Page 52 of The Marriage Method

“We are pleased, ma’am. Exceedingly pleased,” Mr. Cadwallader added. “And may I say, vastly reassured. The Courant couldn’t have withstood another scandal.”

“A joyous occasion,” Mr. Griffiths said, talking over the others. He was an older man, gray-haired and portly, with an air of authority. “I heartily congratulate you, ma’am. And you, Quincey. I trust this will finally convince you to take some time off and leave the paper to me.”

Nell smiled at each of them in turn with what she hoped was an adequate degree of newlywed demureness—a few blushes, a few flutters of her lashes, and a few shyly murmured words of thanks. It wasn’t all contrived. Indeed, standing with Miles, his hand covering hers on his arm as a crowd of well-wishers congratulated them, she might be forgiven for believing it was real. That she was truly Miles’s new bride, married out of a surfeit of honest feeling and not out of cold necessity.

“So many editors,” she said when all of the gentlemen had finally ceased speaking. “I thought my husband was the only one.”

“He’s our editor in chief, ma’am,” Mr. Griffiths explained. “He bears a responsibility for all of us, and for everything that’s printed. But the day-to-day running of the paper falls to me and Mr. Cadwallader.”

“Mr. Quincey still keeps a hand in with our most important stories,” Mr. Higgins said.

“Quite,” Miles agreed brusquely. “Speaking of which, I’m expecting that article on the Lord Mayor of York, Griffiths. And Priest, you owe me a draft of tomorrow’s society column. Higgins, Flack, with me.”

Uttering a few final words of congratulations, the crowd of newspapermen dispersed. Nell accompanied Miles to his office, with Mr. Higgins and Mr. Flack trotting dutifully behind them.

Miles waited until they were inside, with the door shut and Nell comfortably seated on the fringe-skirted sofa, to drop his affectation of connubial warmth. “I believe Cowgill was murdered at a brothel in Whitechapel,” he said.

Both Mr. Higgins and Mr. Flack went ashen at the news. They remained standing in front of Miles, utterly at a loss.

Miles leaned back against the edge of his desk, facing his two underlings. “The boy who brought Cowgill’s severed tongue round on Wednesday, he spoke with you, Flack, did he not?”

Mr. Flack recovered himself enough to dart an apprehensive look at Nell, plainly doubting the propriety of uttering the words brothel and severed tongue in the presence of a lady.

“You may speak freely,” Miles told him. “I have no secrets from my wife.”

Nell glanced up from removing her sampler from her workbag, meeting her new husband’s eyes. Her heart stopped for a beat, just as it had when he’d covered her hand with his. She was sure it was only more playacting. Nevertheless…

Partners, he’d said yesterday in Whitechapel.

She had the feeling he meant it.

“Er, yes, sir,” Mr. Flack answered.

“What else can you tell me about him?” Miles asked.

“Only that he was a street urchin,” Mr. Flack said. “He claimed a beggar woman in Blackfriars gave him a penny to see it delivered to you.”

“To me?” Miles asked. “By name?”

“ ‘To him what’s the editor in charge of the paper,’ I believe the boy said,” Flack replied.

Miles nodded. “I thought as much.”

Mr. Higgins gave Nell a look similar to the one that Mr. Flack had given her. His disapproval at her remaining in the room to hear such talk was evident. “If you know where he was murdered and by whom,” he said to Miles, “then why—”

“I don’t know,” Miles replied. “I can’t prove anything, other than the fact that Cowgill was at the brothel for a time. And for that, we have only the word of an inebriated prostitute who works there. Given the risk to her livelihood, I fully expect her to recant her account if confronted by the police.”

Nell threaded her needle as she listened to the gentlemen’s discussion. The pattern of her sampler had already been set—a stone house and garden, a jumbled alphabet, and a raven with a white-tipped wing. All that remained was to complete the necessary bit of numerical code that, when solved, would spell out her message to Miss Corvus:

BROTHEL WHITECHAPEL PRITCHARD

SHE ESCAPED

WILL FIND HER

It was Nell who had formulated the idea for using samplers for the Academy’s confidential communications. Effie had often ridiculed her for it, calling her a modern-day Madame Defarge. But there was no denying that a woman’s post could easily be read, her letters stolen, her secrets unearthed. With a coded sampler, at least, there was little chance of anyone deciphering the message. That is, if they suspected there was a message at all.

“Where are you on the entries in Cowgill’s notebook?” Miles asked Mr. Higgins.