The Impostor by Lily Lang Page A

managed to take it without touching him, an achievement that gave her a certain amount of satisfaction.  
    As he rummaged through the box, Tessa watched him, remembering the many times they had sat thus across from each other at a table in Wellington’s headquarters, pouring over dozens of intercepted messages, trying to decipher them. She remembered their laughter and their easy conversation, the warm, secret glances they had exchanged.
    She had not forgotten a single one.
    “I wonder why the American consulate would send papers here,” he said, breaking her reverie.
    Tessa shook her head slightly to force away the fresh pang the memories brought. “I don’t know,” she said.
    Brears reappeared at their side like an evil elf. “Someone broke into the consulate about a year and a half ago,” he said, slamming another box down onto the table. The word OMEGA was stamped into its side.
    “Oh, yes, I recollect now,” said Sebastian, frowning thoughtfully. “A guard was shot, I believe. The Americans believe the thief was interested in these papers?”
    Brears nodded. “They thought it best to rid themselves of it,” he said. “They didn’t want the papers, and they didn’t want any more of their men getting shot.”
    When he had gone, Tessa lowered her voice again and leaned closer to Sebastian. “So they sent it here to be guarded by two cranky old men?”
    “I’d like to see you try to steal something from Brears.” His breath was warm on her ear, his tone low and deep. She suppressed an involuntary shiver.
    “He seems perfectly capable of gnawing off one’s arm with his teeth if he suspected thievery.”
    He grinned and the lines of his face relaxed. For a moment he looked like the boy she had known in Spain and her heart turned.
    Resolutely she turned away from him and picked up a sheaf of papers. They rummaged through the box for some time. Finally, Tessa opened yet another envelope and found a pile of meticulously drawn blueprints of a peculiar-looking, tear-drop shaped ship with a single, large, fan-like sail and a large propeller at the end of a long ribbed hulk.
    For a moment she stared at it, uncertain of what she was seeing. Then, as the full implications of the device struck her, her hand began to tremble.
    “Seb—my lord,” she said, her voice faint, “I believe I have found what Sevigny was looking for.”
     
     
    An hour later, surrounded by over half a dozen more boxes that a resentful Brears had unearthed for them, Tessa leaned back into her chair and examined the notes she had made on a piece of foolscap.
    “So in 1793,” said Tessa, “an American inventor by the name of Robert Fulton designed a submersible underwater vessel called the Neptune . The Neptune could operate beneath the surface of the ocean and tow along a carcass of mines that could be attached to enemy ships and detonated.”
    Sebastian consulted his own notes. “The French Minister of Marine then granted Fulton permission to build this vessel at the Perrier boatyard in Rouen. The Neptune was first tested in the Seine near Rouen in 1800. By 1801, Fulton, with two crewmen, could take the Neptune twenty-five feet deep for five hours. But Napoleon wasn’t interested.”
    Tessa picked up the blueprints and studied them again. “Napoleon has always been surprisingly short-sighted about marine warfare,” she said, examining a peculiar device on the top of the ship’s drome that appeared to feature a spiked eye.
    Sebastian nodded and picked up another piece of paper. “Meanwhile, the Crown, while perfectly aware the French were not interested in this device, decided to pay Fulton eight hundred pounds to bring his design to England. He set up a workshop near Walmer Castle in Kent, where he built a second Neptune .”
    “And the list of craftsmen who worked on this Neptune includes a pair of Kent craftsmen who also served Fulton’s crewmembers.” Tessa closed her eyes briefly. “Ron and Peter Howard.”
    Sebastian