Chapter 13

Phileas spent the next two days after the Scotsman's visit researching. That night and the rest of the weekend, he and Passepartout had combed over old journals and letters. Fogg had been raised with the Secret Service mantra of 'throw nothing away.' Correspondence boxes from the attic were brought down the moment Mr. Robertson left. Together, they went through every letter he had received from Eleanor over the last four years.

They found Katharine's visits timed exactly at the same time each year. Most were in the spring. One year, she came in the fall. Last year, she only stayed for three days. Yet every year, and no matter when she came, it corresponded with a notice of at least one Queen Mary sale of information.

Rebecca was informed of the Scotsman's visit and added her hands to the task. She married herself to the young woman and covertly grilled Katharine on her past visits. Who she had met, what parties and events she had attended. All were questions Rebecca steered into conversations. At every turn, she discovered Katharine present at all the known exchange meetings.

That had not been easy information to manage. Katharine's courtship with Lord McCollum had taken off with a vengeance. The man monopolized her time. The two went sightseeing around London nearly every day. He also took her to all the social engagements Lady Eleanor set up. As word spread of the Earl's arrival, their itinerary increased.

In those moments when Rebecca talked with Katharine unhindered, she had to sit through an earful of confidences about her affections. It was all so sweet and enchanting, and completely irrelevant to the mission at hand.

To watch for present acts of possible treason, they followed the couple on their evenings out. Phileas and Rebecca kept close watch on the people Katharine spoke to regularly. They also watched when she was alone, which almost never happened.

They found some of those watching the lady. From long experience, Rebecca picked out several people looking on in the same manner. Some might have been the watchers Robertson had mentioned, but there was also Robertson himself. The man became her constant shadow at the elbow or looking on from across a dance floor. At social functions, he was required to leave his sword at home. The rest one could never be sure of.

The Fogg's presence had not gone unnoticed by the couple. Andrew and Katharine occasionally greeted and talked with them. Phileas had come of the opinion this was Lord McCollum's way of sizing him up. The younger man took his courtship seriously and did not suffer rivals. Phileas was amused enough to dance with Katharine occasionally, just for show. With constant exposure, he was coming to appreciate her, or at least he was now willing to acknowledge her as an accomplished, appealing beauty.

Rebecca used agency sources to make a sweeping background check, allowing Phileas to learn more than he ever wanted to know about the McCollum and Glenshire family. There were several members of that family in government service, but not in intelligence. There had been no less than six of them in the various branches of the military. Two had recently resigned their commissions to return home, both had been knighted for duty related actions. Nearly every member of the previous generation who had been in the military had died in service. This family was highly decorated and had a strong history of loyalty to the crown.

Katharine 's late guardian had done work for the government too, but in trade not intelligence. The Earl had collapsed from a minor stroke six years earlier, and then suffered a second one that had slowly wasted him. That had caused Katharine to leave the year Phileas had met Queen Mary face to face. After that, her trips to London were short and erratic.

As part of the financial information, he found a trust account containing Katharine's dowry. If Phileas had had any doubts whether Eleanor had been trying to marry him above himself; that extensive set of numbers had dispelled it. Her family believed in a literal view of the old-fashioned one year's income rule.

Phileas remembered his father steering him toward her niece a few times before their estrangement. At the time, there was nothing overt about it. But now… Father must have been in on this from the start. Eleanor would not have persisted for so long had Sir Boniface not blessed the idea.

Phileas knew his father would have been ambitious for such a marriage. The Foggs were a wealthy, venerable old family. There were plenty of knights in the family tree to brag on, including his father. But this was well outside any ambitions Phileas himself had ever had. His fortune hunting had always been done at card tables, not on dance floors.

Phileas later quizzed Eleanor on the suspicion that she might be Katharine's source of information, or the queen herself, using the younger woman as a courier. That had not been a pleasant thought. The lady's husband had been once been the Director of the Foreign Service and a very respected man. Eleanor, in her own right, had been and still was one of the most notable hostesses in London's political circles. She was a friend of the Queen and had been a dear friend of his late grandparents and parents for years. Yet, for those very reasons, she would be more likely to have a source for such information than her niece.

Phileas walked into Eleanor's flowery parlor, finding her sitting in a wingback chair covered in pink chintz. Blue, pink and cream were the primary colors of the room, a very feminine combination. Phileas bowed over the matron's hand, then seated himself in a matching chair near her. Tea was already sitting out for them. He accepted his cup and let Eleanor take the lead.

Things started out with polite chit-chat concerning the dinner party talk from a week ago. Phileas rarely gossiped with older matrons, but on this occasion, he kept the conversation on a personal and social level, knowing that would bring it to the subjects he most needed to discuss. The woman had been meddling in his personal affairs. He directly questioned her about her choice of wives for him. The young woman was talked up to him for some time. Phileas allowed that and then asked why she had been away from London for so long.

"She attended my nephew's sick bed and ran the household," Eleanor said. "Katharine is a wonder at running that large house. I cannot imagine how she keeps up with it and her own estate, but she does. Of course, if she should marry outside the family, it would all revert to her eldest male relative." She said that pointedly, knowing her audience and his disinterest in estate management. "Her dowry includes no land, only cash funds, and a percentage in the family shipping company."

Phileas ignored that dangling carrot and changed the subject. He mentioned further gossip. The woman gave him back more than he bargained for. She knew everyone and most everyone in government. Eleanor knew all the gossip, including who had been bedding whom. She was soon regaling him with what some notable people's pet vices were. If anyone could become a successful spy, she was it.

Fogg shifted the conversation to the international arena, specifically intelligence. Eleanor claimed she did not keep up with that anymore. She dropped her gaze, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "I have not been inside Whitehall since my husband's death and your father's knighthood celebration. I haven't seen any reason, despite all the invitations. Too many ghosts in those old halls for me. Dear Thomas, would be everywhere."

Phileas asked of her late husband, just to be cordial to the memories he unintentionally uncovered. Lady Eleanor was soon telling him stories from the wars with France. Her husband had been a veteran agent when his father's career had just started. In the wars, he had done a great deal of undercover work. Some of it Eleanor had joined him on. Others were too dangerous. "I have had enough of the great game," Eleanor said. Phileas had had no reason to doubt her.

While Phileas dug through background information, Rebecca took a stab at learning who her friend's observers were. No surveillance on the duchess by the Secret Service or any other government entity had been discovered. Enlisting some friends from the Foreign Office, she had led a hunting expedition for the watchers she and Phileas had observed. Only three were known foreign agents. The other four had been unknown players.

"They could be couriers waiting for a rendezvous," one of her helpers said. "Sometimes these things are run tight rather than planned, especially when passing on domestic intelligence."

The evidence was quickly piling up against her Katharine, but Rebecca could not see how a woman as socially isolated as Katharine could be involved with such shadowy figures.