Page 46 of The Thorn and the Rose

“You’re going to go after her, then?”

“I don’t know,” Thorn admitted, frowning. “She’s led me a merry dance so far. What this little exercise was about, I don’t know, but I don’t see why I should chase after her. She came to me, and she left of her own accord. It’s none of my affair.”

Except it was her brother that caused them so much trouble, her brother that had Thorn beaten up and blamed them for some despicable act they knew nothing of.

George sat staring at him, her penetrating gaze unnerving.

“What?” he asked, irritably.

“That girl’s in trouble,” she said flatly.

Thorn sighed, glowering at her. “Well, perhaps she deserves to be, perhaps it’s trouble of her own making.”

George narrowed her eyes, studying him, and then let out a huff of laughter. “Ah, you don’t mean that. You’ll go after her. You’re too decent not to.”

Thorn grimaced. Yes, he would. Damn her eyes.

“Too much of a fool,” he muttered with annoyance. Yet anxiety curdled in his guts as he worried if she’d had money enough for her journey, salted with a good pinch of frustration as he wondered for the fiftieth time what the hell she was playing at. What was the point of her coming to him only to run away again?

“Well, I’ll wish you luck then, my lord, but you be kind to her. Elmira reckons she’s had a tough go of it.”

“What made her say that?” Thorn asked, the unpleasant sensation in his belly growing worse.

“Dunno. Women’s intuition, she said,” George replied, as if this was incomprehensible to her, and strode out without another word.

5th April 1847. The New Inn, Winchelsea, East Sussex.

It was a few days before he’d been able to set out in pursuit of his quarry, but Thorn had thought it would be a simple matter to track Rosemarie down, now he knew roughly where she hailed from. He had reckoned without the way people in these parts kept their own counsel. A hangover, he suspected, from when the region was run by smugglers and most everyone was in the pay of The Gentlemen. Whatever the reason, no one was willing to gossip about the local gentry or anyone else who might have fallen on hard times of late. He’d even given in and used his father’s name to bait what everyone must know was a well-provisioned hook. Though he was welcomed with open arms and great respect, for the name of Montagu was held in the highest esteem in these parts, it still did not unlock their tongues.

Days turned to weeks and his jaunt down to the coast at such a peculiar time of year did not go unnoticed by his family. He returned to town, or to visit Dern at intervals, but steadfastly ignored the demands of his mother and brother, demanding to know what he was up to now. His father would never deign to ask him what he was doing, most likely because he already knew.

They figured it out, naturally, and then he was subjected to a lecture about getting tangled up with the wrong sort of woman. He entirely agreed with them. He was out of his mind to go looking for trouble, which Marie undoubtedly was. Yet she had become une ideé fixe, a stone in his shoe that he could not rid himself of, a puzzle he must solve.

Thorn visited Rye on his next excursion, staying at The Mermaid. It was a pub synonymous with local stories of smuggling and blood-curdling tales of murder and derring-do and, whilst he enjoyed hearing all the local folklore, news of Marie eluded him. He investigated in and around Pett Level and Fairlight before taking a room at the New Inn in Winchelsea. It was here that he finally had a stroke of luck upon overhearing a conversation in the taproom.

“You’ve no chance of getting paid, my lad,” said an old man with a clay pipe clamped between his remaining yellow teeth. He grinned with just a trace of malicious satisfaction glinting in his eyes as he clapped the burly fellow sat beside him on the shoulder. “Now the baron is clapped up, they’ve not a feather to fly with. If you are lucky, mebbe she’ll pay you in kind, though, eh?”

“You keep a civil tongue in your head, you dirty old maggot,” the big man grumbled. “Miss Fortesque is a lady to her bones and it ain’t her fault her brother has more hair than wit. She always was the smart one, anyone could tell you that, what with the way he made a fool of himself carrying on over that girl, and her no better than she should be.”

“Takes after his pa, and he was a bad ’un. Used to smack his missus around, I know that. Pity, sweet little girl she was,” the old man added, with a surprisingly melancholy sigh after his previously lascivious words.

With a sigh of relief, Thorn thanked the fates for smiling on him at last and tucked the information away.

The next morning, he rose early and spoke to the young woman serving breakfast as she laid a thick sirloin steak before him with a bowl of fried potatoes.

“Excuse me for delaying you, for I can see you’re busy,” he said politely to the young woman, who flushed pink and stared at him.

“S’alright,” she said softly, reaching up and twisting a curl of dark hair around her finger. She tilted her head to one side and gave him a flirtatious look from under her lashes. “What can I do for you, my lord?”

The implication that she might be open to suggestions was not lost on Thorn, who cleared his throat. “Just a little information, thank you kindly, miss.”

“Oh, call me Mary,” she said, giving him a very thorough look up and down that might have made him blush if he wasn’t well used to it.

“Thank you, Mary,” Thorn said, lips twitching a little. “I have been foolish enough to misplace the directions my sister gave me. I am supposed to call on a friend of hers to deliver a parcel, but whilst I know it was an address in Winchelsea, the rest I do not remember. I am looking for a Miss Fortesque, might you know of her?”

The girl sighed and straightened, less interested now it seemed he was not in a flirtatious mood. “Oh, her at the big house. Magpie Hall is what you want. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to do.”

“Mary,” Thorn said, and she hesitated instead of stalking off as she’d clearly intended. “Thank you for the information. It was kind of you to help me.” He smiled warmly at her and slipped a heavy coin into the pocket of her apron.