Fletcher looked crestfallen.
“Who gave you such a message?”
“Count Guiccioli’s secretary, your lordship.”
A disquieting apprehension touched Gordon’s mind. Why had Paolo sent the servant on this sleeveless errand—unless he were wished out of the way? He remembered a packet which Count Gamba, weeks before, had entrusted to him for safe-keeping. At the time Gordon had suspected its contents had to do with the Carbonari’s plans. This packet was in his apartments. Found, might it inculpate the dead man’s friends in that lost cause?
He rejoined Teresa with a hasty excuse for his return to the casa.
“You will come back?” She questioned with sudden vague foreboding.
“Yes, before sunset.”
“Promise me—promise me!”
For one reassuring moment he put his arm about her, aching to fold her from all the world. The past for them both was a grim mirage, the future a blind dilemma—nay, there was no future save as it gloomed, a pregnant shadow of this present so wrought of doubt and joy.