Dora gave him a haughty look which made him want to kiss her, but he refrained. ‘I think, Hartley,’ she said, ‘Mr Moss is safe enough for you to go to him should you be afraid, or should you see anything that strikes you as out of place or plain wrong. He’s staying at Rydal Hall.’
‘I can see your camp across the lake when you’ve a fire lit,’ said Moss.
‘I thought you said no one would notice us,’ said Derwent in a low voice to his brother. ‘That we were sneaky like that.’
‘You hid it quite well, using the hollow, but I’m sneakier,’ said Moss.
And the agent had probably been snooping around at night, thought Jacob, to see who was up to no good. ‘The encouraging news is that we’ve found the manuscript.’
‘Oh, splendid! Where was it?’ asked Hartley.
‘In Mr Barton’s cottage, where it was supposed to be all along.’
‘That’s very peculiar. Do you think Mr Barton came back?’
‘Or is he really dead?’ asked Derwent, the shadow of anxiety darkening his expression.
‘I don’t know, lad– I wish I did. My guess is the person who stole it returned it when Mr Barton went missing.’
‘They probably felt guilty,’ said Hartley, nodding his head in understanding. ‘I’d feel sick if I did something that made my friend feel so guilty he killed himself– or at least pretended to die to get out of the fix.’
Derwent’s expression brightened and he turned to Dora. ‘You know what, Miss Fitz-Pennington, I think Mr Barton ran away and he’ll come back now the poem is back. I mean, when I broke a window at Greta Hall, I ran off for a whole day because I thought Uncle Robert would tell me off. I didn’t come back until I got hungry.’
‘You got a scolding, I presume?’ asked Dora. ‘When you returned?’
‘Yes, but everyone was so relieved I came back they forgot to be very cross with me. Even Mother wept and hugged me.’
A suspicion crossed Jacob’s mind. ‘Your mother does know where you are at the moment, doesn’t she?’
‘Aunty Dorothy sends her news,’ said Hartley. ‘We’ve another four days when we are allowed to camp, then we have to go home to do our summer reading.’
Jacob wondered if he should send the boys away for their own safety. It was highly unlikely they were targets as they had little to do with Knotte and the others. A group of radicals would consider two boys running wild in the countryside the very kind of liberated lifestyle to be encouraged. With these two, if he were any judge of character, telling them not to do something, to tuck tails and to go back to their mother, would likely send them running straight at danger. He would leave the subject at a warning for now.
‘Then I hope you enjoy your four days. Barton’s friends are a strange crew, bad things happen around them, so promise you’ll keep out of their way?’
‘Absolutely. We don’t want to get whacked on the head like Mr Wright at the cottage,’ said Derwent.
So much for keeping them in the dark. ‘Did you tell them?’ he asked Dora.
She shook her head. ‘They heard it on the valley news service.’
‘The news service being?’
‘A waggoner on his way to Ambleside,’ said Hartley.
‘They came gallantly to escort me home.’ Dora smiled at the boys. ‘I am blessed to have an entourage of four brave gentlemen.’
Hartley, however, scowled at Moss. ‘We didn’t like it that she was alone with him.’
That explained why they had come out of hiding to show themselves in their ragged state.
‘My attentions are entirely honourable,’ said Moss.
‘We’ll see.’ Hartley wasn’t so easily placated.
They reached the turn to Rydal Hall. The boys went in the opposite direction, heading back to their camp. They were soon leaping across the stepping stones that spanned the river.
‘This is where we part ways,’ said Moss. ‘Shall we meet again at Wright’s tomorrow morning? I have to send word to London that matters have taken a disturbing turn. Then I’m going to go back and sleep in the cottage. I don’t trust his attacker not to return.’
