Thirteen

Jack noticed nothing of the sultry summer day on his march back to Ferrington Hall. He entered through a side door and went up to his bedchamber, staying only long enough to throw off his borrowed garments and put on his own plainer clothes. It felt like resuming his own skin, or emerging from a failed disguise. He slipped out again without seeing the Terefords, though he passed one of the new housemaids in the hall.

He was glad not to see his noble guests. He wasn’t ready to tell them what had occurred. In fact, he thought as he strode through the garden, there was no need to inform them at all. The false nature of his engagement was none of their business. The thing would limp on for a bit. Harriet would break it off, and if they wanted reasons, they could ask her. No one need know about the plans falling about his ears or the bitter unhappiness in his breast. Indeed, wasn’t it time for the duke and duchess to depart? All this talk of acceptance and friendship seemed to be a sham when it came down to it.

That idea brought a picture of an emptier home and himself rattling around within it. His vision of a new family filling the place with happiness shriveled and died, and his mood darkened further.

He’d had no particular goal in mind, but he found his feet taking him to the Travelers’ camp.

The scatter of caravans and tents remained just the same. The horses had been moved to fresh pasture. A man coming from the meadow with a brace of rabbits raised his hand in greeting. Another, chopping wood, nodded as Jack passed. A woman tending a pot hung over a fire greeted him with a smile. Once, he had been part of these daily rhythms. Yet he hadn’t really been one of them. Here, too, he’d lived on the margins. Tolerated? Was that to be his eternal fate? He noticed some Travelers were packing items away in wooden crates and bundles.

Samia came running up to him. The tiny girl wore a pink dress today, which made her cheeks looks rosier against the sweep of her dark hair. “Good day to you…my lord,” she said.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Mistress Elena said…”

“She is correct, as always. But I still don’t like it.” He noticed two youths folding up a small tent. “Are you leaving?” he asked.

Samia shrugged. “In a few days. Mistress Elena will know when it feels right to go.” She spoke as if this was commonplace.

Jack walked faster. Samia danced along beside him. He found the wizened old woman in her customary place, at the back of her painted caravan. She sat in the open doorway under the carved overhang, her feet on the lowest step. The kerchief that hid her hair was embroidered with poppies. “Are you going?” he repeated. “I thought you would spend the summer here.”

“The countryside in its beauty calls to us,” she answered. “You know we like to move.”

“But you’re welcome on my land. More than you might be elsewhere.”

Mistress Elena gazed up at him. “We have used much of the downed wood and the rabbits. We do not care to take too much from a place.”

Jack had no answer for that.

“We are tired of those men and their muttering, too.” She gestured toward the border with Winstead Hall land with one gnarled hand.

“Perhaps I could convince Mr. Winstead to remove them.” He was, after all, a favorite of the old man. For now.

Mistress Elena shrugged. “But we like the road, my lord Earl. It calls us. We make a round, meeting our kin here and there each year.”

“I will visit all my cousins in the north,” said Samia.

Jack saw they wouldn’t be convinced, and that made him feel more alone than ever. Soon this field would be as empty as his life in England seemed destined to be.

“You are sad,” said Samia. She turned bright eyes to the old woman. “Shall I read his palm?”

Mistress Elena gave Jack a long, penetrating look. “No, get the cards.”

Samia’s eyes widened, and her lips made an O. She wriggled around the old woman and into the caravan, returning with a small, silk-wrapped bundle.

The old woman took it and held it in her lap. “These are precious,” she said. “They came to me from my grandmother. I don’t show them often, lest people be tempted to steal.”

Jack watched, curious, as she folded back the silk to reveal a stack of cards. They were a bit larger than a normal deck, and the backs—all he could see—were heavily decorated.

“Samia, bring me that,” the old woman said, pointing.

The little girl darted over to a small table, hardly bigger than a chessboard, and brought it to sit before them. She hovered over it with bright anticipation.

“You know that you do not tell what you see,” Mistress Elena said to her.

Samia nodded, though she nearly danced in place.

The old woman turned to Jack and indicated a round of tree trunk that functioned as a chair. “Fetch that and sit,” she said.

Puzzled and intrigued, he did so and waited to see what came next.

Mistress Elena held the deck with both hands and murmured some words he couldn’t hear. He suspected he wouldn’t understand them even if he did. Then she spread the cards in a wide fan on the small table. “You will choose three without turning them over,” she said. “Be slow. Think well.”

Not sure what he was to think about, Jack let his hand hover over the cards. They all looked alike. Finally, he pulled one card each from the left, right, and center of the fan, lining them up in a row before him.

Mistress Elena reached out and turned over the one on Jack’s left. What she revealed was not a normal playing card with pips and numbers or kings and queens. Instead, the card showed an odd figure of a man dressed in medieval motley, somewhat awkwardly drawn, with his back to the viewer. He gripped a stick in one hand and what might be a sword over the other shoulder. His profile showed a pointed beard, and a cat pawed at his leg. At the bottom of the card was written Le Fol.

“Le Fol,” said Mistress Elena in a passable French accent. “The Fool. This card represents your past.”

“Well, that’s certainly apt. I’ve been a fool.” The words slipped out with more bitterness than Jack meant to reveal.

“It is not so simple as that,” replied the old woman. “Or so unfortunate. The Fool is a free spirit. He acts in the moment. He may make mistakes, but he also opens up many possibilities in life.”

That might sound good, Jack thought, but a fool was a fool. And he certainly felt like one today.

Mistress Elena turned over the middle card. This one showed a similarly garbed man flanked by two ladies, each with a hand on him while he kept his to himself. Overhead, a strange, half-naked figure surrounded by sunrays aimed an arrow straight at the fellow’s head. The label was upside down. He couldn’t quite…

“L’Amoureux,” said Mistress Elena. “The Lovers. This card stands for the present. But it is reversed and so suggests disharmony, some imbalance come upon you now.”

Jack said nothing. This was a bit too apt. Mistress Elena had in no way guided his choices, but still.

“The third card stands for the future,” she continued and turned it over.

On this one, a skeletal figure seemed to be digging in tumbled earth. There was no label.

“Ah, La Mort,” said Mistress Elena.

“Death?” Jack sat back. Of course, this was all silly superstition. It didn’t really mean anything. But the image was unsettling.

“It means endings, change, transformation,” said Mistress Elena. “Not dying, necessarily.”

“Necessarily?”

“Most often not,” she replied.

“Well, that’s reassuring.” He sounded flip and sarcastic and feared he might have offended her.

But the old woman merely surveyed the three upturned cards. “Draw one more,” she commanded.

Partly to humor her and partly to expunge the last picture, he did so, turning it over himself as he chose. On this one, two people stood close together under a large, many-rayed sun disk.

“Le Soleil,” said Mistress Elena. Samia forgot herself and clapped her hands. “The Sun indicates warmth and success,” continued the old woman. “All will be well for you in the end.”

Jack didn’t see how. And fortune-tellers always predicted happiness and riches and justice, didn’t they? How else would they stay in business? And what was “the end” anyhow? Old age? That didn’t help much right now. But he didn’t say these things to her.

“You don’t believe,” said Mistress Elena.

“Not really. I’m sorry.”

She merely smiled, myriad wrinkles shifting across her face. She restacked the cards and wrapped them away again. Then she pointed over Jack’s shoulder. “A visitor for you.”

His heart leaped, thinking of the times Harriet had sought him here. But when he turned, he saw her mother standing uncertainly at the edge of the camp. Mrs. Finch looked small and pinched and nervous about her surroundings.

Jack rose and went to greet her.

“One of your gardeners saw you come this way,” she said. She looked around as if wondering why.

“Is something wrong?” Jack saw she was wringing her hands.

“Sarah said… She wouldn’t say really. You and Harriet haven’t quarreled?”

Mrs. Finch seemed terrified by the prospect, which seemed excessive. Jack was not inclined to tell her what had happened. Let her daughter explain her conduct.

“All is well between you?” the woman added. “I had to come and see. Even though…” She looked around the camp as if she might be accosted at any moment. “Harriet is behaving so strangely lately.”

“Is she?” Jack didn’t know whether he was glad or sorry to hear it. “How so?”

“First she’s sharp-tongued. Then she mopes. She was rude to my father about the ball. I wish she would not provoke him.”

Jack suspected it was difficult not to, from what he’d seen of Mr. Winstead.

The hand-wringing had returned. “Papa is so very happy about this match. Things have been so much easier.”

That would soon end, Jack noted. He was sorry for her, but it was not his fault.

“I thought all was well, with Harriet’s affections engaged in a match he approves.” She frowned at him. “Nothing must go wrong!”

But Jack had been transfixed by one word. “Affections?”

“What?” Harriet’s mother looked confused.

“You said her affections were engaged.”

“Of course.”

“You seem certain.”

Mrs. Finch peered up at him, her face creased with worry. “Is this the trouble? I know my daughter, my lord. I can assure you they are.”

Jack felt a tendril of—not hope, but speculation.

His visitor put a hand on his arm. “If you thought otherwise, you are wrong.” All trace of timidity had disappeared from her voice and stance.

“Umm,” said Jack. He would have to learn more about this.

“Nothing is wrong between you? Nothing about the banns?” The small woman looked ready to shake an answer out of him.

“What?”

“They will be calling the banns in church on Sunday. Sarah seemed to think… I didn’t understand why she should care about that. It is all settled.”

“Banns. Ah, that is an official announcement of the engagement. To the whole neighborhood.”

Mrs. Finch nodded, frowning at him.

“No denying things after that,” Jack noted.

Her fingers tightened on his arm, an iron grip. “Why would you wish to do so? Tell me you do not!”

He needed time, Jack concluded. There were matters to explore. He shook his head, allowing her to take it as a denial. “Allow me to introduce you to Mistress Elena,” he said as a distraction.

“Who?”

“The leader of the Travelers.” He gestured toward her caravan.

“That’s an old woman,” said Mrs. Finch.

“Yes.”

“She can’t be the leader.”

“They look to her to make decisions,” Jack replied.

Mrs. Finch stared. She seemed both fascinated and scandalized by the idea. “My father says Travelers are filthy thieves,” she said.

“He is wrong.”

She glanced up at him, startled and perhaps pleased, and then back at Mistress Elena. “I shouldn’t.”

“It would be courteous to say hello as you have come to their camp.”

The threat of rudeness swayed her. She followed Jack to the caravan, and he performed the introductions.

“Are you really the leader?” Mrs. Finch looked around, her gaze pausing at various large, muscular men as if expecting one of them to come up and contradict the claim.

“They look to me for counsel,” said Mistress Elena. “Wisdom comes with years.”

“Not for me,” said Mrs. Finch.

“Maybe you aren’t old enough,” said Samia.

The visitor looked down at her in astonishment, whether because a small child had expressed this opinion or at the notion itself, Jack could not tell. “I feel old,” said Mrs. Finch.

“Wait until you are four score and see,” replied Mistress Elena.

“Four score! I can’t imagine it.”

“You will find much happiness at that age,” said the old Traveler.

“How can you…?”

“I see it.”

Mrs. Finch blinked at her. She took in Samia’s emphatic nod and Jack’s shrug, then shook her head. “I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Unlikely things happen every day.”

“Not to me.” Mrs. Finch shook her head again. “I must go. It was…interesting to meet you.”

Mistress Elena bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“I will escort you home,” said Jack to Harriet’s mother.

She seemed glad to take his arm and move out of the camp. They walked in silence for a bit, Mrs. Finch thoughtful. Finally, she said, “How could she think I would be happy? Those times are gone.”

“What times?”

She waved his question aside. “Never mind.”

“Please. I would like to hear about when you were most happy.” Jack had actually found this a telling question as he was making new friends. People’s replies revealed a great deal.

“I shouldn’t say,” she answered.

“Why not? Is the answer scandalous?”

“No!” She tapped his arm with her free hand. “Of course not.”

“Well then?”

“It is just… I was happiest when I lived alone.”

“Indeed?” This surprised him. If he’d had to guess, he would have mentioned a time when her husband was alive.

“You think that very selfish.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Harriet was at school,” Mrs. Finch added hurriedly. “I knew she was all right, even though she had…difficulties there. She had good friends as well. She wrote to me about them. Sarah and Charlotte are two of the closest.”

Jack nodded encouragingly.

“I remained at our cottage in Tunbridge Wells. It is…was small but very cozy.”

“You weren’t lonely?”

She looked surprised he should ask. “I have… I had a wide acquaintance among ladies in the town who enjoyed fine needlework. There are a great many of those living there. People call the town stodgy, but I never found it so. I taught fancywork to a group of girls as well. We would gather every Wednesday.” She sounded wistful. “And I had a small room at the front of the house where I exhibited my embroidery. There’s no sense keeping it all in chests and wardrobes, you know.”

Jack wondered how much of the stuff there was.

“Especially when someone might need a lovely collar or wristbands. Even a fine tablecloth.”

“It was like a shop?” said Jack.

Mrs. Finch flushed bright red as if he’d accused her of obscenity. “Nothing like that!” she exclaimed. “It was simply a place where friends and acquaintances might find beautiful things.”

“They didn’t pay you for your work?” Jack was too surprised to be tactful.

“Of course not! They sometimes, if they cared to, offered the cost of the silks. Which can be quite dear. But they never… I never asked… There was no question of…”

“Of course,” interrupted Jack. “I understand perfectly now.”

They walked a while in silence as she calmed down. Her hand actually trembled on his arm.

“You long for that life,” Jack suggested when she had recovered.

“Oh yes, so much.”

“Why not go back to Tunbridge Wells then?”

“Oh, I can’t afford that anymore.”

Jack thought if she actually opened a shop and charged a fair price for her needlework, she might be able to afford it. But that was clearly out of the question for Mrs. Finch. And perhaps those friends and acquaintances wouldn’t patronize a shop as they did her home. “Your father wouldn’t give…”

Mrs. Finch stopped short and dug her fingers into his forearm. “You won’t tell him what I said.”

She was really frightened of old Winstead. The man must be even more unpleasant than he’d thought. “No. Not a word.”

Her grip eased. As they started walking again, she threw him uneasy glances. Jack wondered what was going through her mind.

“I shall like living at Ferrington Hall,” she said after a while. “If that is what you really… I mean, Harriet suggested… Of course, I would never expect… Only Harriet thought…” She became tangled up in words and subsided.

She’d thought of her dependence on him, Jack realized. It was either him or her tyrannical father. She had no other choices. The idea was distasteful. He didn’t want to be one of the many things this small woman apparently feared. Yet he wasn’t certain how to reassure her without rousing more anxiety. He settled for, “You are very welcome.”

Mrs. Finch’s face relaxed. They had come to the edge of the Winstead Hall gardens. “I will leave you here,” said Jack.

“You won’t come in?”

“Not just now.” He wasn’t ready to face Harriet yet. He had a good deal to think about. But more than that, he wanted to move, to act. Since he’d come to England, he’d spent far too much time reacting to other people’s wishes and opinions, Jack decided. He’d imagined that, in a foreign country, they knew best. But they—in particular his great-grandmother Lady Wilton—did not. Not for him. A restlessness that had been building in him burst out. He was accustomed to making decisions and seeing them carried out. He was good at it. More often than not, he’d been right. It was time to see what he could do here and now. Ideas began to surface as he strode home.

Back at Ferrington Hall, Jack searched out the duke. He found him in the drawing room behind an open newspaper.

Tereford closed the pages when Jack came in, saying, “There’s a certain futility in day-old news. It is over. There’s nothing to be done. Should one even read it?”

This probably qualified as a witticism. It was at least an invitation to exchange the kind of banter Jack found pointless. He shrugged. “You mentioned a man of business who could manage all sorts of matters.”

The duke put the newspaper aside. “Dalton, yes. Cecelia thinks very highly of his firm.”

She would have made certain they were competent, Jack thought. “I should like to write to him.”

“Cecelia can give you his direction. She will have it neatly listed.”

Jack was sure she would. “Do you know of a place called Tunbridge Wells?” he went on.

“Tunbridge Wells?” The duke looked surprised at the change of topic.

“It’s a town, I understand. Do you know where it is?”

“About twenty miles east of here. But, my dear Ferrington, you don’t want anything to do with Tunbridge Wells. It’s full of terrifying dowagers and fubsy-faced widows. Dreadfully unfashionable.”

“Is it?” Jack saw this as a point in its favor.

“It is. Whence comes this odd request?” Tereford’s blue eyes had grown curious.

Jack saw no need to explain himself. “Call it a whim,” he replied. He had heard the duke say this to his wife.

Perhaps the man remembered because he smiled. “I see.”

Jack turned to go, the letter he would send this Dalton fellow already forming in his mind. Then he remembered another point. “This calling of banns in the church,” he said, turning back. “I’m not familiar with the process as I have never set out to marry before. They are quite a public announcement, it seems.”

“Yes, but they aren’t necessary,” replied the duke.

“Oh? Mr. Winstead seemed to think they were important.”

“He might not know, because banns are customary for…country people.”

“And grubby tradesmen?” Jack suggested, unable to resist.

“You make too much of this label, Ferrington.”

Having just seen Mrs. Finch’s reaction to the idea she’d run a shop, Jack doubted this. “Banns,” he repeated.

The duke nodded. “Having just gotten married myself, I am familiar with the process. You need not post banns. You can procure a common license and marry in a parish where one of the couple has lived for at least four weeks, as Miss Finch has here, of course.”

“I see.” This simplified matters. He could gain a bit of time to discover if Harriet’s mother was right about her affections. As long as he convinced her grandfather to use this method rather than public banns. Jack had a few thoughts about how that could be accomplished, and he expected to enjoy besting the old man.

“You apply at the registry for the jurisdiction,” the duke continued. “I don’t know where that is in this case, but someone will. You give your oath there are no impediments to the marriage, and the thing is done.”

No impediments except the bride’s determination to break it off. Despite the fact that her affections were engaged. Jack clung to this phrase. “That is helpful,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Of course. No waiting for three weeks, eh? Marry whenever you like.”

He hadn’t thought of that.

“Three weeks for what?” asked the duchess, coming through the half-open door.

“The wedding,” answered her husband. “I was telling Ferrington how to procure a license. So they needn’t wait for banns.”

“Oh.”

It was one simple, short word, but Jack heard an odd uncertainty in it. The duchess was Harriet’s friend. She might know more than he wished to discuss just now. “I should inquire about this registry,” he replied before she could say anything else. And with a brief bow, he left them.

***

“And once they are married, we can be on our way,” the duke said to his wife.

Cecelia looked at him. “You are eager to go.”

“Cornwall is lovely at this time of year,” he answered. He came to put an arm around her. “And this… What is the place called?”

“Tresigan House.”

“Right. It’s said to be picturesque.”

“I told you that. And you know it is probably falling to pieces.”

“Prime for your talents then,” he replied.

Cecelia hid a smile. “And why would you be less bored there than here?”

“That place belongs to me. I can order people about more.”

She had to laugh. “Ferrington Hall is good practice for your neglected estates. Putting a house in order is more than just repairs and dusting, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“A house is people as well as buildings. And since you don’t intend to live in all the ones you own, they will need inhabitants.”

“Good caretakers, of course.”

“Or more than that,” she said. “Look at this place. It felt so neglected when we arrived, even though the Rileys were conscientious. Then Ferrington came, and soon…”

“Your friend Miss Finch will add her homely touches,” James finished.

Cecelia hesitated. The future looked far from certain just now. She settled for, “A home should be loved.”

James looked down at her with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “Are you proposing we install people in all the Tereford properties who will…love them?”

“I like the idea.”

“It’s mad, Cecelia. Also, they belong to me. If anyone is going to love them…”

“You will?” She gazed up at him, savoring the feel of his arm around her.

“I love you,” he replied. And kissed her.

This was unanswerably sweet. Cecelia leaned into his arms.

“You can love them, and I will love you,” he murmured against her lips.

The next kiss was searing.

They might have different philosophies on estate restoration, Cecelia thought before she was swept away by desire, but on this they always agreed.