him.” Mr. Slade moved closer to me, until Keeper’s growl halted his steps. “So, perhaps, could Fearon. They were weaknesses in the barrier he created to protect himself. He has eliminated those weaknesses-but one remains.”
Distant thunder rumbled; the wind keened as the sky turned greenish grey. I was stricken by Mr. Slade’s suggestion that I could be the next to die. My sense of adventure had blinded me to the danger I had stumbled into.
“I must find the leader of the conspiracy,” he said, his voice edged with determination. “You can draw him into the open. What say you, Miss Bronte? Will you help me trap him?”
He had observed that the villain was after me, and he wanted to use me as bait to catch his quarry. He clearly expected me to agree; but I said, “When you rescued me in Leeds, you were not on your way to visit your mother. Why were you on that train?”
“I was going to Bradford. I wanted to learn what Mrs. White knew about her daughter’s associates. But I was also following you, because I suspected that Isabel’s enemy would make some move against you, and I wanted to protect you.”
This was a reasonable explanation; yet Mr. Slade’s glibness perturbed me. I did not like that he thought me so gullible as to trust him again. “Did you also stay by me in Leeds and on the train home because you wanted to protect me?” I said, sounding more hopeful and less challenging than I intended.
“Yes,” Mr. Slade said, “but I also enjoyed your company. I beg you to forgive me, and I hope we can be friends again.”
When Mr. Slade extended his hand to me, when he flashed his rare, dazzling smile, fury consumed my heart. He might have won me by logic, but not by calculated charm. Wounded pride swayed my judgment.
“Should I believe you came by all this information as innocently as you say you did?” I flared, backing away from Mr. Slade.
Withdrawing his hand, Mr. Slade frowned at my belligerence. “It’s the truth.”
“So you say!” I laughed in derision as the wind dashed rain-drops at us. “But I think you know those things about Isabel because you were her master. You discovered she was betraying you, and you killed her. Now you pose as a spy so I will reveal the content of Isabel’s package. Well, I’ll have nothing to do with you!”
I turned and clambered up the bank; Keeper followed me. Mr. Slade hurried after us, saying, “Wait, Miss Bronte.”
“Leave me alone!” I screamed in panic.
I thrashed through the trees, tripping on my skirts. If I didn’t escape, he would kill me, hide my body on the moors, and no one would ever know what had become of me.
“Please forgive me if it seems I’ve trifled with you, but my feelings of friendship towards you are genuine,” he called after me urgently. “I am an agent of the Crown. If you want proof of that-or of my good character-we’ve a mutual connection who can provide it. Do you know Dr. Nicholas Dury? He’s a friend of your father’s. He’ll vouch for me. Just ask him.”
I had heard Papa speak of Dury; but Mr. Slade’s mention of him inspired terror rather than trust in me. If Mr. Slade had discovered Dury, his spying upon my family was extensive indeed. That he thought I would accept his reference without bothering to verify it enraged me all the more.
“I’ll hear no more lies!” I shouted.
Now we were racing across open land, beneath turbulent dark clouds. The howling wind swept the grasses into waves like the sea, and rain lashed me in torrents. Mr. Slade caught my cloak, and I cried out. A brilliant vein of lightning split the heavens; thunder quaked the earth.
“Keeper!” I called. “Save me!”
I heard the bulldog barking. Mr. Slade turned me towards him and grasped my shoulders. “I’m not the one you should fear.” His face, streaming with rain and afire with intent, was close to mine. “I can help you if you’ll help me.”
I screamed, but the storm drowned my voice. I writhed and flailed. His hands restrained mine and I clawed his wrists. Drenched from the rain, scourged by the wind, we struggled together. Mr. Slade shouted words that I ignored. I tore my hand loose and struck his face. Blood spurted from his lip, and horrifying impulses leapt in me. I wanted to press my mouth to Mr. Slade’s, to taste his blood. I wanted to surrender to him so that I might feel pleasure beyond my experience. Though fury blazed in his eyes and his grip on my arms was cruel, at that moment I feared myself more than I did Mr. Slade. With all my strength I twisted free of him. I stumbled backward, so shaken I could barely stand. Mr. Slade advanced on me as lightning seared the sky and thunder boomed. He was breathing hard, his white collar stained with blood, his expression ominous.
“Keeper!” I screamed. “Attack!”
Barking and growling, the dog launched himself at Mr. Slade’s throat. Mr. Slade flung up his arms to ward off
