Mason had rudely pushed them into a room with the dim light of the moon coming through a small and dirty window.
The room was bare and the hearth cold.
With a warning to stay quiet and “all calm-like” or he’d have to come back and shoot them, the door was closed and the lock turned.
Rosalind sank down to the floor. Shrimps sat down next to her.
“It’s all my fault,” Shrimps whispered. “I should’a told you they weren’t to be trusted. Criminals never are, but you couldn’t know that!”
“Oh, Shrimps,” Rosalind said, “I absolutely could have known that. I should have known that. For heaven’s sake—Ididknow that. I just chose not to examine that fact too closely.”
“Do you reckon your pa will pay to get you back?” Shrimps asked.
“Of course he will,” Rosalind said. “And then I shudder to think what he will say about it.”
Shrimps’ thin shoulders shrugged. “Words can’t hurt you though.”
Rosalind was not so sure about that. Her father’s words, Conbatten’s words, whatever they were to be, they would cut deep and be well-deserved.
“Lord Van Doren will dismiss me, I know he will. I’m surprised he hasn’t done it already,” Shrimps said sadly. He sighed deeply, as if all the world’s ills were held in his breast. “I’m a troublesome sort of creature and he doesn’t like Oyster very well either. Even if I do chop onions faster than Cook has ever seen, he’ll throw me out.”
“Shrimps, Beatrice will make Van Doren keep you. I’ll see to that. But I still do not understand what they want from you. I cannot think it usual for these types of people to kidnap a junior servant in the hopes that their employer will pay to get them back. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Shrimps was silent.
“There is something else,” she said. “I can tell there is.”
He twisted his hands together. “I’m not exactly sure, only that I’m afraid there might be something else. See, Barney, he was the pickpocket in the park and the groom tonight, he’s been coming to see me at night when I take Oyster out. I don’t want to take Oyster out in the dark, but it turns out to be terrible if I don’t. The mess, you see.”
“Yes, I can imagine. But what does this Barney come to see you about?”
“He’s been demandin’ proof that my name is Jimmy Black.”
“Is it?”
“No. I know my given name is Henry, but my ma told me to never tell anybody about it. I don’t know my surname, as she said that was an even bigger secret and children are bad at keeping secrets.”
“But you did keep the secret of your given name.”
Shrimps brightened. “I guess I did. Until now, anyway.”
“Why was it a secret, though?”
“I’m not sure. My ma told me all sorts of things before she died—she knew she was going, you see. But none of it made sense. I was to go to Kent and find the seven oaks. Then, I was to ask around for the Conroys.”
“What were you to say when you found them?”
“I was to give them a letter.”
“What does the letter say then?”
“I don’t know, I can’t read. I’ve just kept it safe, sewn inside my coat. I thought, someday I might learn to read and then I could read my mother’s words she set down for me.”
“Do you wish me to read the letter for you?”
Shrimps seemed pensive. Then he said, “All along I thought I wouldn’t let anybody read it. They’re my mother’s private words to me. But now I’m to be dragged back into my old life. Lady Van Doren will never be able to convince the lord to keep me, not after this. So, if I’m to come back round here to live, I probably won’t live long enough to learn to read.”
He opened his coat and in the dim light Rosalind could see some large and very clumsy stitching in an awkward square. Shrimps broke the thread and pulled out the seams.
