Speak Its Name: A Trilogy by Lee Rowan, Charlie Cochrane, Erastes

couldn’t name the girl, but he knew there must be one. Sooner or later, his comfortable existence would have to make allowances for a Mrs. Darling and possibly a brood of little Darlings as well. It was a daunting prospect, but he could hardly deny the man a chance for a normal life. Perhaps a detached cottage in the back garden would suffice to quarantine wedded bliss away from bachelor comforts.
    At any rate, Darling’s hypothetical love life and possible future were far afield from where Scoville needed to focus his thoughts. Although he was a gentleman of leisure, noblesse did require him to oblige at times by combining his genuine love of travel with the odd errand on Her Majesty’s behalf. These were usually minor chores, no real inconvenience, and this trip was no exception. Scoville had already intended to visit the newly opened conservatory at the University of Vienna. Years in the building, it was said to be the finest botanical conservatory on the Continent, and if it was true that they’d acquired tropical plants that no one in England had ever seen, he wanted to be among the first to lay eyes on them.
    Half his duty to his country would be discharged when he had assured an unreliable member of a foreign court that England very much supported him even though the political climate required that the Queen’s public attitude was one of disapproval. Of course the Baron knew perfectly well that Her Majesty would chuck him under the train if necessary. Everyone knew their steps in this little dance, but the steps must be performed nonetheless. He could attend to that in a single afternoon.
    It was the second part of his mission that was likely to produce complications. Mr. Smythe—of course that wasn’t his name, Scoville knew the gentleman’s name perfectly well, as did any Englishman who read the Times —had gently hinted that one of Scoville’s old acquaintances had been gathering useful information in Paris and would pass it along to his former Army chum in a little cafe in Vienna. The missive would be nothing much, only a few pages, small enough to tuck into a book or magazine. Not worth mentioning to any border guards, of course.
    It would have been nice to know the chum’s name. “You’ll recognise him from your days in the Service.” Lovely. Scoville had known a number of men when he’d worn the uniform of the British Empire. Many of them were dead. And some of those still among the living were not men he wanted to see again. “Smythe” claimed he could not reveal the contact’s identity because he did not know it; Scoville translated that to mean that he himself was not to know who he was meeting until they were face to face.
    That secrecy told him something about his current errand. Whatever this was about, it went well beyond what he had been led to believe would be expected of him back when he’d agreed to act as a messenger without portfolio. This was not just a matter of passing along “unofficial” official messages. When he started acting as a courier of secret materials gathered in foreign countries, presumably without the permission of the countries’ governments—that, however delicately one phrased it, was espionage. Espionage was not a healthful activity for a gentleman who preferred the quiet life.
    The connecting door to Darling’s compartment opened with a discreet click. “Good afternoon, my lord,” his man said. “A pleasant nap, I trust?”
    “Yes, thanks. All the better for it.”
    “Would your lordship prefer to go to the dining car, or shall I procure a menu?”
    Scoville yawned, considering, and decided he should be up and about. “The dining car, by all means. I need the exercise. You go on ahead and find a table for us, please. I’ll only be a minute.”
    “Very good, my lord.”
    Scoville rose and stretched. It had been a pleasant, uneventful trip and the scenery was interesting, a trip backwards in time. France had been charming in her springtime dress,