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This was an odd question. “I never have,” he replied.
“But you could learn if you liked.”
“I suppose I could.”
“Boxing as well. My friend Charlotte’s brothers are always talking of tipping someone a leveler. Which means knocking them down with one punch, I believe.”
“I know the phrase. But I don’t understand…”
“Ican’t learn such things,” Miss Finch said. “Any more than I can enter a true profession. I have no way tofightunless you imagine that scathing words affect a man like my grandfather.”
They were affecting him. He felt beleaguered.
“If you do, you are wrong,” she added. “He…squashes opposition. Crushes the least sign of it.”
Jack became conscious of a desire to show this man the meaning of defeat.
Miss Finch looked away as if she regretted saying so much. “I must go. Mama is keeping a closer watch on me after this news. She is very…susceptible to worry.”
She held out her hand. Again, Jack took it. Her fingers were firm in his. “Goodbye,” she said. Did he see a trace of a tear? He thought he did. And that settled it. He had to stay. He squeezed her hand. She returned the pressure, swallowed, and pulled away. It seemed she might say more, but in the end, she simply turned and rushed back the way she’d come.
Jack watched until she disappeared around a bend in the path, acknowledging he was well and truly smitten with this lovely girl. Who despised earls, seemingly. Most of them. He would have to be sure he was an exception.
Returning to the central fire, he gave the Travelers the news and suggested they set a watch. Some wanted to pack up and leave at once, but others were reluctant to abandon such a snug camp. Jack asked for and was granted a day to see what he could do, so long as no threats were spotted. He sat down with a mug of cider and put his mind to the problem.
With more time, he might have tried something elaborate. But in the span available, his thoughts finally narrowed to one possibility. It might well work.
He waited for darkness and then set himself to watch Ferrington Hall. He knew from previous observations that the old couple who took care of the place slept in a room near the kitchen, which was in a wing that jutted out from the rear of the house. Unfortunately, this was on the ground floor. However, it seemed well away from what he judged to be the haunts of their former master.
He saw the light in their bedroom extinguished. Unmoving, he let an hour pass. When he was reasonably certain they were asleep, he approached the house from the other side, aiming for a door that led out into a walled garden. He carried a small, dark lantern, which had been easily available at the camp. Suspiciously so, perhaps. Jack hadn’t asked.
The wall was no serious obstacle, and Jack knew how to pick a lock. A disreputable friend of his father had taught him when he was ten years old. The men had roared with laughter over it. Until his mother had looked in, and they’d gone sheepishly silent. He didn’t think any of them had told her of her son’s new skill. He’d certainly known better than to confess it.
The lock was old and not complicated. Jack focused a narrow beam from the lantern on it, and soon he had it undone. He eased the door open. The hinges creaked, sounding loud in the quiet night. Jack closed the lantern and froze, listening with all his might. Minutes ticked past. At last, hearing no reaction, he slipped inside.
He had to dare the lantern again, to avoid colliding with ghostly sheeted furnishings, but he used the smallest possible beam as he made his way to the room he had recognized as a study from the outside.
Once there, he closed the door and unlatched a window, in case he had to run. Then he pulled off the sheet covering the desk. None of the drawers were locked, and in the third he tried, he found some crested stationery featuring the coat of arms of the Earl of Ferrington. He lifted out a few sheets, found a quill, and uncorked an inkwell, fortunately not dried out. Jack wasn’t certain what he would have done if it was.
After listening again and hearing no sounds, he sat down at the desk and began to write a letter. Having thought about it all day, he had the words ready in his head. He wrote quickly, signed the unfamiliar name with a flourish, and then produced a second exact copy. One would go to this magistrate, and the other would be entrusted to Mistress Elena for safety’s sake.
Jack found a stick of wax and a seal in another drawer. He softened the wax with the flame of his lantern and sealed one of the notes. This one would be delivered to the magistrate’s house first thing tomorrow by a Traveler lad who had assured Jack he knew how to drop off a packet without being noticed.
Returning everything to its previous state, Jack latched the window and slipped out the way he’d come, relocking the door behind him. Then he was over the wall and away into the quiet darkness.
***
Harriet sat with her mother in the small parlor Mama liked to use at one end of Winstead Hall, well away from the din of construction on the new wing. Late-afternoon sunlight poured through the tall windows like golden honey, illuminating the flowered wallpaper and comfortable furnishings. This space was less crammed with opulent objects than the rooms her grandfather frequented, which was restful. Sweet scents from the garden and the twitter of birds drifted in. Altogether a peaceful scene, with no reason for melancholy, and yet Harriet’s spirits were low. She imagined the Travelers packed up by now and moving along the road away from here, Jack among them. When she walked that way again, the field would be empty, crushed grass and fire-blackened stones the only signs of their lively presence. She would never see him again. She wished she had done…something more during their brief acquaintance. She might have kissed him. Harriet blinked, startled by this unprecedented idea. Why was she thinking of kisses? She didn’t do that—either the thinking or the kissing.
For that matter, asserted this errant part of her mind with blithe disregard, he might have kissed her. But no, he wouldn’t have presumed. He was a gentleman. Despite his vagabond state, she was certain of that. He would never take her in his arms and capture her lips and send her dizzy with desire. Unless he was encouraged, of course. Which she could not do. Because he was gone. And because, of course, she didnotdo such things. And never would. Harriet put a hand to her burning cheek, wondering if she had gone slightly mad.
“What is that noise?” asked her mother.
Harriet became conscious of a sound echoing down the corridor. It was her grandfather’s voice, roaring in the distance.
“Oh dear,” said her mother. “I wonder what has happened now.”
“Some news from London, I expect,” replied Harriet. Her grandfather often railed at the young men who traveled up from town with reports on his business.
