“You leave him be, Jack! This isn’t his fault. I came bothering him, not the other way round. What are you doing here, anyway? Have they let you go at the mine?”
His eyes bored into me, and he moved closer, edging around Harker. “If they do, it’ll be on your head! Mr. Hilliard told me you left home this morning, and I asked for leave to come after you.” His hand struck like a snake, catching hold of my wrist and leaving me stunned. He tugged me toward him. “I’ll have no more of this. You can’t—”
“That’s enough,” rumbled Harker. In a blink, my wrist was free—and Jack was splayed on the ground.
NowJackwas stunned silent, and Harker turned to me with a stricken look. He took my wrist gently in his hand, his fingers cool against the smarting flesh.
“Are you safe at home, Mina?”
Trembling, I frowned at him, unsure what he meant. Then it came to me—safe from Jack. It broke my heart, him seeing Jack this way, suspecting him of something that had never been true. I felt ashamed, too, at him seeing Jack and me at our worst.
“It’s not like him,” I managed, though my voice shook. “He’ll calm down.”
Harker nodded, eyes still searching mine. “It’s best you go home, then. But if something like this happens again, you go to Mrs. Moyle. Promise me.”
Tears threatened to choke me, and I could only manage a nod. I turned to go, leaving Jack to clamber up from the mound of dry bracken he’d been tossed into.
I let him trail behind me as I walked down the slope of the heath toward the cottage, and he had sense enough not to try to talk to me before we got inside.
As the door swung closed behind him, I said, “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that,” he admitted. He’d simmered down some, but now there was an edge of panic to his frustration. “You’ve got me at my wits’ end. You defy me at every turn, and every day coming home I’m worried I’ll find you dead out on the heath. It already almost happened once! How would I bear it, Mina?”
My throat felt thick and hot, and I continued to fight tears. “If I matter so much to you, why don’t you come home instead of drinking half the night? My worth doesn’t add up to the price of a pint.”
His eyes closed, and his hand went to his forehead as he turned his back to me.
“You know it’s true,” I muttered, starting toward the loft ladder. I was bone tired and starting to see black around the edges.
“Why did you go to him?” Jack called after me. “Are youtryingto get yourself killed? Because it sure seems that way to me.”
I turned. “I can’t do this anymore.” My voice came out weak as the rest of me. “So here’s the truth of it. I went to warn him that people in the village are out of their heads with fear, and they’re gossiping about the estate. I told him that he could be in danger.”
Jack’s eyes went wide, disbelieving. “How could you do something so foolish?”
“Because he’s beenkindto me. Because Ilikehim, and I don’t want to see him hurt. Becauseyou’rethe ones acting like fools.”
“Did you see what happened on the heath? No man moves that fast, Mina.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have made him think you were dangerous!”
“Do you evenhearyourself? You know they’re searching all around his estate. Even Hilliard is finally coming to his senses.”
My heart turned over, and some of the heat left my voice. “They mean to arrest him?”
Jack grunted. “Hilliard says there’s no evidence showing he’s done anything. By the time there is, somebody else will be dead. If you knowsomething—if you’verememberedsomething—you best not be keeping it to yourself. That would make you an accessory to the crime.”
“Those are some fancy words, Jack. Are you sure you know what they mean?”
It was an ugly thing to say, but his talk was scaring me. He knew—or at least sensed—more than I liked. He and the other fools were meddling in a way that could risk not just Harker, but all of us. And like Mr. Hilliard, there was nothing I could say to set him straight that he would actually believe or understand.
Jack’s jaw set, and his whole face shut down. “You win, Mina. You’ve broken me. You go on and do what you like, because I’m done trying to protect you.”
He made straight for the front door and walked out of it.
I win.It sure didn’t feel like it.
Still recovering, and worn out by the emotion of the day, I didn’t wake the next morning until Jack had left for work. I couldn’t even have said for sure that he’d come home, except that he’d burned up my best pot while trying to cook porridge. Part of me thought it served him right, and part of me felt sorry he’d gone off to the mine hungry.
