“I have a delightful plan for tomorrow,” said Rosalind when the party gathered in the drawing room before dinner. “I have arranged an expedition to Hadrian’s Wall. We will start out very early and drive there, stay the night, and then drive back the next day.”
“Nonsense,” replied Philip. “That is all of thirty miles. It is too far.”
“It will take half a day,” admitted Rosalind. “But it is such an interesting sight. And Miranda has had so little to do on her visit to us. I know she would like to see it. Alan, too.”
“Not if it is too far,” said Miranda, understanding now that Philip did not care to expose them to dangers on the roads, and heartily agreeing after her own brush with bullets.
“I’m not much interested in antiquities,” admitted Alan.
Rosalind looked from one to the other, and Miranda was certain in that instant that her sister was aware of the undercurrents in the house. “I should like to see it,” Rosalind said. “You have been telling me for two years what an amazing accomplishment it was, Philip. And yet we have never been there.”
“Because it is so far. An exhausting journey, particularly now, when you are…”
“I am extraordinarily well. All the sickness has passed off. I think the outing would do me good.”
Miranda wondered then if her sister had concocted this plan to force Philip to confide in her. It was not like Rosalind to be so insistent, and she had not been especially interested in Hadrian’s Wall before.
“No,” declared Philip. “It is not the time for such a journey.” He exchanged a look with Alan.
“Why?” demanded Rosalind.
“I have just told you that…”
“You have told me nothing!” Rosalind gazed at each of them in turn again. Miranda hung her head, feeling very guilty. “Unless you can give me a good reason, I intend to go to Hadrian’s Wall tomorrow.”
Alan looked at Philip. Miranda stole a glance at him under her lashes. Clearly, he was torn. The silence lengthened.
“It is a good distance,” said Alan. “Well away from the, er, daily concerns of the estate. And I believe you have no pressing business for a day or so.”
Philip looked at him. “No.”
“Perhaps it would be good to get away, then. We can always break the journey if it is too long.”
“Yes,” said Philip slowly. “To get well away. We might take…all right, Rosalind. We’ll go.”
His wife looked far from pleased at this acquiescence to her wishes. Indeed, she seemed quite put out. But there was nothing more she could say, having been granted her request. Rosalind frowned at her plate in frustration.
The group that set out the next day bore little resemblance to carefree holidaymakers. Rosalind was sulky and Miranda ashamed. Philip and Alan rode beside the carriage but seldom came close enough for speech. And they gave no satisfactory explanation for the three serving men who followed, saying only that they would be a help to the coachman.
The rocks of the coast gave way to forest as they drove southwest. The roads were not direct, and they twisted between rows of great trees with the sun now on the left, now behind. Inside the carriage, the only sounds were the creaking of the wheels and harness, the clop of horses’ hooves, and an occasional birdcall from the woods.
At last, Rosalind turned from the window and gazed at Miranda. The younger girl’s guilty expression was unmistakable. “You know something, don’t you?” accused Rosalind. “Have they told you what they are up to?”
“Up to?” echoed Miranda in a high, squeaky voice.
“Philip. And Alan. But Philip mainly.” When Miranda said nothing, she added, “I have eyes and ears, Miranda. I see them plotting together and falling silent when I come near.” Tears gathered in her blue eyes. “Philip used to tell me everything he was doing. On the estate. Books he read. Now, he scarcely talks to me. And if I ask why, he is impatient and evasive. I don’t understand what is wrong, but I cannot bear it any longer.” A tear spilled and ran down her cheek.
This was too much for Miranda. She didn’t care what Philip thought best; this was her own sister. “It’s smugglers,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“A gang of smugglers. With leaders from outside the village. Terrible men.”
Rosalind digested this. Miranda watched a whole train of thought pass across her face. “Philip told you of this?” she asked finally.
“Oh no. I learned by accident. I overheard a…conversation.”
“Ah.” Rosalind mused further. “I suppose these men must be very dangerous.”
“They lo…” Miranda stopped and merely nodded. She did not intend to reveal the extent of her activities. Rosalind would never approve. The disguise would remain her secret.
“And Philip thinks he is protecting me. While I go nearly mad wondering what is wrong.” Rosalind took a deep breath. “I suppose they have some plan. Why not simply inform the authorities?”
“I don’t know. I heard only what I told you.”
Rosalind’s face showed mainly relief now. “Well, no doubt Philip and Alan will know what is best to do.”
Miranda didn’t think the matter could be dismissed so easily, but she couldn’t say so to Rosalind. It would only distress and frighten her. Thus, when her sister turned to lighter topics, she responded, and they said no more about the threat to Clairvon’s peace.
At midmorning, the trip began to grow wearisome. To Miranda, it seemed more like her journey north than a pleasant outing. She was tired of the swaying of the carriage and the jolting of the ruts, and the scenery hardly varied. When they stopped for luncheon in Morpeth, Rosalind looked pale, and Miranda began to worry about her. “Are you all right?” she murmured as they walked together into the small inn.
“Only tired,” was the quiet reply. “Don’t speak of it.” And indeed, over cold ham and salad, Rosalind positively sparkled with gaiety. She seemed more like her old self than Miranda had seen her in Northumberland. Philip smiled foolishly at her through the meal, and Alan seemed surprised and charmed. Everyone was in far better spirits when they resumed their journey, and it seemed no time at all until they reached the outskirts of Newcastle and turned west to find the wall.
“Well stay the night in Newcastle,” Rosalind told Miranda. “There will be a good inn there. So you must see all you want of the wall this afternoon. It will be light till nearly ten.”
“Do you really want to see it?” asked Miranda.
Rosalind looked self-conscious. “I’m sure it will be very interesting.”
“But you only proposed it to tease Philip,” added her sister.
Rosalind flushed, then smiled sheepishly. “Well, yes.”
“There it is,” called Philip from beside the carriage. “An impressive construction.”
Miranda stuck her head out. Before them was a tall, thick fortification of ancient gray stone, overgrown with moss and lichen and broken in some places, but still massive. The road ran along it, and they pulled up in the wall’s shadow and got down. “A solid job,” said Alan, laying his hand on the stone. “Ditched there, too, I think. They had good engineers.”
“None better,” replied Philip. “The legions pushed back the native tribes this far, then built the wall to hold them. There were forts all along here.”
“Must have taken a good number of men,” commented Alan.
“It was the border of the empire,” said Philip.
Alan laughed. “Then I suppose being sent here was like a posting to Australia. Must have gotten all the men who made a slip of some kind in Rome.”
Philip looked nonplussed.
“Would you like to walk a little?” Alan asked Miranda. “Or are you too tired?”
“Oh no. I am so cramped from sitting.” She took his arm, and they strolled along the wall, leaving Philip and Rosalind together. For a while they walked in silence. Miranda was surprised that she found this so comfortable. A month ago, she would not have imagined such ease with a man outside her family. But at last her curiosity became too strong. “What did Fitch say?” she asked him.
Alan glanced down at her, disconcerted.
“About the shooting,” she prompted. “Did he see anyone?”
Alan hesitated a moment more, then replied, “He said not.”
“Really? Or you just do not wish to tell me?”
Again, he examined her face. She was somehow different today, he thought. Her questions held not petulance and childish resentment, but calm inquiry. She seemed older in some way, more steady. He had a sudden desire to confide everything in her, to enjoy her sympathy and to discover her opinion of his plans. But at once he saw this as selfishness. Why should she be burdened with a worry she could do nothing to remedy? For his conviction remained that Miranda should have no contact with the smugglers. “That is what he said,” Alan repeated.
Miranda believed him, butshe also believed that there was more to it than that. Alan’s tone implied that he doubted Fitch’s story, which meant that Fitch was in league with the gang. He was not among the servants they had brought today, she noted, and she was certain they were present as guards. She wondered how many of the local men were involved. She had not noticed any being particularly friendly with the outsiders at the wedding. “Another mystery, then,” she said lightly, almost teasingly. Now that she knew the truth, through her own efforts, she felt much more in charity with Alan.
“Yes.” He watched her uncertainly.
“Some sort of silly accident, I suppose?”
“Perhaps.”
Miranda laughed, enjoying her small triumph in making him uneasy. He deserved it, for not telling her. She imagined a scene where Philip and Alan at last came to explain, with the smugglers perhaps arrested and the whole matter resolved. Miranda decided she would take it all very coolly. “Oh, yes,” she would say. “Taken, are they? That is good. Shall we go riding tomorrow?” She would get Rosalind to do the same. That would show them.
“What are you thinking of?” wondered Alan. “You looked frightfully pleased with yourself.”
Miranda just shook her head. “Tell me more about the wall,” she said.
“I know nothing more. Philip is the scholar.” He watched her face, intrigued by this more complex person he now saw. He had admired Miranda’s spirit and forthrightness and found her pleasing to look at, but he had not until this moment seen her as a woman. Today, he was charmed by intimations, at least, of the woman she would be.
Miranda was gazing about. A breeze blew wisps of blond hair about her face, under a straw hat tied with pink ribbons. Her gown was pink also, and lent her skin a pretty glow. She looked vibrantly alive as she reached out to touch the great stones of Hadrian’s Wall.
“You know,” he said, “when you go up to London for the Season, I shall have to go as well.”
Miranda turned to stare at him.
“I should like to see you among the fashionables. I think you will make a great hit.”
“You do?” Miranda was immensely pleased, and startled.
“Yes. You will be thought most refreshing. And a wit, I daresay.”
Miranda’s cheeks burned. She had secretly dreamed this might be true, but it was quite different to hear it said aloud, and by a man who had seen something of the world. She nearly clasped her hands before her breast, only drawing back at the last moment. She reached for the kind of sophistication a London wit might have. “You are very kind to say so.”
Alan threw back his head and laughed. “Oh yes. You’ll do very well indeed. Far better than I did.”
“But perhaps you didn’t try,” Miranda suggested.
He looked surprised. How had she guessed that?
“I’m sure if you wished it, you could be a great success in London.” Just in time, she bit off the word also. She was not, she reminded herself, the toast of Almack’s yet.
Alan was thoughtful. “A creditable performance, perhaps,” he agreed.
“Will you ask me to stand up with you for the quadrille?” said Miranda.
“No. A country dance, or even a waltz, but I always mistake the figures in a quadrille.”
She laughed. “I don’t know how to waltz. Mama says I must learn.”
“It is simple. Your feet move in a sort of box.” He demonstrated, then put one hand at her waist and grasped her fingers with the other. “Like this.” But when he looked up from his feet, he met her green eyes just inches away and stopped in embarrassment. Miranda was even more flustered. She had never been so close to a man, so embraced by one. And though the sensation was not unpleasant, it was certainly unsettling. Alan was astonished by a sudden desire to gather Miranda even closer and kiss her. The delicate curve of her lips held his gaze transfixed.
He dropped her hand and stepped hastily back. “Well,” he said, “you will have better teachers than I.”
Miranda took a deep breath, her confusion lessened by his. “But you will ask me to dance,” she said.
“Of course.” His tone was over hearty. “And to go riding in the park at the fashionable hour, where I am a bit more at home.”
“It will be so pleasant to know someone in London. Do you promise to come?”
Meeting her eyes once again, Alan was filled with a burning desire to reserve all Miranda’s dances. “Yes,” he replied quite seriously.
“Good.” She took his arm again, and they walked on. The sun was moving down the western sky, and the light shone warm and orange. A lark trilled high above.
“I do prefer the country to London, though,” said Alan after a time. “You cannot smell new grass or walk under a whole sky in London.”
“Do you live in the country?”
“I have a house in Hertfordshire. My parents’ house. I haven’t been there since…the funeral. The servants are seeing to it.”
“It reminds you of them,” said Miranda softly.
He nodded, pain in his face. “I knew it would be mine—one day. But not so soon, without warning.” He choked a little. He had not had time three years ago to mourn his parents’ sudden death. The war had consumed him. And in the last year he had turned away from all feeling.
“What is it like?” said Miranda.
Alan realized that he wanted to tell her, needed to talk about the place. “Not as grand as Philip’s castle. It’s a Queen Anne house, low and gabled, rambling in all directions. Red brick. There’s a splendid rose garden in back. My mother loved roses.”
He lost himself in the past. Miranda saw his eyes go far away and slackened her pace to match his lagging step. She imagined losing her parents in a sudden accident, in Rome, and shivered.
Alan started. “I beg your pardon.”
“No,” she said. “I was just thinking how awful it must have been. I wouldn’t go home either.” Her eyes burned with suppressed tears.
“Not for a while,” he agreed. “But I believe I shall soon. I wish you could see the house.”
“I should like to.”
He saw the rooms and corridors vividly, and himself escorting a smiling, eager Miranda through them. Longing filled him, and he turned to her, took her hands, and started to speak.
“We’d better go,” called Philip from the carriage, and when Alan turned it was as if a spell shattered. What was he thinking of, he wondered as they walked back. This was a girl not yet out. He was the only man she had ever known well, and a guest of her family. He could not take advantage of that. He must keep a greater distance. When they were both in London—and he was more determined than ever to go—that would be the time to think of going further.
Miranda drifted back to the carriage in a happy daze. She had recognized the look in Alan Creighton’s eyes, though she had never seen it before, and it had temporarily banished all thoughts of smugglers from her mind. The future suddenly offered new and fascinating possibilities. She was entranced by them all the way back to Newcastle.