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To Jack, Ferrington Hall was a confusing jumble of large chambers shrouded in white sheets, like the domicile of ghosts. He didn’t see what a man would do with so many rooms. Once you had a place for sleeping and for sitting and perhaps a study with a desk, what else was needed? The large, unkempt emptiness of this place was daunting.
When they’d made the full circuit, his companion noticed the angle of the sun and said, “I should go.”
“Leaving me alone to ransack the house?” asked Jack.
“Is that what you intend to do?”
Was there the suggestion of a twinkle in her green eyes? Or was he imagining it? Jack didn’t think so. “It might be,” he replied to keep her by him.
“I don’t think you have nefarious purposes after all.”
“Nefarious, is it? You expect me to know a word like that?”
“It means…”
“The sort of fellow who would plot a robbery. In short, a rogue.”
She looked surprised. And perhaps interested? “Are you a rogue?”
“Would you prefer that I was or was not, Miss Snoot?”
“Don’t call me that!”
“What shall I call you then?”
She turned away to hide her expression. The dashed parasol was useful for that. It dipped between them.
“I might be a bit of a rogue, now and then,” Jack suggested. “But I never hurt a lady in my life and never will.”
This won him a flashing glance. “I should go,” she repeated.
“Home,” said Jack.
“No, not home.”
Her tone was bleak, and Jack understood its nuances far better than she could have imagined. “To the house where you’re staying then?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s that?”
“Nearby.”
It had to be, since she’d walked here. And on her own as well. She was a neighbor. “I’d be happy to escort you,” he tried.
“No!” That had spooked her, clearly. She gave him the parasol again, turned, and hurried away.
Jack noted the direction she went, but he didn’t follow. That might seem threatening, and he didn’t wish to worry her. Heading back to the camp, he reviewed this unexpected meeting. He’d thought he would just take a look at Ferrington Hall and then move on, but now he decided he might as well stay a little while.
Two
Walking back toward Winstead Hall, Harriet scarcely noticed the turns of the path or the birds calling in the leaves. Her mind was full of this fellow Jack. Why had he made such a strong impression on her? She’d met handsomer men, certainly. True, some of them were perfect stocks, about as lively as a statue. Jack was the opposite of that. His zest and vitality drew one’s gaze. She’d had to resist watching him, even when he wasn’t indulging in a bout of impudent wit—of which he seemed to have a boundless supply. Miss Snoot, indeed. In the privacy of her solitude, Harriet smiled as she walked.
He was different from anyone she’d met before, she realized, and that made him memorable. This Jack had a jaunty sense of freedom. As if he might do anything at any moment, whatever he pleased, in fact. He made Harriet imagine boundless liberty, a thing she’d never had in her life. The very idea made her wistful. What would it be like to roam with the wind, to have no obligations?
Harriet had lived in a meager household as a child, become a sometimes-despised working pupil at her exclusive girls’ school, and then had one whirlwind London season, during which she’d never quite found her feet. She’d not met a rogue outside the pages of a novel. Young ladies were carefully kept far away from such people, for good reason. But this Jack hadn’t felt dangerous. As a poor girl with no social power, Harriet had learned to detect unsavory intentions. She’d had to fend off an oily dancing master at school, among others. And she’d felt no such threat from Jack. He seemed charming, fascinating, nearly mythical. Perhaps she would call him Jack in the Green when she saw him again.
And there, her train of thought stuttered to a stop. Of course, she wouldn’t see him again. Now that he was lurking around Ferrington Hall, along with the Travelers, she couldn’t walk there. He’d taken that option from her, narrowing her world, as so much seemed to do these days. Resentment bubbled up, tinged with a curiously mournful disappointment. But life was seldom fair. She’d learned that very young.
