The drawing room of Highbury Manor gleamed under the pale glow of the chandelier, its opulence muted by the discontent simmering among its inhabitants. Mrs. Lydia Wellstone, a woman given to extravagant peacock displays of wit, lounged on a green velvet settee. She proffered an aristocratically pale hand for an unsolicited slice of roast beef, glancing sidelong at her guest, Mr. Ambrose Witheridge, whom she regarded alternately as a charming enigma and an insufferable bore.
“Do you know, Mr. Witheridge,” she began airily, “nothing in this world is so delightful as the company of an entertaining acquaintance… who refrains from monotony?” She leaned forward, a perfect picture of genteel humor and cruelty.
Ambrose adjusted his spectacles, his gray eyes sharp as flint beneath carefully cultivated placidity. A precisely timed pause lent weight to his response. “Indeed, madam, though I find it curious how swiftly one’s notion of entertainment diminishes in such grand company.”
Gasps fluttered through the assembled guests like moths to candlelight. A measured affront lingered in Mrs. Wellstone’s features, but she only laughed—a sound as calculated as the placement of rhubarb jam on her morning crumpet. “Touché, Mr. Witheridge. You speak with the precision of a man with no intention of being understood.”
In truth, her suspicion of Mr. Witheridge was warranted. Beneath his mild manner and measured tones was a man employed by the Crown in that quietest and most scandalous of vocations: espionage. Dispatched to Highbury Manor on mere whispers, Ambrose was tasked to uncover the source of potentially treasonous information said to pass through its doors under the guise of harmless country gossip.
Highbury Manor itself was a hothouse of secrets, though their importance often seemed outstripped by their frivolity. There was the nervous Mr. Pargeter who seemed always to be memorizing instead of conversing, and the widowed Mrs. Estelle Cartwright who monopolized conversation at precisely the wrong moments. And then, of course, there was Lydia Wellstone—grand mistress of intrigue, if one neglected to consider her tendency to construct her amusements out of idle victimization rather than critical thought.
It was during supper that the foundation of an absurdly delicate conspiracy was laid bare. As the soup courses clinked away and the “effective beef,” as the butler referred to it, was triumphantly paraded forth (now charred to an unidentifiable shade), Mrs. Wellstone casually remarked to her neighbor, “Has Mr. Witheridge told you of his admiration for the Penelope cipher?”
Ambrose froze—or rather, did not. Perfect nonchalance was as vital a skill to his trade as lockpicking and codebreaking. “The Penelope cipher, madam?” he asked lightly, carving a forkful of the marginally edible beef. “An intriguing name, to be sure, if wholly unfamiliar to me.”
“Oh, I forget myself!” Mrs. Wellstone exclaimed, feigning surprise. “You are a man so dull as to have no taste for wordplay or duality, I imagine.”
“I prefer plain truths to riddles,” Ambrose murmured, watching her with the intensity of one appraising an opponent over a chessboard.
It was only later, amidst the moonlit shadows of the manor gardens, that the true confrontation occurred. Mrs. Cartwright, her widow’s bonnet askew, intercepted him on the path. She spoke in hurried whispers, her breath drawing clouds of mist in the chill night air. “The Penelope cipher, Mr. Witheridge. I know not where it originates, but it seems to be the key to… troubling correspondence.”
Ambrose had no time to press further. The faint crunch of footsteps heralded Mrs. Wellstone, her silhouette sharp as a dagger against the terracotta brick. “Gentle conversation at such an hour, Mr. Witheridge? Scandalous.” Her smile glimmered coldly, tinged with triumph. “But, how effective can beef or spies be, when both seem intent on chewing through propriety?”
He inclined his head stiffly, spine straight against her insinuation. “It is often the most unassuming dish—or man—that proves decisive in banquets or battles,” he said. Though his voice retained its pleasant cadence, his eyes conveyed volumes.
Somewhere beyond the rose trellis, the flicker of a match illuminated Mr. Pargeter’s otherwise nondescript face. Ambrose caught it in a sidelong glance. The guard had fallen; the players revealed.
By morning, Ambrose was gone—and with him, the coded whisperings of treason. Yet in the salon, as Mrs. Wellstone poured tea and dismissed him as “altogether too tedious,” her guests nodded politely, none suspecting the Penelope cipher had been solved. Least of all Mrs. Wellstone.
And as for the “conspiracy,” one could only wonder where jest ended and the knife began.
The game of manners, after all, was always the deadliest.