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One
Jonathan Frederick Merrill, apparently the thrice-damned ninth Earl of Ferrington, known to himself and his old life as Jack, encountered the Travelers on the third day after he left London. They were ambling along the road he was walking, and he caught up with their straggle of horse-drawn caravans and swarm of children when the sun was halfway down the western sky. The sight of them was the first thing to lift the black mood that had afflicted him since he’d fled the city. “Grãlt’a,” he said to the man apparently serving as the rear guard.
This produced a ferocious scowl and a spate of words he didn’t understand. “I only know a few words of the Shelta,” he replied, naming the language these traveling people spoke among themselves. The adult men had begun to gather around him, looking menacing. “My mother was born toan lucht siúil, the walking people, over the sea in America,” Jack added. “She left them to marry my father, but many a tale she told me of life on the road.”
The first man surveyed the landscape around them, an empty stretch of forest. “You have no horse?” he asked contemptuously.
Jack had thought of buying a horse. He had a sizable sum in a money belt, his passage home and more. But he’d put it off, thinking he would soon be leaving England. “Only my own feet and a bit of coin in my pocket. I’m happy to work for my keep, however.” Nobody needed to know the extent of his funds.
The group scowled at him. Jack had already noticed that his accent puzzled the people here. They were accustomed to judging people by the way they spoke, but his mixture of North American with the intonations of his parents didn’t fit their preconceived notions.
“Perhaps we just beat you and take your coins,” the man said.
Jack closed his fists. “You could try, I suppose.”
A wizened old woman pushed through the circle of men. Leaning on a tall staff, she examined Jack from head to toe.
Jack stiffened. He wouldn’t be enduring abuse from another crone. He’d had his fill of that and more from his newfound great-grandmother. She’d discovered nothing to like about him. His brown hair, dark eyes, and “undistinguished” face were nothing like her noble English get, apparently. A poor excuse for an earl with the manners of a barbarian, she’d said. Though how she could tell about the manners when she’d hardly let him speak a word, he did not know.
“We are not brigands,” said the old Traveler woman to her fellows. “No matter what they may say of us.”
“Nay, fine metalworkers and horse breeders, or so my mother told me,” Jack replied.
“Did she now?” Jack caught a twinkle of good humor in the old woman’s pale eyes. Perhaps she wasn’t like the ill-tempered Lady Wilton after all.
“She did,” he replied. “And inspired me to be footloose. I’ve been a frontier explorer, a bodyguard, and a sailor.” He’d been told he had charm. He reached for it as he smiled at the small woman before him.
“And now you are here.”
Jack nodded. He wasn’t going to mention inherited earldoms. That would be unwise. “Seeing the world,” he answered. “I don’t care for sitting still.”
This yielded nods of understanding among his audience.
“Might I walk along with you?” Jack dared. “I’m headed north, as you seem to be.” The truth was, Jack was lonely. He was a sociable man. He’d had many friends back home. Why had he left all that at the behest of a stuffy Englishman? He should have known that any legacy from his feckless father would be tainted.
“North to what?” the old Traveler woman asked.
It would be as unwise to mention estates as to reference an earldom, though Jack had decided to take a look at this Ferrington Hall he was supposed to inhabit. “North until I decide to turn in some other direction,” he replied jauntily.
One man laughed.
“The road is free to all,” said the woman.
“It is that. But companionship is a gift beyond price.”
She laughed. “You have a quick tongue. If you wish to walk with us a while, we will not turn you away.”
“Maa’ths,” said Jack, thanking her with another of his small store of Shelta words. He was surprisingly glad of the permission.
The caravans started up again. Jack walked along beside them. But with this matter settled, his thoughts began drifting back to the scene that had driven him from town. Much as he’d like to forget it, he could not.
Until the high-nosed Englishman had shown up in Boston with his astonishing summons, Jack had only half believed his father’s stories of a noble lineage. His Irish mother claimed Papa bragged about being an earl’s son before they wed, but once they were, he wouldn’t take the least advantage of it. He refused to lift a finger to introduce Jack, his only child, to his rich relatives before he drank himself to death. And so she’d decided it was all a lie. Jack wished she’d lived to see the arrival of that “man of business” who’d lured him back here. He’d come partly because of her. How she would have reveled in the idea of her son as an earl.
His mother wouldnothave stood for one single insult from his scold of a great-grandmother, however. She’d have scratched the harpy’s eyes out.
Jack had been taken before this Lady Wilton as if he was a package to be dropped in her lap. And she’d received him like a delivery of bad meat. Facing her distaste, he’d actually felt as if he smelled. The small, gnarled woman with snow-white hair and a nose seemingly designed for looking down on people had proceeded to deplore his appearance, his lowborn mother, his upbringing, his accent, and the sins of his scapegrace father, whom she’d never expected to hear of again after she packed him off into exile. But there was no help for it, she’d declared at the end of this tirade. Jack was now the earl. She would have to force him onto Society. It might just be possible if he followed her lead in every respect and kept his mouth shut.
Of course, Jack had rebelled. No red-blooded man would stomach such words, particularly about his mother. The mixture of motives that had brought him across the sea evaporated in an instant. He had no interest in joining any society that included people like Lady Wilton.
