I woke this morning feeling irritable and foggy-headed. And still without the least idea of what I ought to do.
Colonel Brandon and his men are to arrive the day after tomorrow, though. Marianne and Mrs. Quimby, the housekeeper, have been busy all day with airing bed-linens and making arrangements for where the officers are to stay. So I attempted to clear away the haze of sleep by splashing water on my face. I dressed in my oldest round gown—the one I wear for visiting Star—and then I determined that if I could rely on neither my own good judgement nor my own instinctive feelings, I would have to rely on something else to decide. Though what that something else might be, I could not entirely say.
It was still very early. I could hear the servants just beginning to stir and rattle crockery in the kitchen. I slipped out through the French windows in the morning room, crossed the orchards, and turned in the direction of the north pasture.
But even before I realised that any conscious decision had been made, I found myself turning instead in the direction of Eliza’s cottage—and feeling as though I were able to draw the first full breaths I had taken since listening to Edward’s account of Tom Harmon’s dying words.
Instead of knocking on the front door of the cottage, I went around to the back and tapped at the kitchen door. The knock was met with only silence, and I was afraid that I had come too early to find even Maggie awake and about. But then I heard a thump and a rustle from inside, and a moment later the bolt was drawn back and the door opened a crack.
Maggie Harmon peered out at me, her broad face creased in suspicion—though the look cleared as she recognised me. “Oh, it’s you, Miss Dashwood.” She looked confused at finding me at the back door, but shuffled backwards to allow me to enter, saying, “I’m afraid if you’ve come to see Miss Eliza or Miss Joanna, they’re still abed, the both of them.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s all right, Maggie. Actually”—I felt my heart tighten inside my ribs—“it was you I came to see.”
Maggie looked more bewildered than ever. “Me, miss?”
“Yes.” Studying Maggie’s face more closely, I could see that her eyelids looked puffed and reddened as though with recent tears, and that her nose was red, as well. She was wearing mourning colours—a rusty black dress in an old-fashioned long-waisted style that strained at the seams beneath her kitchen apron.
“I am so terribly sorry about your brother,” I said.
Maggie’s lip quivered at that, and she raised an already sodden handkerchief to blow her nose. “Thank you, miss. He— He were a good brother to me, always. Used to thrash any of the other boys that teased me for being slow. And just the other week, he gave me this.”
She reached under the collar of her dress and drew out a string of orange coral beads. “That was good of him, too, wasn’t it? He knows I like pretty things. Knew, I mean,” she added, her chin jerking up and down again.
“Very good of him,” I agreed. “It’s a lovely necklace.” It was lovely—the beads were a rich, deep colour and very well matched. Lovely, and far more expensive than someone in Tom Harmon’s position ought to have been able to afford. “Do you know where he got it?” I asked.
For the first time, a flicker of uneasiness crept into Maggie’s watery gaze. She shook her head, hunching her shoulders as she turned to stir what looked like a pot of porridge bubbling on the kitchen’s small Franklin stove. “Dunno, miss. He never said.”
I swallowed. For all her size, Maggie looked utterly vulnerable standing there—her tear-stained face defenceless and lost. Trying to interrogate her seemed like wantonly kicking a kitten. I had to force myself to draw in a breath and say, “Maggie—when I was here the other day, you asked me about Colonel Brandon. And then you said to tell him that he was missed back home. What did you mean?”
“I—” Maggie’s gaze slid away from mine. I could almost see her thoughts scattering in panicked directions—like a flock of frightened birds—as she tried to think of an answer, and I felt more guilty than ever. “I— Nothing, miss. I didn’t mean nothing by it. Or if I did, I don’t remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, miss, I ought to be getting the breakfast—”
“Maggie, please.” I stepped closer to her, my heart beating quickly. However dreadful I felt about causing Maggie added pain at such a time, she was also more or less my only hope. “This is terribly important. If you will not talk to me, other boys—boys like you brother—may die, just as he did. Now, I’m going to tell you what I think. You need not say anything. Just tell me—nod even—if I am right.”
I took another breath. Maggie was looking at me with glazed, frightened eyes—like those of a cornered animal. But at least she had not run away. “I think that your brother Tom fell in with a gang of smugglers operating in this neighbourhood. Tom was not bad or wicked—he only wanted adventure, and a means to earn more money than he could by working with your father as a smith. And somehow or other, you got to know about it. And worried—because though you loved your brother and knew he was not bad, it troubled you to see him involved in something illegal. Something that would surely have grieved Colonel and Mrs. Brandon if they had got to hear about it.”
Maggie’s eyes grew wider as I spoke—and when I paused, she clamped her hands over her mouth, as though trying to physically hold the words in. But they bubbled out, all the same—haltingly at first, but then in a dull, unsteady rush. “I’ve been that worried, miss, trying to think what I should do. I’ve heard the stories—terrible, they are—of what those wicked smugglers have done to the king’s men. Killed them and cut them to pieces, so they do say. And Tom’s my brother. But the Colonel and his lady have been good to me, always. Got me this job here, and there weren’t many in these parts that would give me such a good place, on account of I’m so slow.”
I thought of what Marianne—and Colonel Brandon, for that matter—would say if they could overhear the conversation I was at that moment having, and know for what reasons I had come. “Divided loyalties are always hard.” Maggie looked at me blankly and I said, “I mean that you wished to do right by both Tom and Colonel Brandon. No one could blame you for that.”
“Maybe so, miss.” Maggie raised her handkerchief again and scrubbed at her eyes as the rest of the story came tumbling out. Maggie had gone to visit her parents on her weekly half-day off from her duties about two months ago—and after the visit, Tom had offered to walk with her as far as the edge of the village. “On account of some of them village boys sometimes call me ‘cretin’ and throw stones.”
On the road, they had chanced to meet some friends of Tom’s—or at least Tom seemed to be friendly with them, though Maggie had never seen any of them before.
“They … they got to talking,” Maggie said, drawing a gulping breath. “People do talk, in front of me. They don’t think I’ll understand—even Tom. But I … sometimes I understand more than they think.”
She drew the sleeve of her black dress across her eyes—and I had a flash of thinking how awful, how absolutely awful it must be to feel as Maggie does. To understand that she is ‘different’ through no fault of her own, and yet be unable to hope for change—to have people continually either taunting her or simply behaving as though she were not there at all.
I could not think of a single expression of sympathy that would not only make things worse, though. So I kept silent and after another shuddering breath, Maggie went on, “They were … I didn’t get all their talk, but I could put together what they were planning, right enough. There was a new shipment of goods coming in from Weymouth the next night. And Tom and the rest were to travel down in that direction and help bring the goods inland. To see that it all got through this area without any of the king’s men finding out. Serve as tubmen and batmen was what they called it,” Maggie added.
I nodded. “Maggie”—I felt my heartbeat speed up as I spoke the words—“do you remember what any of these friends of Tom’s looked like? Was one of them … did one of them have gypsy colouring? Dark hair and very dark eyes?”
“A gypsy, miss?” Maggie blinked at me, but then slowly nodded. “Yes, miss. Now that you say that, there was a man like that. I was afraid, because you know what they always say about them dirty gypsies. But this one seemed all right. Young—not much older than Tom. And he didn’t laugh at me behind Tom’s back like some of the others did.”
I felt the pit of my stomach drop, but I forced my voice to stay gentle, calm. “Maggie, do you remember the names of any of the men? Or anything else that might help in discovering who they are?”
Maggie screwed up her face in an effort of remembrance, brow furrowed—but then, finally, she shook her head. “No, miss. Sorry. I don’t remember any of their names. There was one—an older fellow—and I didn’t like him. He had a nasty look to his eyes. I think one of the others might have called him ‘Bert’, maybe?” She frowned again. “Might have been ‘Bob’, though.”
I held back a sigh. “I see. Thank you, Maggie. You have been very helpful, truly.”
Maggie scrubbed at her eyes again. “You’re welcome, miss, I’m sure, if it’s done any good.” She exhaled another heavy breath, then said, raising her eyes to mine, “You said before … you said this would all help with stopping other boys like Tom from getting killed. But I don’t see how.”
For everyone’s safety—Maggie’s, too, as much as anyone else’s—I wanted to tell her that it was all right, that she should try not to worry and leave all the rest to me. But I could not. Maggie’s life must be far too full already of people telling her not to bother with things she cannot understand—when really she has far more intelligence than people give her credit for.
So I said, “I think that a … a friend of mine may have got involved with the smuggling, too. He is good at heart—just as Tom was. I am hoping that I can persuade him to leave the business before Colonel Brandon comes to take all the smugglers to gaol.”
Maggie blew her nose into the handkerchief. “Well, I hope you do find him, miss.”
“Thank you. I do, too. Now, is there anything—anything else at all that you can tell me that might help me in learning of their plans—or of where and how they operate?”
Maggie started to shake her head again, but then stopped, frowning. “Well, miss—I don’t know as it will do any good. But there was something one of them said. It was the older man—the one I was telling you about. And it seemed like he was giving the others orders. He said …”—the furrow between her brows deepened, and I could hear her trying to echo the man’s exact words—“he said, ‘all you have to do, lads, is see that the barrels get to the seven sisters safe and sound. The Captain’ll see to the rest.”
“The Captain?” I repeated.
Maggie hesitated—her broad face turning all at once secretive, closed. “Dunno, Miss.”
“Maggie, please.” I had to clench my fingers to keep from taking her by the shoulders, and my throat ached from keeping the impatience from my tone. “If there’s anything else you know—”
Maggie let out a shaky breath and wiped her eyes again. “It’s just I asked Tom afterwards who the Captain was—and he went white as a sheet. He didn’t think I’d been paying attention, I guess. Then he told me I wasn’t to say that name again—not to a living soul. But now Tom’s dead”—her chin jerked up and down—“and if this will really help—” Maggie gulped again, and swallowed. “Tom said something about how the Captain was the man in charge of everything—the one that gave Tom and all the rest of the boys their orders.”
I could feel my heart racing again. “And did Tom— Did he tell you who this ‘Captain’ was?”
Maggie shook her head. “No, Miss. But he said that the Captain weren’t no common labourer. Thought it was a great joke, Tom did.” Maggie screwed up her face again in an effort to call up the memory. “He said, ‘Them gentry-folk think they’re so high and mighty and better than the rest of us. They haven’t a clue that all the time they’re sitting down to their fancy suppers with their silver spoons, there’s the greatest villain and thief in three counties sitting right there beside ’em.’”
Later
I have thought and thought about what Maggie told me today. I feel as though the top of my head is in danger of flying off from the sheer force of the thoughts spinning endlessly round and round.
The Captain—the man in charge of the smuggling ring—is a gentleman, according to Maggie’s account of what Tom knew. Of course, it is not as though I have made the acquaintance of every single man of quality in the county. But at the same time, I cannot shake the likelihood that the Captain is someone whom I have met—someone I know.
Pierre de Courtenay? Could Mr. Chalmers have actually been correct in his accusations that M. de Courtenay is a spy—and a smuggler? I should absolutely hate to think so.
Mr. Palmer? On the surface, that possibility seems absurd to the point of farce; if I set out to imagine a less credible candidate for a master villain or spy than Mr. Palmer, I am not sure that I could. But then, he has—rather unaccountably—prolonged his and his wife’s stay in the neighbourhood. I cannot believe it is simply because he is so very concerned with Charlotte’s comfort. There is, too, the fact that he has been slipping out of the house at night. And he refused to tell me where he had gone.
Then there is the third possibility—the one which seems to me, at this moment, to be the most likely of all. Though I cannot tell whether there is actually a convincing case to be made against him, or whether I am merely letting personal dislike colour my opinion. That, and the unquestionable fact that I did find Jamie in his grounds. I mean, of course, John Willoughby. If I do not necessarily think him a cold-hearted villain, I do believe that he might be weak enough—and fond enough of money—to betray his country by spying for France.
I have only just managed to get away to write this all down. Marianne, for reasons best known to herself, has decided to host an impromptu party here tomorrow night—on a scale so grand it very nearly amounts to a ball—in order to welcome Colonel Brandon home.
Knowing Colonel Brandon, I cannot imagine for a moment that he would not prefer a quiet evening at home to a grand gathering. But Marianne refused to be persuaded otherwise. So, a ball there is to be.
One positive aspect of the affair: Elinor came by this afternoon to report that she has persuaded Eliza to attend; she can easily bring Joanna down from their cottage and put her to bed in one of the guest bedrooms. And I know that M. de Courtenay is also invited, for I wrote his invitation myself.
My hands are still shaking—almost too much for me to write these words. I am safe in the old-fashioned grandeur of my room at Delaford House, sitting up in bed with the blankets and down-filled pillows piled around me and the portrait of Henry the 8th once again smirking at me from over the mantel.
But I keep half expecting at any moment that it will all prove a mere delusion: that bed, papered walls, scowling king, and all will melt away, and I will find myself back in the forest grove with my arms pinned painfully behind me and the point of a knife pricking my throat.
I keep telling myself that it is ridiculous to feel frightened now, when it is all over; at the time, I was actually much too angry to be really afraid. Despite my efforts, though, my fingers keep going of their own accord to touch the thin cut just under my chin. And yet incredibly it is not really that or the attendant memories making my hands shake now.
Since Colonel Brandon is to arrive tomorrow, tonight was more or less my last opportunity for putting my half-formed plans into effect. Though it was not until I was on my way—wrapped in my darkest cloak and trying not to stumble as I made my way in the dark towards the north woods—that I realised precisely how half-formed my plans were. There were a dozen ways in which my undertaking might go wrong, or simply come to nothing at all: ‘Seven sisters’ might not refer to the circle of seven standing stones after all, to name but one.
Or tonight might not be a night when the smugglers planned to meet. That seemed the most glaring flaw in my plans of all. It is not as though I can claim intimate knowledge of how a smuggling operation is run—but I could not suppose that Jamie and the others would obligingly gather at the standing stones night upon night, waiting for me to find them.
Still, all day after leaving Elinor, I felt as though ants were crawling all over my skin, my every nerve stretched tight with the urge to do something—anything. And walking out to the standing stones was far better than tossing and turning in bed.
Luck was with me. Or rather, I am not exactly certain that I can call it luck, considering the way the night very nearly ended. But at least the smugglers were there.
I was halfway up the small hill that surmounts the standing stones’ clearing when I heard the men’s voices and froze, my heart lurching sickeningly hard against my ribcage. The voices were loud, angry and rough-sounding. And it sounds absurd, but until that moment, I had not actually considered what I should do if I found any of the smuggling gang. Just finding them seemed impossible enough. But there, standing in the shadows of the moonlit forest with my pulse beating to the ends of my fingertips, I realised for the first time that I could scarcely stroll into the clearing, introduce myself, and then add, And by the by, Colonel Brandon is coming to hunt you all down tomorrow, I thought you might like to know.
I did not even know for certain that Jamie himself would be there.
The next moment put an end to that question, though—and to my moment’s hesitation, as well—as I drew close enough to make out actual words.
“Think ye can swindle me, ye dirty gypsy?”
The voice was rough and uneducated—and I thought oddly familiar. Though I had small attention to spare for trying to determine where I had heard it before.
Jamie—his voice, at least, I recognised at once—said in a surly tone, “A fifth share of all profits. That’s what we agreed on.”
“That’s what we agreed on.” The other man’s voice took on a mocking, sneering tone. “If ye think I’m going to pay a filthy bit of roadside rubbish the same’s what I pay my other men, ye can think again. Ye’ll get tuppence on the pound and no more. Now hand over the rest of the coin before I skin that dirty dark-skinned hide off of ye.”
“Try it.”
At least, I think that is what Jamie said. My heart was pounding almost too loud for me to hear as I caught up my skirts and ran up to the top of the hill—managing by some miracle not to trip over any roots or knock myself senseless by crashing into a tree.
The moon was at the full tonight, so that I could clearly see the clearing below. Jamie, standing with his back to me, and—
I caught my breath as I recognised the other man. Mr. Bartholomew Merryman, the itinerant peddler who so grossly mistreats his horses.
He looked every bit as menacing tonight as he did the other day in the village: jowly face dark with anger, sleeves rolled to the elbow to show the bulging muscles of his arms. He was holding a knife; I could see the blade gleam in the moonlight. And he advanced on Jamie, the weapon raised and a slight smile curving the edges of his mouth.
Time seemed for an instant to freeze—as though I had been forcibly detached from my body and stood watching the whole scene play out from some immense height. My mind frantically flipped through and discarded useless courses of action as Mr. Merryman and Jamie slowly circled each other, as if they were engaged in some bizarre form of dance.
Then Mr. Merryman lunged, and time re-started itself with a jolt that almost made me gasp. The knife flashed towards Jamie’s chest—but Jamie had already moved. So quickly that he was almost a blur of motion as he dodged, ducked, spun under Mr. Merryman’s guard, and aimed a kick at the big man’s knee that made his leg buckle under him.
Mr. Merryman let out a bellow of rage and pain and staggered. But kept his hold on the knife, and struck out again.
Again Jamie dodged, spun, and in the same movement stooped and caught up a heavy stick from the ground which he wielded like a club—this time managing to catch Mr. Merryman a blow across the knuckles that sent the knife flying off somewhere into the dark.
My heart, which had momentarily stopped beating, restarted again at a hectic pace. Jamie was a good fighter, and a fast one. Even before his time in the army, Jamie and his brother between them probably knew every dirty trick for hand-to-hand combat that there was.
Sam was the one who was forever getting into fights with the local village boys, who would gang up and determine to ‘teach the dirty gypsies a lesson.’ Jamie never wanted to fight, but he was obligated to defend Sam and keep his brother from getting beaten to death—which he did, multiple times a year.
Now Jamie was recently injured, though. Even by moonlight, I could see that his homespun shirt and trousers still hung too loosely on his frame. And Mr. Merryman, though older and slower, outweighed him by nearly half.
Mr. Merryman bellowed again and made another lunge at Jamie, his huge hands going to circle Jamie’s throat. Jamie’s arms came up, breaking the big man’s hold, and in the same moment, he drove his knee hard into Mr. Merryman’s groin. The older man collapsed onto the ground—but he had enough fight still in him to regain his grip on Jamie and drag Jamie down with him. They rolled together, and—time seemed to come to a grinding halt all over again—I saw Jamie roll onto his back, the full weight of his own body and Mr. Merryman’s coming to rest on the still-unhealed musket ball wound in his back.
Jamie did not cry out—not that I heard—but his body went limp, and I saw Mr. Merryman’s hands close once more around his throat.
I screamed. That had been one of the possibilities that I had considered and discarded before: trying to draw Mr. Merryman’s attention away with a shout or a scream. In that moment, though, I was not even considering distraction; I was not thinking of anything, save the sickening fact that unless I could somehow stop it, I would in another moment’s time be forced to stand here and watch Jamie die.
“No!”
The scream tore from my throat, and before I fully realised that I had moved, I was running down the hill towards Mr. Merryman and Jamie. Mr. Merryman jerked upright, and then—
Actually, I do not seem to remember very clearly what happened after that. Jamie lay so motionless that I was filled with the irrational fear that he had already been killed. And it seemed the next thing I knew, Mr. Merryman had sprung up with a quickness surprising in such a big man and seized hold of me, pinning my arms effortlessly behind my back. “How the devil did ye come to be here, ye little—”
He broke off to peer at me more closely, his face inches from mine—and I nearly gagged at the stench of his breath. Another of those thin, cruel smiles spread across his mouth. “Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Brandon’s young sister. Maybe this is my lucky night after all. I’ve been itchin’ for a chance to settle a score with ye.”
Every part of me wanted to physically recoil from him—the unpleasant leering look in his eyes, the hotness of his hands on my skin. “What do you plan to do with me?”
That was another moment when I thoroughly wished that I could have managed to cure myself of asking so many questions. I knew absolutely that I should be much, much happier if I did not know the answer to that.
His face creased in a deeper smile. I tried to jerk away—and managed to kick him hard in the shin. He let out a muttered oath, but he held me with depressing ease—and reached into the pocket of his trousers to produce another knife. He set the blade at my throat.
“For starters, I’m goin’ to teach yer better manners—”
Before he could finish, I saw Jamie drag himself painfully to his feet behind him. And despite my own fear—despite my heart’s continuing to hammer so hard that my vision blurred—I still felt something clenched inside my chest loosen at the sight, knowing that he was after all still alive.
“Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help, man,” Jamie interrupted Mr. Merryman.
Shifting so that he held me pinned before him, my back to his front, Mr. Merryman swung round to face Jamie. I could not see Mr. Merryman’s face—but I could feel the harsh rhythm of his breathing at my back, and the hard hammering of his heart. He still had the knife against my throat; I swallowed involuntarily, and the movement made the blade prick a little deeper into my skin.
Jamie’s voice and his face were quite calm—contemptuous, even—as he faced us, though. “She’s Colonel Brandon’s sister-in-law. Do you think that the Colonel will not turn the countryside upside-down looking for her if she goes missing—or if harm comes to her? Harm her, and you might as well send up a flare, begging the king’s men to find us.”
I held myself absolutely rigid, not even daring to breathe as I felt Mr. Merryman grudgingly digest the truth of that, behind me. “What do we do with her, then?” he grunted at last. “Can’t just let her go—she’s seen too much.”
Jamie shrugged. I could see the still-muscled calm with which he, too, was holding himself motionless. But only because I knew him so well. His pose was relaxed as he said, “I’ll take her. Ride with her across the county and make sure we’re seen on the road. Then when the Colonel starts asking questions about her, the story he hears is that she ran off with a gypsy.” He laughed. “Wouldn’t be the first.”
Behind me, Mr. Merryman shifted his weight. “I could take her—,” he began.
My heart contracted. But Jamie only lifted his eyebrows as he looked Mr. Merryman up and down. “You’ll pardon me for saying it, friend, but the idea of a young girl losing her head and running away with you? It would take a stupider man than Colonel Brandon to believe it. Besides, I thought you said the Captain was expecting your report—and his money—tonight?” He shrugged. “Up to you, though. I just thought the Captain wasn’t a man to be kept waiting.”
There was a pause. I felt as though every single nerve in my body drew tight in anticipation of what Mr. Merryman would say. The moment seemed to drag on and on. But then he let the knife drop and pushed me roughly toward Jamie. “Fine. Take her. This neighbourhood’s getting too dangerous, anyway. Captain said yesterday, one more good run and it was time to move on.”
Relief made my knees feel weak, but I managed to stay standing as Mr. Merryman’s eyes swept the clearing. He gave me one last scornful glance, hawked and spat on the ground at my feet—and then turned and moved off into the trees, setting a rapid pace.
My breath went out in a rush as the crunch of his heavy footfalls died away into the night. Before I could find my voice to speak, Jamie seized hold of my arm. “Come on.”
He propelled me into the forest—choosing the opposite direction from the one in which Mr. Merryman had vanished.
I still felt shaky and breathless; we had gone some little distance before I managed to steady my voice enough to ask, “Where are we going?” I did not seriously think that Jamie was going to abduct me and ride with me into the next county—but from the grim line of his jaw as he walked along beside me, I was sure of very little else.
“Back to Delaford House.” Jamie’s voice emerged as though through clenched teeth. “Where you will stay if I have to lock you in your room myself.”
We had come farther than I had realised. Through the trees up ahead, I could actually see the shape of the high stone wall that surrounds the Delaford orchard.
Jamie dragged in a breath and let it out again, but his voice came out every bit as harsh-sounding as before. “Good God, Margaret, what possessed you to come out tonight? Running at Merryman that way. Have you completely lost your mind?”
I had been afraid for Jamie, before—but scarcely at all for myself. Everything had been over so quickly, there had been no time for fear. But somewhere along the walk through the darkened forest, reaction had begun to set in. I felt cold with a clammy sweat; relief and remembered fear and anger had combined to form a queasy wash in my stomach.
Jamie held himself stiffly, glaring at me in the pale moonlight. Save for his initial grip on my arm, he had not touched me at all. His voice and the accusatory words made something hot and smouldering come to life under my ribcage—which was in an odd way a relief, since it helped to drive back the fear.
“Fine,” I snapped, “the next time I see someone about to murder you before my eyes, I shall just stand back and let them get on with it, shall—”
But I got no further. All at once, Jamie caught hold of me and dragged me to him, holding me so tightly that my ribs ached. I could feel the fine tremors than ran through the muscles of his shoulders and arms, the hectic beat of his heart. “Do you know what could have happened? What he could have done—”
My cheek was against Jamie’s shoulder, so that I could not see his face, but I imagined his jaw clenching. He exhaled a hard burst of air and then held me off just enough that he could look down into my face. His expression was taut in the moonlight, and he was as close to losing his temper as I had ever seen.
“You said before … you said that you would trust me.”
It was hard to find my voice. My heart was pounding again—but with awareness of Jamie’s nearness, this time. The hard strength of his arms around me, the muscles rigid … the heat of his skin. I shivered, feeling the blood race in my veins. Slowly, hesitantly, I raised my hand to Jamie’s face, tracing the line of his jaw with the tips of my fingers. “I said that I trust you,” I whispered. “I did not say that I would leave you alone in whatever unholy trouble you have got yourself into.”
Jamie tensed, his whole body going absolutely still at my touch—and for a moment, I had no idea whether he was going to explode with fury or simply leave me where I stood and stalk off into the night. But he simply stared at me—as though trying to decide whether he was awake or dreaming.
“I lied before,” he said at last. We were standing so close that I could feel the rise and fall of his breath, a stir of warmth against my hair.
I frowned in confusion. “Lied? What do you mean?”
“About what I said.” He repeated the Romany words that he had spoken when he had kissed me—more slowly, this time, so that I was able to catch the individual sounds. “I can hatch apré for panj divuses. It doesn’t really mean, I’m sorry. It means, I could stop here for a week. It’s an expression—what you say about something you wish could never end.”
My heart felt as though it were expanding inside my chest. But then Jamie took a step away from me—so quickly that I almost lost my balance. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should not have said that. We should—we should keep walking.” He indicated the walls of Delaford, through the trees. “You need to get back to the house.”
I curled my fingertips into fists, feeling a flush spread across my face. “Fine,” I said, when I could trust my voice to speak. “I will keep walking—so long as you agree to answer some questions.”
“Margaret Dashwood has questions—I do not believe it.” Jamie’s voice sounded almost back to normal.
I gritted my teeth. “Yes. I do. Will you tell me, now, why you came into the neighbourhood? Why you got involved with Mr. Merryman and … and the smuggling in the first place? I’m right, aren’t I—it is because of Sam?”
Beside me, Jamie stopped walking again. However angry—and mortified—I was, I felt a momentary pang at the pain I could see the mention of his brother’s name had caused.
I could sense, too, Jamie’s inner struggle. He had a lifetime’s worth of bearing his responsibilities alone. But finally he let out a breath and sat down. I hesitated—but then sat beside him.
“My brother—he should have been rom baro of the tribe, after my father died,” he began. “But Sam never wanted that responsibility—nor cared over-much for the welfare of the tribe. He never cared about much of anything, besides ensuring that he had an easy life.” Jamie ran his hands down his face. “After my time in the army, I came back—not thinking to join the tribe again, just wishing to see them again. Sam and Grandmother Analetta and the rest. But my grandmother was dead. And Sam—” Jamie stopped again, the edges of his mouth tightening. “Sam had run off and joined with a gang of smugglers who were operating on the southern coast. He met up with them when the tribe was travelling through these parts a year ago. And he just … left. Decided he’d a better chance of getting rich as a smuggler than a gypsy—not that he wasn’t likely right about that. But he walked away from the tribe and never looked back.”
“And you came after him?”
Jamie was silent so long I was not sure he was going to say any more. But at last he exhaled again, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “If Sam left the tribe, I did, too. I can’t judge him for that. And besides, he is—he was—my brother.”
“Was,” I repeated. “I’m sorry. Sam really is dead, then?”
Jamie nodded. The log on which we sat was in shadow, so that I could not see his expression as clearly—but I could imagine the quick twist of pain tightening his face. “I came to Weymouth—didn’t have too much trouble locating the smuggling gang; all that is more or less an open secret amongst the common folk along the coast. I pretended to be looking to join the gang myself—a former army-man, down on his luck and willing to take whatever work came my way, dishonest or no. It worked—I got into the gang all right. But there was no sign of Sam. I couldn’t ask too many questions—not without the other men getting suspicious. It took me weeks and weeks to learn what had happened to Sam.” Jamie’s voice hardened. “He was killed—executed—as a warning to the rest of the gang. After the murder of those excisemen, Sam wished to leave, to break free. Instead, the man who controls the smuggling ring had him shot. An example to the other men of what happened if they, too, should ever try to break free.”
At Jamie’s words, I felt a chill run through me. “Is that how you came to be shot, as well?”
Jamie shook his head. “No. That was the excisemen. Tom Harmon and I were taking a wagonload of brandy up from Weymouth, when a group of soldiers came on us and demanded to search the wagon. I could hardly explain that I was only smuggling the brandy in order to find the man who’d killed my brother. We got away—barely—but they fired on us. We were both hit. Tom worse than me. I managed—barely—to get him back to his parents’ house in the village. Is he—”
“He died,” I said quietly. “Days ago.” I felt the tensing of Jamie’s muscles in the darkness, and added, “Jamie, it … it was not your fault.”
“No?” His voice was still hard.
I drew in a breath. “The Captain,” I said. “Do you know who it is?”
Jamie shook his head. “No. He sends orders through Merryman. No one else has ever seen his face or knows his name.” And then he stiffened, as though realising abruptly that I should not have been familiar with the alias.
“Margaret! How do you—”
“I questioned Maggie—Tom Harmon’s sister,” I said. “She told me about the Captain. And more, besides. According to her, he is a gentleman—someone among the neighbourhood gentry. Which means that perhaps I may—”
“No!” Jamie cut me off, his whole body tensing as he swung round to face me. “No, Margaret. Promise me, you’re not going to go poking around or asking any more questions that will put you in danger. Even more than you will be when tonight’s episode gets back to the Captain’s ears—which it will.”
“What will you tell Mr. Merryman? You’ll have to come up with a story to account for the fact that you did not abduct me after all.”
Jamie shrugged. “I’ll say you escaped—that we ran into traffic on the road, and you attracted the notice of some gentlemen who came to your rescue. He won’t like it. But there won’t be much he can do about it—so long as you stay safe inside Delaford House. You heard what he said. The Captain’s about ready to move on from this neighbourhood anyway. Stay at home, don’t leave your sister’s side for a few days, and you ought to be safe.”
“Safe,” I repeated. “And what about you?” I shook my head. “I told you before, I’m not leaving you to face all of this alone.”
I half expected Jamie to be angry. But instead he said, “Margaret—” He turned to face me, one hand coming up to smooth a stray curl of hair back from my face. “I could not save Sam. My brother was killed because I walked away from him, years ago, and left him on his own. I knew he wasn’t strong enough to keep out of trouble. But I left anyway. And now he’s dead. If something happened to you, too, because of me—because I’d dragged you into this mess …” Jamie pressed his eyes briefly closed, his knuckles brushing my cheek. His voice was ragged, but firm. “Please, Margaret, don’t ask me to live with that on my conscience, as well.”
My throat ached all over again; I was not sure that I would be able to speak. I ran my fingers across the line of Jamie’s brow. “You cannot blame yourself. Sam made his own choices,” I whispered. “Just as you do. You are a good man, Jamie. Your father”—I felt him tense as I spoke the words, but I kept going—“your father was wrong about you, in everything he said. You are honourable and good. But you cannot help those who do not wish it. Do you remember telling me, years ago, that you could only tame horses if they loved you—and that that was their choice, not yours? Sam was not bad—not when I knew him. But I think perhaps he had not enough love in his heart for anyone but himself—not enough to allow anyone to reach him and set him on a straight path.”
I trailed my fingers down along his neck. Jamie’s long lashes fluttered down, echoing the movement, and I leaned forward to kiss him—just lightly—on the mouth. “I know you grieve for him—but do not say that his death was your fault.”
I felt Jamie tense, his muscles shaking—as though he were trying not to respond to the touch. For a moment, I was certain that he would pull me to him, kiss me again. But then he stood up in a burst of movement, turning away. His shoulders moved as he drew a ragged breath and then let it out again. “Margaret. I need you to go—go now. Back to Delaford House.”
“Why?”
“Just go.” His voice was tight. “Please.”
I swallowed. “All right,” I said. I managed to keep my voice steady. “I will go. So long as you will promise that this is not the last time I will see you. Promise that we will meet again.”
At least I now know where Mr. Palmer has been disappearing to at night. And that he is not in fact a villain.
Well, actually he is a sneak and a louse (even I cannot find evidence that that description is unfair to lice), but he is not a smuggler, at any rate.
After I had returned from finding Jamie last night—after I had set this book down—I decided to go downstairs to the library once more, to see whether I could find a book that would send me to sleep. Or rather, to see whether I could find a book that would make me cease to relive, over and over again, the moment of Jamie sending me away like an unwanted and slightly tiresome servant.
I put on my dressing gown and slippers and tiptoed quietly downstairs. This time, I was passing the door that leads from the morning room out onto the terrace when I heard it—low voices and a stir of movement from outside. My first thought, of course, was that it was Marianne again. Marianne, and perhaps Willoughby, as well. I swiftly blew out my candle and flung the door wide—and froze, feeling more shocked than I believe I have ever been in my life. Outside on the terrace—perched on one of the decorative wrought-iron benches—were Mr. Palmer and Sophia Willoughby. Locked in a passionate—a very passionate—embrace.
The sound of the door knocking against its frame made them startle and break apart—and then we all three stood staring at one another. I am not sure which of us was the most embarrassed. I had not even done anything wrong, but I could still feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. And I was conscious of a wild, hysterical desire to laugh, as well—the situation was so ludicrously absurd.
Sophia was staring at me with the look of a bird trapped by the gaze of a snake; her eyes were glassy with something between panic and disbelief. Mr. Palmer’s hair was rumpled and his cravat was undone, the ties of his shirt unfastened. I supposed—I felt the bubble of laughter press against my ribcage again—Sophia must have done it sometime during their embrace.
Sophia was the first to recover herself. She made an indeterminate squawk—sounding, now, as well as looking, rather like a panicked bird—and sprang up, running off across the darkened lawn and vanishing into the night. I cannot imagine that she asked her servants to drive her to an illicit tryst in her carriage—so I suppose she must have had a horse waiting somewhere nearby.
Mr. Palmer did not go after her; apparently his passion did not extend to wanting to make sure that his paramour did not trip and sprain something in the dark. Instead, he straightened under my shocked gaze and asked, “Are you going to tell my wife?”
Up until that moment, I had been shocked, I had been embarrassed, I had felt half hysterical amusement at the idea of Mr. Palmer being half of anyone’s tryst—much less Sophia Willoughby’s. But that night alone, I had seen Jamie nearly killed, had been held hostage and threatened by Mr. Merryman, had found and said good-bye to Jamie all over again. At that moment, I felt something hot and angry crack open inside me.
“Can you give me one good reason why I should not?” I demanded. Mr. Palmer started to speak, but I cut him off. “Your wife loves you. Heaven only knows why, but she does. She is utterly blind to all your faults and is nothing but delighted with your every action and word. And this is the way you repay her?”
Mr. Palmer straightened—with a half-hearted attempt at his usual superior, disdainful look. “Love is all very well. But an educated, cultivated mind such as mine requires a greater degree of sympathy—of shared understanding—”
I snorted. Very unladylike, but I did not care. “And that is what you have found with Sophia Willoughby? Sympathy and understanding? And besides, you should have thought of that before you married Charlotte. It is not as though anyone held a knife to your back and forced you to propose to her. And she certainly does her utmost to make you a good wife. If you have even a scrap of decency in you, you will devote yourself to making her an equally good husband.”
Mr. Palmer said nothing, only looked at me, his rather prominent Adam’s apple rising and falling above the unfastened collar of his shirt. I turned and went back inside—and never did get to the library to retrieve a book.
This morning at breakfast, Mr. Palmer announced that he and Mrs. Palmer would be leaving directly, that very afternoon—starting out for Cleveland. Charlotte beamed at her husband across her plate of kippered herrings and toast. “He is so very agreeable, is he not?” she said in an aside to me. “He said that since my ankle is so much better, he cannot bear that we are parted from little William for another day.”
And now they are gone. Perhaps some of what I said to Mr. Palmer will have sunk in. Perhaps he will try to be a better husband.
Though that does not stop me from feeling thoroughly grim and vaguely sad now. It is just as Elinor said—how few, how very few married couples actually love—or even like—each other. Even if it is his own fault for having married her, I cannot entirely blame Mr. Palmer for feeling unsatisfied by his marriage to Charlotte. Just as I cannot imagine that Sophia’s marriage to Willoughby is a happy one—and she has not even any children to give her more of an interest or purpose in life.
And coupled with all of that are my memories of last night—which return in hideous clarity however hard I try to push them aside. Did I really track Jamie down and kiss him—again? Force him to send me away—again? And on top of all of that, make him promise that we would have at least one more meeting—so that I might embarrass us both still more?
Perhaps I ought to have gone straight to the library last night instead of to my room to write my last entry. Because I now have clear, written proof that yes, I really did do all of those things. It is just—
It is just that I cannot shake a feeling—the same feeling that I had before. I cannot seem to shake off a bone-deep conviction that I failed Jamie in being so easily turned away. That despite sending me away from him—and even if he did not know it himself—what Jamie really needed was for me to stay, to prove to him that for once in his life, he need not face troubles alone.
Later
I have a few minutes before the ball guests begin to arrive, and I shall have to go downstairs. Tonight is the night both of Colonel Brandon’s return, and of Marianne’s party. We were busy all day with getting ready. Elinor—looking recovered from the other day, but still pale—arrived in the morning, and helped Marianne and me with cutting flowers from the garden and arranging them to decorate the ballroom. And then Marianne insisted on the three of us working to make over one of her gowns to fit me, since I brought nothing with me she deemed suitable for a ball. Which really meant that I stood on a chair in my room and let her and Elinor fit the gown to me—because, as Marianne bluntly said, I am completely dismal with a needle, and she would not trust me anywhere close to a London modiste–made silk gown.
Today, however, Marianne was very nearly as inept as I am. She pricked me three times while she was pinning up the skirt so that it might be hemmed—scowling ever more fiercely with her mouth full of pins each time I squeaked in protest.
Finally, the gown was pinned to her satisfaction. I—carefully—took it off, and Marianne and Elinor were seated, Elinor working on tucking in the waist and Marianne on the hem.
Marianne still wielded her needle as though the blue silk were a personal enemy, though. And after she had snapped at us for the third time in as many minutes, Elinor and I exchanged a glance.
Then Elinor said, trying for a light tone, “Is something wrong, Marianne? I confess that I don’t see what you have to be out of temper about. Margaret is the one who has spent the past hour being used for a human pincushion.”
“I’m sorry.” Marianne straightened, pressing her hands to the small of her back, as though it ached. But then she caught sight of the clock on the mantel, gave a little exclamation of surprise, and said, “Is that the time? I must go and … and get dressed myself.” She smiled—though it looked strained—and added, “You will look lovely in the gown, Margaret, truly.”
Elinor and I exchanged another look after she had gone out. The gown that Marianne had given me was lovely: white sarcenet with an overdress of peacock-blue silk, embroidered with a design of silver acorns. Elinor helped me into it, and then she said—more or less reading my thoughts—“Was Willoughby invited tonight, do you know?”
I shook my head. “I do not know. I wrote some of the invitations—but Marianne did most of them herself.” I felt abruptly cold all through—and I wished that I had thought to ask Jamie last night for a full explanation of what he was doing at Rosford Abbey. But I did not. I forgot entirely until I was back in my own room, and Jamie was gone. But at that moment, all my suspicions returned in full force. Bad enough if Marianne is simply entangled in an illicit affair with Willoughby. If he is also a traitor and a criminal—
But I could not tell Elinor any of that. Not without her asking me how I had come by the information. So I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt, “There are two of us, and only one of Marianne. If we both try to keep an eye on her tonight, surely nothing untoward will happen.”
Elinor nodded. She looked quite well—completely recovered from her illness of the other day. I paused uncertainly a moment, then asked, “Elinor, are you feeling—”
She stopped me. “I’m quite all right. Thank you.” She gave me a twist of a smile—a sad twist of a smile. “It really was only something I ate.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No. Don’t be.” Elinor straightened her shoulders. “It’s just as I told you before. I should be grateful for what I do have, not mourn what I do not.”
At that moment, Eliza arrived with Joanna, who was protesting mightily the injustice of being put to bed before the ball even began. She gave way—reluctantly—only when I whispered to her that I would come up and see her during the evening, and bring her some of the ices and pastries from the desserts table.
I meant to write more, but I can hear voices coming from the entrance hall which must mean that the first guests are beginning to arrive downstairs.
Later still
I am not sure that my hands will stop shaking long enough for me to write this. It does not seem possible that I set this book down only a few hours ago—feeling nothing more foreboding than impatience to get the whole tedious business of the ball over and done with.
Right now, I am sitting in the Delaford parlour with Elinor. Edward is with Marianne upstairs; he came down an hour or two ago to say that there had been no change, and to tell us that we ought to get what rest we could.
The clock has just chimed one o’clock in the morning, and the house is absolutely still. Both Elinor and I keep stiffening, jerking upright at every tiny sound from upstairs. But neither of us has spoken for some time. I think we are afraid—I know I am—of what we may say if we allow ourselves to talk. Fears that have not yet been voiced aloud always seem less real. And I am afraid that the moment I open my mouth, what will emerge is, “What if Colonel Brandon should die?”
But I ought to set this all down in proper order. There is nothing for me to do—nothing but wait and worry, and swallow those words down each time they try to rise to my lips.
To begin where I left off, then, I went down and joined Marianne in greeting the guests as they arrived. Colonel Brandon, I was surprised to find, had not yet arrived. Some of his officers had come, saying that he had been delayed on the road, but would join us as soon as he could. Marianne seemed not at all disappointed by her husband’s absence—nor did she seem surprised. Which I did think was odd at the time. But I had little opportunity to consider her behaviour. There were so many guests—over one hundred in all. And if Marianne still seemed to me slightly tense or anxious, she seemed also determined to play the part of hostess to perfection, making introductions and finding dance partners for girls who had none.
The Willoughbys were in fact in attendance—both of them. Though so far as I had the chance to observe, Marianne had scarcely any interaction with either, beyond greeting them as they arrived.
In light of our last meeting, I had no idea of how my next encounter with Sophia would go. But I need not have worried. She simply looked straight through me and sailed by without speaking a word.
The rest of the ball—
But on second thought, I do not think that I can manage a full account of the evening’s entertainment. The ballroom looked lovely—wreathed with flowers and lighted by hundreds of wax candles in the chandeliers. The ladies looked like flocks of bright birds in their richly coloured silks and satin ball gowns, the men handsome in their black and white evening dress.
And yet now, in memory, it all seems even sillier and more insipid than it did at the time. Ladies and gentlemen gracefully paying and accepting compliments; everyone talking a great deal without actually saying anything at all. I cannot believe that I ever persuaded myself to pretend that I enjoy such affairs.
I danced a few times, with some of Colonel Brandon’s officers—who were creating quite a stir among the ladies present. To be fair, they were nice boys, all of them. The sort of men I would have enjoyed dancing with at one time.
I kept my promise to Joanna and slipped upstairs to see her—entering her room on tiptoe in case she was asleep. Though I ought to have known better. I found her sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide as an owl’s, waiting for me. She devoured the lemon ice and the dish full of gooseberry fool that I had brought her, and then—her lips still smeared with whipped cream—asked, “Is my mother dancing?”
I had seen Eliza dancing, in fact. With M. de Courtenay—and then sitting down to supper besides. I was not sure how Joanna would feel about a gentleman paying attentions to her mother. So I said, casually, “Yes, I think so. Your friend M. de Courtenay asked her to stand up with him.”
“Oh, good—the worm man. He was very nice. I liked him.” Joanna smothered a yawn with one hand. “I was afraid that my mother wouldn’t know how to dance. She has never been to a ball that I can remember. I made her practise with me in the garden today, though, and show me what steps she knew, and she seemed to do all right.”
It was when I was going back downstairs—Joanna having consenting to being tucked in and kissed goodnight—that a flicker of movement caught my eye. I was passing through the saloon, the windows of which open onto the terrace. And it was outside on the terrace that I saw something—or rather someone—move.
One of Colonel Brandon’s officers—or so I thought at first. There was bright moonlight outside, bright enough for me to make out the red coat of an army uniform as the man stood with his back to me. But then I looked more closely, and felt my heart jerk and then quicken.
In the moment I stood frozen, too stunned to move, he moved farther away down the terrace. By the time I had fumbled open the latch of the French windows with shaking fingers and stepped onto the terrace myself, he was several paces away—stooped over to pet Ginger, who was once again visiting from the stables. The cat was purring and twining about his ankles—which was oddly steadying, persuading me that I was not merely imagining his presence here.
I cleared my throat. “I told you that you had not lost your gift with animals.”
Jamie looked up quickly, his muscles tensing and then relaxing again as he recognised me. I crossed the terrace to join him—trying to ignore the way the blood raced dizzyingly in my veins at the sight of him. “You should not be here,” I said in a low voice. “What if you were to be seen?”
“That was why I wore the uniform—so that I might blend in with the other army men about tonight.” Jamie glanced down at his red coat with a brief half-smile. “It is my own uniform, too—you need not worry that I will get into difficulties for wearing it. Even if I were to be seen.”
“But what are you doing here?”
I felt a hitch in my chest as I stared at him. He was impossibly handsome—almost a stranger, and yet not a stranger at all. The army uniform set off his broad chest and lean hips. He had at some point shaved the stubble of beard from his chin, and his black hair was for once neatly combed, even if it was still over-long.
Every part of me wanted to close the distance between us and touch him. But he made no move to reach out to me, only stood without moving, his eyes shadowed in the moonlight. “I promised that I would see you again.”
“I did wonder”—I drew in an unsteady breath—“whether you were sorry that you had made that promise.” I was grateful for the darkness that hid the flush I could feel rising to my cheeks.
Instead of answering, Jamie nodded abruptly farther along the terrace, to where light streamed from the windows of the ballroom. “I saw you inside there, earlier. Dancing with some man. That is where you belong. Not outside, in the shadows with me.”
A month or even a few days ago, I might have felt merely angry—or mortified. I did feel a spark of temper jump along my veins. But instead of turning away or retreating, I drew a step nearer—near enough that I could look up into Jamie’s face. “Is that what you want?” I asked quietly. “That I should go back inside and keep dancing with other men? Captain Wainwright—he is one of my brother-in-law’s officers—tried to kiss me earlier. Perhaps I should have let him.”
I could see Jamie’s whole body quivering almost imperceptibly, as though he were holding himself tightly in check. “Margaret, I—” He shut his eyes. “When you are as close to me as you are now, I cannot seem to remember who you are and who I am—and why the thought of us together is impossible. And right now I want nothing so much as to rip this Captain Wainwright’s head off with my bare hands.”
I felt as though a door had been flung open inside my chest. “You need not.” I reached up to lay my hand against the side of Jamie’s face. I had taken off my gloves when I went upstairs to visit Joanna and never put them back on; now I felt Jamie’s lashes tickle against my fingers as he opened his eyes. I smiled. “All other considerations aside, he has very bad breath.”
Jamie laughed again—a real laugh this time. But he sobered almost at once and simply stood, gazing down at me. “Te merav,” he said at last. I knew the words were those that begin marriage vows and other solemn, formal words of promise. The expression means, May I die.
Jamie’s hands came up—finally—to rest at my waist, drawing me towards him. He bent, lowering his head until his forehead touched mine. One hand moved to cup my jaw, and his voice was an uneven murmur. “I am so in love with you.”
Since I could not speak, I turned my head to press my lips against his palm, and heard his breath catch. “Margaret, don’t do that. Not unless—” His voice was husky. “Not unless you want me to kiss you again.”
“I suppose I can endure it if you can.” I smiled up at him. “That is, unless once was enough for you?”
Jamie caught me in his arms and kissed me—kissed my eyelids and my cheeks and the side of my mouth with fierce intensity before his lips settled over mine. “Never.” He murmured the words against my mouth. “I would have died to be able to kiss you again. I just never thought that I would have the chance.”
A long, long while later, he broke away and drew back a little. But he said nothing, only looked at me with the same wonder in his dark gaze.
“What is it?” I whispered at last.
The hard planes of Jamie’s face were silvered by the moonlight. He shook his head. “I was just wondering whether I might be only dreaming this.” His hand came up to cup my cheek, and his thumb brushed the line of my mouth, sending ripples of feeling through my every nerve.
“Why?”
“Because.” Jamie’s eyes were dark on mine. “You were all I ever wanted, when we were younger. I knew it was impossible. Someone like you—a gentleman’s daughter—and a gypsy’s son. But that did not stop me. I think I fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you—when you demanded I show you how to climb trees and then offered me the loan of your Christmas gown.”
I laughed. “I cannot believe that you remember that, still.”
Jamie was smiling, too, but then sobered, shaking his head. “I never forgot. I never forgot anything you said to me, all the time we were together at Norland during the harvest time. I would store up the memories so that I could think of them throughout the rest of the year, when I could not see you. Tell them to myself again and again, like the books of stories you used to read. I sometimes felt as though I was living just for those months we spent at Norland every year, when I could see you again.”
“I used to wish that I could go with you,” I said softly. I stood on tiptoe to touch my lips to his. “Every year, as I watched the wagons drive away, I would wish that I were going, too.”
Jamie’s arms tightened around me—and then a sound came from somewhere on the terrace up ahead: footsteps and a rattle, as of a kicked pebble, that made us break apart and both turn. Peering into the darkness, I thought that I saw the glimmer of a woman’s pale dress moving rapidly away from us along the terrace—but it was gone before I could be certain.
“I have to go.” Jamie’s voice was soft with regret. “You were right about my being seen.”
I looked at him, straight and tall in his uniform. There were a dozen things I might have said. Jamie, you nearly died—and you are barely recovered even still. … Please, I cannot bear the thought that you may be hurt again—or even killed. And I would never know.
I never really considered saying them out loud. But a tiny part of me wished that I could have. “I know,” I said instead.
“Margaret, will you do something for me?” Jamie asked. He spoke in a rapid undertone. “Will you give Colonel Brandon a message from me? I searched Rosford Abbey—that was the day you saw me. I thought that the latest shipment of smuggled goods was hidden there, in the tunnels of the old crypt. But it had already been moved when I got there—I suppose your exploring party put an end to Rosford being used for a hiding place.” He drew a breath. “But something Merryman said—I believe I now have a guess as to where the barrels of brandy and other goods are being stored. And who the Captain may be.”
That shocked me enough that I drew back to stare at him. “Colonel Brandon—then he knows that you are here, pretending to be part of the smuggling gang?”
A French window opened further along the terrace, and a few ball guests spilled outside, laughing and talking, their voices floating to us in the night.
Jamie swore under his breath at the intrusion. “I wanted to tell you before. But I didn’t want to put you in danger. And now there’s no time—” He lowered his voice and spoke in a rapid undertone. “As soon as I heard about … about Sam, I went straight to Colonel Brandon in Weymouth. I did not know him. But I knew of him. Colonel Forsythe had spoken of him as a good man. I went to Colonel Brandon and offered to infiltrate the smuggling gang, if I could. To send him reports, whenever I could, of what their plans and movements were. I could not tell him very much, as it turned out. I was a mere underling—no one, Merryman included—would tell me much of how the operation was run. And then I was shot—”
The group of ball guests were moving towards us along the terrace. Jamie broke off again. “Tell Brandon that I will be in touch tomorrow if I am right—and if I think there is cause to raid Willoughby’s house.” And then he was gone, vaulting easily over the low parapet that separated the edge of the terrace from the lawn.
When I had managed to collect myself enough to return to the ball, I found Marianne looking for me.
“There you are!” Marianne wore a gown of a deep purple silk with an open robe of pale lilac, belted with silver. Her face, I thought, looked slightly flushed, and the line of her mouth was grim. “Come into the library with me.”
She led the way into the Delaford library—a long, narrow room lined with shelves upon shelves of books. It was deserted, all the guests being either in the ballroom, the supper room or playing at cards. The strains of distant music and muffled voices and laughter were all that filtered through to us of the party going on in the rest of the house.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
Marianne turned to face me. “That depends on what you mean by ‘wrong’.” Her voice, too, was angry and clipped. “And upon whether or not you really were out on the terrace just now. In a compromising position—a very compromising position—with an unknown gentleman.”
I felt my whole body flash hot and then icy cold—and remembered the footsteps I had heard, and the glimpse I had caught in the darkness of a woman’s gown. I swallowed. “Who—”
“So it really was you.” Marianne rubbed her forehead as though it ached. “Honestly, Margaret, how could you have so little sense! Do you know who saw you? Sophia Willoughby, of all people! She came to me just now—oh, so solicitously—and asked whether I knew about my sister’s scandalous behaviour. Because she was terribly afraid that if word got out, your reputation would be utterly blackened.”
And so it would be. It is stupid, it is unfair. Men—like Willoughby, like Mr. Palmer, even—may be known libertines and adulterers, yet still be received in polite society everywhere. But any girl who is seen so much as kissing a man to whom she is not engaged is forever branded ‘fast’ and ruined in the eyes of the world.
At that moment, though, having just bidden Jamie good-bye so that he could walk off into danger, I could not honestly find it in me to care over-much for my reputation. Besides, I had stories I could tell about Sophia Willoughby, too—she probably thought to use this as leverage to ensure my silence on her affair with Mr. Palmer. “It does not matter—,” I began.
“Does not matter!” Marianne exploded. “Have you any idea of the damage that can be done by acting so foolishly? This man—who was he? It cannot even be someone with whom you have a lasting attachment. Sophia said it was an officer—and they only arrived here tonight. A virtual stranger!”
Since Jamie had already asked me to tell Colonel Brandon of his presence here tonight, there seemed little point in trying to keep it a secret from Marianne.
“He was not a stranger,” I said. “It was Jamie—Jamie Cooper.”
“Jamie …” Marianne looked momentarily blank, and then her eyebrows shot up. “The gypsy boy? From the tribe that used to camp at Norland years ago?” She shook her head as though in disbelief. “Margaret, do you not see that that makes it worse, not better? For you to associate with someone of—”
Worry and fear were already forming a queasy wash in my stomach, and Marianne’s words made my hold on my temper slip. “He has served in the army, just as your husband has! But even if he were nothing more than a gypsy horse-breeder, he would still have more honour than your choice in men, Marianne. Or do you deny that you have been sneaking out to meet John Willoughby at night?”
Marianne’s mouth dropped open, and her face went from angrily flushed to chalky white in the space of less than a heartbeat. I gentled my tone, but went on, “Marianne, it will grieve you, I know—but Willoughby is no more worthy of your regard now than he was five years ago. I believe—and so does Jamie—that he is in some way involved with the smugglers.”
Marianne had recovered herself somewhat, a little colour returning to her cheeks. At that, she gestured impatiently with one hand. “Of course he is! Why else do you suppose I have been sneaking out at night to meet with him these last weeks?”
It was my turn to stare in open-mouthed astonishment. “All this while … you knew?”
“Of course I—”
Marianne broke off abruptly at the sound of a commotion—running footsteps and raised voices—from out in the entrance hall. And a moment later, another young officer in uniform burst into the room. “Mrs. Brandon, ma’am—come quickly. It’s the Colonel—he’s been shot!”
* * *
I should have thought there would be a limit—a sort of plateau—to the amount of terror and worry one could feel. But apparently there is not—or else I have not yet reached mine. Because I am so much more afraid than I was an hour ago. So, so much more. If my blood were running cold before, it feels now as though I can feel painfully sharp crystals of ice forming all over beneath my skin.
As I was writing the last entry, Edward came down, to report that there was no change in Colonel Brandon’s condition. Elinor would never have said so, but I could see she desperately wished for Edward to stay with her for a while. So I offered to go upstairs and sit with Marianne in Colonel Brandon’s room.
I found Marianne sitting at her husband’s bedside, staring at his face and gripping his hand tightly in both of hers—as though she could physically hold the life inside his body. She was still wearing the purple silk gown, though it was smeared with Colonel Brandon’s blood. His men had carried him into the house, bleeding and insensible from the wound in his upper thigh. Marianne’s face had gone frighteningly pale, but she had neither fainted nor screamed—only pressed her lips together and directed the men to carry her husband upstairs.
As I entered the room, she glanced briefly up—but then her eyes returned as though drawn by a magnet to her husband’s face.
“How is he?” I asked quietly.
Marianne lifted one shoulder. “He is still unconscious. He lost so much blood. The surgeon was not sure whether he might lose the leg, besides.”
Captain Wainwright had asked her for directions to the nearest surgeon, then dispatched two of the men to fetch him.
Marianne’s voice trembled and she pressed her lips together as though trying to keep from crying. “I have been sitting here, making all sorts of bargains—with God or anyone else who might be listening. Let him lose the leg—he will hate it, but I will help him through that. Anything, if only he may live through this.”
I stared at her, unable to keep back the surprised words—thinking that although she is our sister, Elinor and I seem to have understood Marianne’s true feelings scarcely at all. “You love him,” I said.
Marianne looked at me as though she suspected me of having lost my senses. “Of course I do.” She turned back to her husband, gently smoothing a stray lock of hair back from his brow. “He is the best, the most noble man I have ever known. I love him so much—so incredibly much—” Her face crumpled again. “Oh God, Margaret, what am I going to do if he should die?” She rested her hand on the small roundness of her middle, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks and drip, unchecked, onto the counterpane. “He was so happy about the baby. How am I going to bear having this child if Christopher is gone—if he never gets the chance to hold his son or daughter after all?”
“He is not going to die!” I crossed to Marianne and hugged her tightly. “Do not think such a thing. He will live to hold this baby—and many more besides. The two of you will have a whole tribe of children in a few years’ time—and I will come and visit every year and be their eccentric Aunt Margaret who teaches them to catch frogs and grass snakes and spy on bird’s nests.”
Marianne hiccuped a laugh and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “So long as you do not coach them to bring the creatures into church.”
“That is better.” I pulled up a stool to sit beside her, hesitated, and then asked, “Marianne—you never finished telling me about Willoughby. You knew all the while that he had some link to the smuggling?”
Marianne gave me a faint, wan smile and drew a hiccuping breath. “You are trying to distract me, aren’t you. To give me something to think about and speak of besides fear for Christopher. But yes, I knew about Willoughby—or strongly suspected, at least.”
She brushed her eyes again, then reached once more to take her husband’s hand, lacing her fingers with his limp ones. A single lamp burned by the bedside, and in its harsh light, Colonel Brandon’s face looked gaunt and greying pale. His eyelids flickered a little at Marianne’s touch, but he gave no other sign of being aware.
“Willoughby—” Marianne swallowed. “He came sneaking round to see me almost as soon as he arrived in the neighbourhood—as though I would be naive enough ever to trust or believe in him again.” Her lips twisted in scorn. “I sent him on his way. But then a few days later, I saw him in conversation with Mr. Merryman—whom Christopher had already told me he suspected of having ties to the smuggling. And then Mr. Merryman nearly ran me over with his horses and cart—and Willoughby was conveniently there to save me—I knew the whole thing had been a ploy to make me grateful. To induce me to forgive him for the past.”
I looked at her, trying to take in the sense of what she said. “But you said nothing. You allowed him to believe that he had wormed his way back into your good graces.”
“I did not know what else to do.” Marianne’s gaze was still fixed on her husband’s pale face, and she carried his hand up to rest her cheek against the back of his fingers. “Ever since those other excisemen were murdered, I have been wild with worry. But Christopher speaks to me very little of his duties—and he was far away in Weymouth, besides. Willoughby—” Marianne’s lips twisted. “He has not any great degree of subtlety. He never had. I realised—quite quickly—that what he really desired in fostering our acquaintance was any information he could worm out of me about the plans of Christopher and his men—where they might make the next raid, that sort of thing. I encouraged him—pretended not to know what he was really after. I even fed him false information a few times. Because that was the only way I could think of for me to help protect Christopher.”
“Then … the other night. When I caught you returning to the house—,” I began.
Marianne shivered, her face hardening. “After Tom Harmon died, I knew I had to put an end to the smuggling once and for all—before any other neighbourhood boys were hurt. The trouble was, I had not managed to gain any worthwhile information from Willoughby about how the operation was being run, or even who was involved. Before I could persuade him to trust me enough to tell me anything of that, I had to convince him that I was still in love with him—that I had never stopped loving him in all these five years. And for that, I would have to flirt with him, allow him to … to take liberties.” Marianne’s face twisted in an expression of disgust. “Not that I let him take very many of them. He kissed me that night, that is all. But even still, it was bad enough. I thought I would be sick all over his polished Hessian boots—which would have absolutely served him right. But it was worth it.”
Marianne drew a shaky breath. “He started to talk to me about his money troubles. To complain of how Sophia is constantly nagging him and how angry she gets with him for losing money betting on the horses. I pretended to be very sympathetic. I hinted that I thought a man in such a position would be entirely justified in doing whatever he might to recoup his losses. I even suggested that smuggling—free trading—ought not properly to be considered a crime, when no one was harmed, and the only result was a positive one: more sources of excellent wines and brandies for those who appreciate the finest things in life. Willoughby agreed wholeheartedly.” Marianne’s dark eyes hardened with anger. “Apparently, the lives of those excise agents and men like Tom Harmon do not count in his view as anyone being harmed. But it was enough—enough that I wrote to Christopher and told him everything. All about my suspicions, and what Willoughby had said. The plan was for me to hold this ball—to keep Willoughby and Sophia away from Rosford Abbey—so that Christopher and a handful of his men might search the premises for proof that he really is involved.”
Marianne smoothed the sheet over her husband’s chest.
I asked, “Then that is how he came to be wounded tonight? He was searching Rosford?”
Marianne nodded. “Yes. I had hoped the smuggled goods might be stored in the crypt—that was the whole purpose of my pressing for the visit there the other day. But our explorations proved that the goods must be elsewhere. According to Sergeant Macneal—the dark-haired one who helped to carry Christopher into the house—they had split up to better cover the grounds. And then they heard the sound of gunfire. He and the others ran to investigate, and”—she swallowed—“they found Christopher. Bleeding and—”
She broke off with a sharply indrawn breath as Colonel Brandon suddenly shifted on the bed and let out a low groan. “Christopher?” Marianne held his hand more tightly still. “Christopher, can you hear me?”
Colonel Brandon’s eyelids fluttered open and focused dazedly on her face. “Marianne?”
“Oh, thank God.” Marianne’s voice shook, the tears starting to spill down her cheeks all over again. “Thank God. I thought you were going to die.”
Colonel Brandon still looked greyish-pale, but he raised his free hand feebly and touched her cheek. He looked dazed, yet, and his words came out blurred with pain and fatigue, but he murmured, “Don’t worry, love. I am not so easy to kill as that.”
Marianne hiccuped another broken laugh and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. “I am glad to hear it.”
I would have gone out and left the two of them alone together. But then a hammer hit me squarely in the middle of the chest. At least, that was how it felt. Colonel Brandon’s brow furrowed and his head turned restlessly on the pillow. “There was something … something I had to remember.” And then abruptly he struggled to lift himself. “Young Cooper—Corporal Cooper. He is in terrible danger. I must warn him—”
I felt as though all the air had been forcibly driven from my lungs. “Jamie Cooper?” My voice sounded far off and rang in my ears.
Colonel Brandon was still struggling to sit upright. Marianne pressed him back with a hand on his shoulder, her face tight with worry once more. “Christopher, there is nothing for you to do now—nothing but lie quiet. You will start your wound bleeding again if you do not stay still.”
I ignored her and leaned forward. “Colonel Brandon—what about Jamie Cooper? How is he in danger?”
Colonel Brandon blinked. Until that moment, I am not sure that he realised I was in the room; he had eyes only for Marianne. His pain-dulled gaze focused on my face and he frowned in confusion. “Do you … know Corporal Cooper?”
“Yes, I know him.” I wanted to scream with impatience at having to delay for explanations, but I managed to moderate my voice. “I have known him nearly all my life. Now please … please tell me what has happened?”
Colonel Brandon was tiring, I could see. He sank back against the pillows and dragged the words out haltingly and with an effort. “I was going to break into Willoughby’s study—ground floor. Thought I could look for papers—anything. But before I could get inside, I heard something—a sound from nearby. Thought it was one of my men, at first. But when I called out”—his lips compressed in either frustration or pain—“a shot came out of nowhere. Got me in the leg. I fell—hit my head. Knocked senseless. Next thing I knew, a man was bending over me. Checking to see if I was dead. He intended to finish off the job, I suppose, if I wasn’t.”
He stopped, pressing his eyes closed, and was silent so long that I thought he might have lapsed into unconsciousness again. “And then?” I had to grit my teeth, fighting the urge to shake him and demand that he wake up and tell me the whole. “What happened—”
Marianne interrupted me, her hand closing around mine. “Margaret, stop. Do not ask him to say any more. He cannot—”
“Please.” My heart was racing, and whatever I was pulling into my lungs felt too thick to be properly called air. “Marianne, please. If Jamie is truly in trouble … in danger …” My throat closed off. Before I could manage to say anything more, Colonel Brandon’s eyes fluttered open again.
“The man—he was searching the pockets of my coat when I regained my senses. Or barely so. Just enough to be aware of what was happening, not enough to fight the fellow off. Then I heard my men approaching—frightened the man off before he could do me any more harm. After that … I was in and out, all the way here. Macneal strapped me to my horse—good thing, or I would have fallen off. But I remember—” Colonel Brandon’s jaw tightened in a spasm of pain. “I put my hand into my coat pocket to check for Corporal Cooper’s letters. That’s when I realised the fellow had taken them. Which means he knows—he and his employers know that Cooper was my agent all the time.”
Fear tingled all the way to the tips of my fingers. My mouth felt dry. “Colonel Brandon—the man who shot you—did you recognise him? What did he look like?”
The lines of pain bracketing Colonel Brandon’s mouth deepened. He shut his eyes again, this time in what seemed an effort to remember, but finally shook his head. “It was … dark. Didn’t see much. Don’t think that I had ever seen him before.” His voice trailed off into exhaustion. But then—just for an instant—a look that was almost a grim smile touched the edges of his mouth. “Henry. Henry Ay—”
But that was all. He lapsed into unconsciousness—or at least sleep—again. It would have been cruel to try to rouse him. And besides, I suspected that Marianne would have had my head if I had made the attempt. I left her and fairly pelted down the stairs to where Colonel Brandon’s men were grouped together in the billiard room.
I saw the faces of several of the officers tighten at my entrance. Including that of Captain Wainwright (he of the terrible breath), which made me inclined to forgive him his attempt to kiss me earlier. He and the other men are plainly devoted to Colonel Brandon, and were afraid that I had come to tell them that their commander was dying or already dead.
I had no idea how to even begin to tell them the full story coherently. But finally—somehow—I got everything out. None of the men knows Jamie. They knew only that Colonel Brandon had an inside source of information on the smugglers. Jamie’s communications had been infrequent. And of course, he could not write at all when he was shot and then ill with fever.
Neither had they any idea where Jamie had gone tonight—save that they had seen no sign of him at Rosford Abbey. The best plan they could formulate was for half of them to ride back to Rosford and interrogate Willoughby, while the rest of them scoured the countryside for Mr. Merryman.
They left an hour ago. Captain Wainwright even patted my shoulder as he went out and told me not to worry, that they were ‘sure to lay the dirty scoundrels by the heels.’ Which was rather sweet; it was not his fault that his clumsy attempts at reassurance made me want to scream all over again.
I looked in on Marianne and Colonel Brandon and found him still deeply asleep. He and Marianne both; she had lain down on the bed beside him and must have dropped off, for when I peeped into the room she was sound asleep with her arm flung protectively over her husband’s chest. I am glad she is able to rest; she must be exhausted. But there is no point in my even trying to close my eyes.
I feel as though half a lifetime has passed since Colonel Brandon was first carried into the house. But actually the clock over my mantel reads just half past three. The darkest—and most sinister—watch of the night, or so it feels right now. Even Henry the 8th’s leer seems at this moment more threatening than lascivious in the light of my—
Oh. Oh, God. I have just realised something about what Colonel Brandon said.
I had to ask Marianne for the date earlier, when she came in to scold me for not eating any of the cold custard and beef broth on my tray. I was shocked when she told me that it was the second of July—that three days have passed since I last set this journal down.
Those days are such a blur—a fog of pain and nausea and lying in bed while worried faces peered down at me: Marianne and Elinor … Colonel Brandon … but never the face I wanted most to see. I was lapsing in and out of consciousness—or so Marianne tells me now. At the time, I felt merely as though I were trapped in something sticky and viscous as mud, something that weighed me down and kept me from opening my eyes for more than a brief moment or two, however hard I struggled.
I remember voices—the voices of my sisters, hushed and sounding frightened. And a deeper, ponderous voice that I suppose must have been the surgeon’s, for it spoke words like concussion, and, possible inflammation of the brain. Which even in the depths of semi-consciousness roused me to something like irritation—it seemed such an insultingly inadequate way of describing the horrendous, stomach-churning pain that felt as though it were going to split my skull in two.
My head still aches. In addition to scolding me for not eating, Marianne also advised—or rather ordered—me not to try sitting up yet. I am certain that if she were to come in now, she would yank the pen from my hand, confiscate this journal, and tell me to lie back down.
But I do not want to sleep any longer. And I want to write this before I lose any more of the details.
I have just read back over the last entry I made—ending with the moment when I realised that not only did I know where Jamie might be, but that with all of Colonel Brandon’s men gone, his life depended on me alone.
As soon as I finished scrawling those last words, I was up, flinging on my cloak and lacing on my sturdiest half boots—though my fingers shook so much it was difficult to manage the ties. At least I had no trouble in creeping from the house unseen. The servants were all either abed or waiting in the kitchen in case Colonel Brandon should need anything. In the parlour, Edward and Elinor were asleep, too—side by side on the sofa with her head resting on his shoulder.
I did think of waking them and telling them where I was going. But that would have meant explanations—and further delay—and it was a virtual certainty that they would tell me that it was too dangerous, that I ought not to go. Looking back, I can see that I ought to have left a note; that would have been the sensible thing. But I suppose that I was thinking even less clearly than I believed—because in that moment, I was in such a desperate hurry to go that it never even occurred to me.
Feverishly anxious as I was, though, I could not take any of the horses from the stables. That would have meant rousing Mr. Dawson or one of the other stablehands—followed by the same delay for explanations and arguments involved in waking Elinor and Edward. Instead I ran all the way to the north pasture. I know I must have fallen in the dark, because when I arrived at Star’s field, I discovered that my palms were sore and scraped. But at the time, I did not even notice.
There was moonlight enough for me to see that Star and the foal were lying down together on the far end of the field, peacefully asleep. But when I gave a low whistle and called her name, Star roused and came over to me, the foal trotting at her heels. She butted her head inquisitively against my palm—I could almost feel her curiosity as to why I was coming to see her now, at this strange hour of the night. But she did not startle or run away when I swung myself over the fence, and I felt a fierce rush of thankfulness that she trusts me now. Thankfulness, coupled with the pulse-pounding fear that I was endangering Star in this mad enterprise as well as myself.
I kept my voice calm, though, as I stroked her neck. “Good girl. Good girl, Star. I need you to help me with something. Will you help me, do you think?”
Star made a soft whickering sound and nuzzled my hair—and I turned to the foal. “I am sorry to leave you here alone, sweetheart. But I will bring your mother back as soon as I possibly can, I promise.”
I hoped as I murmured the words that they would not be proven a lie. Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I slipped the simple rope bridle I had brought with me from the stables over Star’s head. It took me three tries to lift the latch of the pasture gate and swing it open, but at last I managed. The foal tried to follow as I led Star through, and I felt like a monster pushing him back, locking him back into the pasture all alone, without his mother for the first time in his short life. But grasping Star’s mane, I swung myself up onto her back.
I had never tried to ride her before, and I felt her stiffen at my weight. I leaned forward, rubbing her neck, murmuring softly until I felt her powerful muscles loosen. Of course, I had no saddle—a bridle I could manage, but I could scarcely have carried a heavy leather saddle with me all the way from the stables. And I was still wearing Marianne’s silk ball gown rather than riding habit; I had to sit on Star’s back astride, and the skirts of the gown bunched up nearly to my knees. But luckily—even if I had not done it in years—I used to ride bareback and astride as a child.
Jamie was the one who taught me, actually. But I could not let myself think of that. I was keeping all thoughts of Jamie tightly locked away in the back of my mind; let myself recall even those childhood memories and I was afraid the fear I was holding at bay would overcome me, leaving me unable to move, much less save his life.
Star shifted her weight from side to side, plainly waiting for my command. But for a moment, I simply sat, resting my cheek against her bristling mane and listening to the too-loud thud of my own heart in my ears. I had nothing to go on—not really. Only my own tenuous reasoning. Which seemed even more tenuous and uncertain out here, alone and in the dark, than it had in the light and safety of my room.
But any chance, however slight, was still a chance. And besides, anything was better than returning to Delaford and watching the minutes crawl by as I waited for Colonel Brandon’s men to return.
I nudged Star forward, guiding her carefully through the woods until we reached the turnpike road, pale as a silver ribbon in the moonlight. Then once we had gained the road, I urged Star into a canter. At any other time, it would have been glorious—the night stillness all around and the feel of the wind in my hair as Star surged forward, powerful and sure. She is a dream to ride—as amazing as I always thought that she would be. I could feel her straining forward, as well. Now that we were out in the open, she seemed to be enjoying the adventure and would have shifted into a full-out gallop if I had let her. But as much as my whole body screamed with the need for haste, I also did not want her to tire. I was not precisely sure of the distance we had to go—and Star had given birth not long ago.
And after all, the distance was not so great as I had feared. We followed the turnpike northwards—and what seemed a very short while later, we came to the massive iron gate that led up the sweeping drive of the Dumbroke estate. At sight of the gates, Star came to an abrupt halt and with a high whinny of fear reared, tossing her head so that I was very nearly thrown from her back. Clinging tight to the halter, I slid down from her back and tried to bring her back under control. “Whoa. Easy, girl. Easy.”
Star’s ears were flat back and she snorted, stamping her feet. “Shh, quiet. Please.”
I rubbed her neck, terrified that the noise she was making would bring someone to investigate. Though at the same time, I felt a slight curl of relief expand in my chest. It was a slim chance—a very slim chance—that had brought me here to Dumbroke. On the surface, Mr. Chalmers seemed as unlikely a candidate for a villain as Mr. Palmer. Henry Ay— Colonel Brandon had said, when speaking of his attacker. Which might—possibly—be interpreted as an attempt to say, Henry the Eighth. Henry the Eighth—as witness the portrait in my room—had been fat and was famous for his bright auburn hair. Mr. Chalmers was also immensely obese, with ginger-coloured hair. Scarcely enough to convict—or even challenge—him in a court of law.
But now Star was frightened at the sight of the Dumbroke estate. She knew where we were; plainly, she had been here before. That Mr. Chalmers might have been Star’s former owner, responsible for her abuse, was also no proof he was involved in the smuggling. But it was enough to set my pulse pounding as I looked for a place where I could tie Star.
That was the difficulty. I could not simply turn Star free. I was not sure whether she could—or would—find her way back to Delaford and her foal. But neither could I force her to continue up the Dumbroke drive. For one, I could never be that cruel when the mere sight of the gates terrified her. And for another, I had no idea how she would respond. If she took fright and made too much noise at the wrong moment, she could bring discovery on me.
In the end, I led her a short way down the road and looped the rope of her bridle about a tree that stood a few paces back from the edge of the track. “It’s all right.” Star was still shifting and snorting uneasily, and I stroked her neck. “No one will hurt you, I promise. I will not let them.”
The gates were rusty and overgrown with a tangle of vines, and they let out a screech that sounded as loud as musket fire when I pushed them open enough to slip through. A small lodge stood to one side, where a family retainer would once have lived, charged with the duty of opening and closing the gate for his master’s carriages. But the lodge looked as dilapidated and overgrown as the gates; plainly no one had lived there for years.
Trying to keep to the shadows of the trees, I crept up the driveway—which seemed endless in the dark. Dumbroke had evidently been planned by someone who believed that an ancestral home is not an ancestral home unless it is a mile or more from the gates to the main house. I covered perhaps three quarters of a mile at a quick trot—expecting that at any moment, I would hear an angry shout of discovery.
And then, from somewhere up ahead, I did hear a shout—but it was not directed at me. “Ye dirty gypsy! I’ll blow yer head clean off for that.”
I was not thinking—I simply raced forward, around the side of the hulking shape of the house I could now make out in the distance. I did have sense enough to move off the gravel drive and onto the sweep of overgrown lawn, so that my running footsteps scarcely made a sound. And when I reached the rear of the house, and the edge of what looked to have once been a yard and kennel for hunting hounds, I stopped, trying to pull the air into my straining lungs as quietly as I could. The shout had come from this direction—I was certain of it. And the next moment, I heard something more—not a shout this time, but a man’s voice, cool, well-bred, and sounding more irritated than anything else.
“I must say, this really is the greatest bore in the world.”
It was Mr. Chalmers’s voice—I knew it without question. Though he sounded different. Confident and drawling, rather than fussy and querulous—and yet with a chill to the words that seemed to send slivers of ice all the way down my spine. I was standing behind the stone-built kennels. To my right, an ivy-covered stone wall about as high as my chest enclosed the yard where the hunting hounds would have been trained and given daily exercise. I crouched down so that I was entirely behind it and crept towards a wooden gate that I assumed must be the yard’s entrance.
“I say we shoot him now and get it over with.” The voice was a low growl I recognised as Mr. Merryman’s.
“My dear fellow.” Mr. Chalmers’s voice was as cool as before. “Do try not to be more of an idiot than you can help. A shot would bring out the servants from the house—and we would be left with a dead body on our hands and a great deal of unpleasant explaining to do.”
“What’s to explain?” Merryman grunted. “He’s a gypsy. We just say we caught him sneakin’ in, trying to steal. No one’ll question it or care what we did to him. What’s one dead gyppo?”
“Hmmm.” I could feel Mr. Chalmers giving consideration to that argument. Which—I knew myself with stomach-churning certainty—might well be all too true.
I straightened up enough that I could peer over the top of the wall into the moonlit yard. I had only a brief glimpse before I ducked back down—but it was enough to burn the scene permanently into my mind’s eye. Mr. Chalmers was standing with his back to me, his bulk encased in a heavy wool greatcoat. Mr. Merryman faced him—and me—holding tight to their prisoner: Jamie, his face hard and expressionless as a mask carved in stone.
I leaned against the wall, pressing my eyes closed and telling myself fiercely that Jamie was alive—and that so long as he remained so, there was a chance yet that I might save him. He might be injured—I suspected he was; my brief glimpse had shown a cut lip and a trickle of blood along the side of his mouth. But he had also plainly not gone down without a fight. Mr. Merryman was sporting a spectacularly swollen black eye and a torn mouth, as well.
Jamie’s hands were tied behind him, though. And Mr. Merryman held a heavy flint-lock pistol, the muzzle pressing against Jamie’s neck under his chin. Any moment, a twitch of Mr. Merryman’s finger, and Jamie would be gone.
“True, we could likely pass off killing him easily enough,” Mr. Chalmers said at last. I could hear genuine regret in his voice. “But it would still likely result in complications. Mrs. Whetherstone’s agent, Mr. Phillips—officious man—has already talked about hiring on extra servants for security after the supposed theft of my horse last month. Add a dead gypsy, and he would unquestionably bring on added manpower—which would be very inconvenient, since we have yet to shift all the brandy from the cellars.” There was a pause, in which I imagined Mr. Chalmers pursing his lips. “Really, the way the inconveniences and difficulties have piled up of late are beyond belief. First we had to shift the whole lot from Rosford over to here—and in a hurry. And now, just days before I am expecting my agents from London to come and take the goods off my hands, it looks as though we may be called on to move it again. Really”—for the first time, a hint of anger crept into his cold, drawling tones—“anyone would think that I might have enough sense not to let any more of your filthy breed into my employ. First that brother of yours takes it into his head to develop a conscience and bolts—with my most valuable horse, I might add. And now you turn out to be a bloody agent of the Crown.”
“Sam—” Jamie spoke for the first time. His voice sounded hoarse—and unwilling, as though the words were dragged from him. He would hate having to ask Mr. Chalmers and Merryman for information. Yet he could not let that go by. “Sam is not dead?”
“That I do not know.” Mr. Chalmers’s tone was cold. “I sincerely hope he may be. He wished to exit my employ, so much was true. Mr. Merryman brought him here to … discuss the matter. But he contrived to escape—on the back of a valuable Arabian mare. She was breeding, as well. The foal would have been worth a great deal of money, coming from such stock.”
I felt the shock of the words beating all the way to the tips of my fingers—and I could only imagine how Jamie must feel. Sam was alive. Or he had been a month ago. And he was responsible for Star’s escape, as well.
“Oh, get him out of my sight, Merryman.” Mr. Chalmers voice was disgusted—with a faint echo of his usual petulant tones. “Take him well away from here where no one will hear the shot and get rid of him—and try to do it properly, this time.”
A moment later, the wooden gate creaked open and Mr. Chalmers stumped by me—passing so close that I might have touched him if I had reached out a hand from where I crouched. But he never so much as glanced in my direction, only waddled with his rolling gait back towards the house.
“All right, you heard the Captain,” Mr. Merryman ground out from inside the yard. “Move. And no dawdling, or I may decide to shoot you where you stand after all.”
I stayed frozen, pressing myself so hard against the stones at my back that it felt as though their uneven shapes would leave permanent imprints in my shoulders. Jamie and Mr. Merryman came through the gate next, Jamie walking ahead and Mr. Merryman behind—with the muzzle of the pistol now prodding Jamie in the back. I waited until they had gone perhaps fifty paces away from me, down along the drive. Then—slowly, slowly—I uncurled myself, stood up, and began to follow, my heart pounding so hard it felt as though it would break through my ribs.
I have only rarely heard Colonel Brandon talk about his time on campaign with the army. He does not like to speak of the death and suffering he has seen, Marianne says. But he has once or twice that I can recall shared a story or reminiscence. And something he said of a skirmish he once fought in the East Indies had lodged unaccountably in my mind, and returned now. If you have the chance to choose your ground, to pick the place where you make your stand and fight, he had said, you must do it with very great care. For it may be your single best advantage in the battle to come.
All the while I was trailing Jamie and Mr. Merryman along the sweep of the drive, the words rang in my ears, seeming to echo the harsh rasp of my own breathing. Choose your ground. But where? Where could I fight a heavyset man armed with a pistol—and how?
Overhead in the trees, a night-bird let out a cry—making me nearly jump out of my skin. And then I froze, struck by the force of the idea that swept through me like a gust of frigid wind. Mr. Merryman was following the curve of the drive—unwilling, no doubt, to risk giving Jamie a chance of escape by choosing a course through the cover of the woods that lined the drive. But the path the drive took was by no means the most direct route. I knew from traversing it earlier that it meandered and curved maddeningly—or rather, it had been maddening before. But now that meant that if I chose a path through the wooded area, there was a chance I might overtake Jamie and Mr. Merryman and come out up ahead.
Without letting myself stop to consider the madness of what I was doing, I plunged into the trees—blessing the light breeze that had sprung up, covering the rustling sounds of my footsteps. Going as fast as I dared—praying that my sense of direction would be accurate—I ran ahead, towards the point where I judged that the drive would make another curve, and so re-cross my path. Sweat dampened my hair and made my skin itch beneath my gown when at last I saw the trees thinning up ahead. And for an instant, I thought I might have missed them after all, for when I peered cautiously out from the cover of branches, I saw no sign of them. But then they came into view around a curve in the road: Jamie ahead, Mr. Merryman behind, as before.
There was moonlight enough for me to see that Jamie’s whole body was tensed, waiting. And he was trying to distract Mr. Merryman with an effort to get the older man to talk. I knew with a certainty that it was a distraction; that Jamie, too, was trying to choose his ground to fight.
I heard him say, “Mr. Chalmers’s aunt won’t think it strange for him to end his visit so suddenly?”
Mr. Merryman gave a grating laugh. “The old woman’s not even his aunt. The Captain just showed up one day and claimed to be Mrs. Whetherstone’s nephew, returned from abroad to pay her a long overdue visit. The servants just took his word for it. And the old lady’s gone too soft in the head to know the difference herself—or to tell anyone if she did know.”
I felt a slow burn of anger at Mr. Merryman’s words—at the way he and Mr. Chalmers had taken cold-blooded advantage of an ill and helpless old woman. But time was running out; if I was going to make a stand and fight, it had to be here—now. I forced the anger down, grasped one of the lower branches of the nearest tree—one whose limbs overhung the drive—and swung myself up.
I heard a rending tear of fabric as I clambered up. The skirt of the blue silk gown must have caught on a branch or twig—and I sent up a mental apology to Marianne, and a promise to pay for the damages. Assuming that I survived the night.
Mr. Merryman must have heard the noise, as well. From my perch amidst the cover of the leaves, I could no longer see him or the drive—but I heard him say, sharply, “What was that?”
I clung to the tree branches, motionless, not daring to move or breathe, counting the beats of my heart. Six … seven … and finally, I heard Mr. Merryman’s and Jamie’s footsteps coming on again, moving towards me. Slowly, carefully, I edged my way out from the trunk, out along a thick, sturdy branch that overhung the drive. I was exposed, now—if either of the men had happened to look up, they would have seen me. But neither did. Prodding Jamie forward with the pistol, Mr. Merryman moved towards the main gates up ahead. Farther … farther.
Holding my breath, I waited until he passed directly beneath me. And then with a brief prayer that I would not break both my legs, I swung down from the tree branch and dropped onto Mr. Merryman’s back.
After that—
This is a part that is all a confused blur in my memory. I remember the shock of impact as I struck Mr. Merryman and we both of us crashed to the ground. I remember his yell of surprise and the roar of the pistol. That was something I had not calculated for, that the shock of my striking him would cause him to fire off the pistol after all. I remember struggling upright, choked with the fear that the shot had hit Jamie—that in trying to save him, I had only hastened his death. And I remember—I think I remember—hearing Star’s frightened whinny in the distance, and the pounding of her hooves.
Though I am not certain of the last. I may be only filling in that detail from the story that was told to me afterwards, after I woke.
What I do know was that there was a sudden smashing pain in my head. Lights exploded behind my eyes and seemed to ricochet off the walls of my skull. Then a great wave of blackness seemed to rise up and swallow me whole.
Marianne did come in last night to confiscate both my pen and this book. She saw the light from my candle under my door and came in to order me to go to bed.
Though she did not have to try very hard. My head was aching, my hand had cramped from holding the pen for so long. And besides, this is the part of the story that I hate having to write most of all.
When I first woke yesterday, and found myself lying in my familiar bed at Delaford with the portrait of King Henry leering at me from the mantel, it all seemed a dream. Though the next moment, the Henry painting brought everything back in a horrible, sickening rush. I sat bolt upright—nearly frightening the young housemaid who had been charged with sitting beside my bed out of her wits. I was demanding that she tell me what had happened—everything that had happened—when Marianne came running into the room.
“Jamie?” I asked; my first thought of course was of him. “Is he—”
“He is alive—alive and unharmed. It was he who carried you back here. Do you not remember anything?”
I shook my head—and instantly wished that I had not, since it sent a fresh wave of stomach-lurching pain through my skull.
Marianne perched on the side of my bed, dismissing the housemaid with a smile and a nod of thanks. “Lie down,” she told me. “I will tell you everything—but only if you promise to lie there and listen quietly and not do yourself a mischief.”
I obeyed, leaning back against the pillows while Marianne told me the whole. After Mr. Merryman had struck me unconscious—with the butt of his pistol, according to what Jamie had told Marianne—there was a struggle. Jamie might have been overpowered; his hands were still bound behind his back. But at that moment, Star came bursting onto the scene. The knots I had tied had not held her; she had slipped free and evidently come to find me. At the sight of Mr. Merryman, she had gone crazy—rearing and bucking wildly, lashing out so that Jamie very narrowly avoided being injured himself. And Mr. Merryman had been felled; struck in the head by one of her flailing hooves. After that, Jamie had been able to use Merryman’s knife to sever his own bonds—and had managed to calm Star enough that he could mount her and ride her—with my unconscious weight in his arms—back to Delaford.
“He looked absolutely wild,” Marianne said. “He thought you were dying—or already dead. We all did. You were so white and still, and the back of your head was all over blood from where that brute had struck you. Jamie told Christopher’s men where to go, that they might apprehend Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Merryman. But he would not ride back to guide them there himself—he would not leave you. He haunted your bedside all that night and the next day, as well, until the surgeon declared you out of danger.”
Yet Jamie was unquestionably not there beside my bed anymore. And when Marianne glanced at me, I thought there was a flash of something like pity in her gaze. Beneath the throbbing in my head, I felt …
It was something like when you stub your toe—or slip and cut your hand with a paper knife—and there is a brief second of time when you do not yet feel any hurt. You know the pain is coming, but it has not yet arrived.
That was how I felt—and cowardly though it was, I could not face accelerating the onset of the pain by asking any more questions about Jamie yet. Instead, I moistened my lips and asked, “Mr. Chalmers? Was he captured, then?”
Marianne shook her head with regret. “No. By the time Christopher’s men arrived, he had got away. Though they did find some fifty casks of brandy hidden in the Dumbroke cellars. And they found some of his papers in the room he had been occupying. He had tried to burn them, but he was in a hurry to get away. Not all of the papers were destroyed.” Marianne swallowed, her face sober. “There were maps—maps of the coast. Observations about our patrols, the movements of our naval ships. It looks as though he really was spying—selling information to France.”
I shivered. “He played his part very well. I would never have suspected him.”
“I know. He even spoke—and spoke readily—of French spies. Trying to cast suspicion on M. de Courtenay,” Marianne said. Her face darkened. “At least he did not succeed there. But who knows how much harm he might have done if he had remained in the neighbourhood for longer?” She shook her head and added, “They did at least apprehend Mr. Merryman—it may be that with what Merryman can tell them of the smuggling operation, they will be able to track down Mr. Chalmers yet.”
I started to nod, but checked the movement in time. “Then Colonel Brandon is—”
Marianne smiled at that, looking happier and more free of worry than she had since entering the room. “He is quite well—already up and even walking, with the use of a cane. The surgeon says he will make a full recovery.”
“I am so glad.” I hesitated, then asked. “And … Willoughby?”
A slight shadow clouded Marianne’s gaze. “Gone. He and Sophia both—they must have fled the neighbourhood directly from the ball, when they heard that Christopher had been shot. I suppose they are gone back to their own estate in Somersetshire. Christopher could try to pursue them, but …”
“But prosecuting him might bring to light details which neither you nor Colonel Brandon would wish to become public knowledge.”
“Well, yes.” Marianne’s lips curved in a wry smile. “It might be a little awkward for Christopher to explain that he first came to suspect Willoughby because his wife had been carrying on a false dalliance with the man. Not that I regret it for a moment, nor does Christopher, but …” Marianne trailed off, raising her shoulders in a shrug. “It does not really matter. I believe the fright Willoughby has had will keep him on the right side of the law from now on. And he was not truly involved in the smuggling in any case. He sent me a letter. It arrived the day after he was discovered to have fled. He writes that he and Sophia came into the neighbourhood so that Sophia might pursue her scheme of adopting Joanna—just as they said. It was only afterwards that Mr. Chalmers approached Willoughby and offered him a hefty sum of money for access to the Rosford Abbey crypt. Mr. Chalmers had apparently heard of Willoughby’s gambling debts and thought he might not be averse to an easy way of earning ready money. Willoughby swore that at first he had no idea of why Mr. Chalmers wanted the use of the crypt tunnels. And then once he did learn the truth of the smuggling scheme, Mr. Chalmers kept him from breaking the arrangement or going to the authorities by threatening to have his men harm Joanna … or me … if Willoughby told anyone.”
“And you believe him?” I asked. “Willoughby, I mean.”
“I think I do, yes.” Marianne did not look grieved or sad—only thoughtful. “Here.” She withdrew a pair of folded sheets from her pocket and handed them to me. “You can read his letter for yourself, if you like.”
The effort of reading the letter made my head ache even more fiercely. But I scanned the lines. It was just as Marianne had said: in hastily scrawled words, the handwriting uneven, as though his fingers had been shaking as he wrote—Willoughby had given an account of his involvement with Mr. Chalmers, the same one Marianne had just given me. Some, given Willoughby’s history, might doubt the truth of his version of the story—but for me, the words rang true. As did his final lines:
I regret everything—and deceiving you, most of all. Chalmers asked—blackmailed—me into using our association to learn all I could of Colonel Brandon’s movements and plans.
And yet, can it properly be called blackmail, when cultivating an association with you was also the most hidden desire of my heart? In that it permitted me to see you, to hold you and speak with you again—I cannot regret what has happened at all. To a man dying of hunger in the desert, every crumb appears a feast—and for me each and every glimpse of your face is as such a feast to a starving man.
I remain yours—always yours,
John Willoughby.
I finished reading and looked up from the letter. “He loves you still.”
Marianne shrugged again. “Perhaps. Perhaps he only thinks to flatter me—to soften me into persuading Christopher not to prosecute. It does not matter.” She smiled, resting her hand on her slightly swollen middle. “I have the love of a good man,” she said. “That is infinitely better than the love of a weak and venal one.” She looked down at me. “And now I ought to go and let you rest—you look tired.”
I was tired. I could feel my eyelids trying to slide closed. But the question could no longer be postponed. “Jamie?” I asked. “Where is he, now?”
Again that look of pity crossed Marianne’s gaze. “He is gone. As soon as the surgeon proclaimed you definitely past all danger of dying he rode out—to Weymouth, I think. He said he would assist Christopher’s men in searching for Mr. Chalmers. And he wishes to see whether any trace can be found of his brother, as well.”
Of course—of course now that he knew his brother was still alive, Jamie’s first task would be to find him.
Marianne seemed to debate a moment, then made up her mind. “He left something for you, though. I had thought to wait, to give it to you when you were feeling stronger. But perhaps you would like to have it now.”
She got up and went to a side table, returning with a pair of worn leather-bound books. The same ones I had seen in Jamie’s travelling pack: the plays of Shakespeare, and the poems.
I had known before, really. I do not know how, but some part of me had known all the time—from the moment I had woken, I had had a feeling, as though a great pair of scissors had severed an invisible cord tied to my heart. But seeing the books, I knew of a certainty that Jamie had left me, meaning never to return.
Marianne was watching me. She said, a little awkwardly, “Margaret, I have the greatest respect for Corporal Cooper. Of course I do. But you must know that any kind of an … an official connection between the two of you … it would present the greatest difficulties on both sides, for him and for you. In the eyes of the majority of polite society, he will never be other than a gypsy—an outsider, to be shunned and scorned. You are not even of age yet—you cannot marry without our mother’s approval. And Mother—of course she was fond of Jamie when he was a child. We all were. But you must see—”
Marianne trailed off.
She did not need to finish. Although Mother has always wished that her daughters should marry for love, it was not especially likely that she should give her consent to my marrying the gypsy boy who had camped on our lands.
“I see that Jamie must agree with you about the difficulties, at least.” He must have, or he would not have left in this way. I looked up at Marianne, struck by sudden remembrance. “Does Mother know anything of what has happened?” I asked.
Marianne shook her head. “No. We did think to send for her—when you were first brought in, unconscious. But then the surgeon said that you would make a good recovery, and it seemed better not to frighten her unnecessarily.”
“And that the fewer people who knew of my outrageous behaviour the better?” I finished for her, feeling my mouth twist a bit.
“Well, Mother would probably be happier not knowing,” Marianne allowed. She smiled just a bit and touched my hair. “But I think you were very brave.”
I was vaguely aware of Marianne setting Jamie’s books down beside me on the bed, kissing my cheek and telling me to rest, now. I suppose I must have murmured something in response, because she went out and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone. My fingers shook as I picked up the first volume—the plays—which was just as it had been before. The spine cracked, the pages well-thumbed, with Colonel Forsythe’s name inscribed on the flyleaf in faded ink.
The book of sonnets, though, had a new inscription on the first page. For a moment as I stared at it, my eyes were too blurred to read the words, though I recognised Jamie’s spiky hand—which somehow, though I had seen it only twice, had become as familiar to me as my own.
I blinked savagely and read what he had written:
I did not tell you before, but I bought this book because of you. Years ago, at Norland, I overheard your sister—I think it was Marianne—reading aloud from a book of Shakespeare’s poems. I did not understand more than half of the words at the time. But one verse—the one about ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ struck me, because it made me think of you. I bought this book with my first quarter’s army pay because I wanted to learn to read it for myself one day. More, because I wanted something to carry with me that would remind me of you, wherever I might go. But I do not need it anymore. Every breath I take—every time my heart beats—I will be thinking of you.
I was allowed to come downstairs for the first time today. Which was a relief. I was unutterably weary of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Though sitting propped up with cushions on the sofa downstairs was not actually very much better. Elinor came up from the parsonage to see me, and she and Marianne kept trying to wrap me in shawls and ply me with cups of tea and plates of biscuits.
Physically, I feel almost completely well; my head does not even ache anymore. I just feel … grey.
Unfortunately, I do not even need another try at filling out the catalogue of symptoms with which I began this diary to know why I feel this way. I suppose it is in a way of value to know that a broken heart is not, after all, a sharp, agonising pain—it is more a dull, gnawing ache that subtly seems to bleed all the colour from life. As though my vision, my spirit, my whole being have all been tinged the colour of a dull, overcast sky.
Joanna and Eliza came to visit during the afternoon—which was one bright spot in the endless day. It is impossible to be in Joanna’s company for long without smiling. She had brought me a little grass snake, ‘to cheer me up’, she announced. Just before—much to her mother and Marianne and Elinor’s general horror—she pulled the squirming snake out of her pocket and deposited it in my lap.
The combined screams of my sisters and Eliza (I may have drawn in a sharp breathe, but at least I did not scream) drove the poor snake wriggling frantically underneath a Chippendale secretary. I had to lie flat on the floor to fish it out again—by which time I was laughing, for the first time in days.
For the sake of my sisters’ nerves, we sent Joanna and her snake outside to play. I said that I would be glad of some fresh air, too—so we all went out to take a turn about the lawn.
“Joanna?” I asked.
Joanna abandoned her efforts to coax the snake to eat a blade of grass and skipped back to me. “Yes?”
“The … the ghost you saw out your window a few weeks ago. Did he look like my friend? The one who helped me bring you home when you were lost?”
Joanna screwed up her face in recollection, nodding “A little like him. I think so. That was why I asked him whether he was a ghost—I was afraid he was the same one I’d seen.”
“I see.” I moistened my lips. “And have … have you seen him again.”
“No.” Joanna shook her head, setting her curls bouncing. “Why?”
“No reason.” I suppressed a sigh. It had occurred to me—belatedly—that Joanna’s ‘ghost’ might have been Jamie’s brother Sam, injured and fleeing from Mr. Chalmers. But knowing that Sam had passed somewhere nearby Eliza’s cottage two weeks ago scarcely helped in locating him now. Certainly it gave me no valid excuse for contacting Jamie to give him the information. Which, if I am honest, is what I had really wanted in questioning Joanna.
“Is something wrong?” I looked up to see that Eliza had come to stand beside me, her brow furrowed in concern. “Are you feeling ill again? Or has Joanna been plaguing you?”
“No—nothing.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m better—much better. And Joanna is fine. How are the two of you? It seems an age since last I saw you. Though I suppose it has only been since the night of the ball.”
Glancing sideways, I was surprised to see Eliza’s lips quivering, as though with incipient tears. “What is the matter?” I asked. It felt strange—like recalling a chapter of a half-forgotten book—to remember the night of the ball. But the last time I had seen Eliza, she had been dancing with Pierre de Courtenay. “Has M. de Courtenay—,” I began. I wondered whether my fears had been well-founded after all; perhaps M. de Courtenay had made improper advances, or offered her an irregular arrangement rather than marriage.
Eliza raised a hand and brushed at her cheek. “I—” She seemed to hesitate. But then: “Pierre—he has asked me to marry him.” She turned to face me. “I am sorry—I did not mean to burden you with this. But I haven’t told anyone. And if I do not speak of it, I think I shall go mad.”
“It is no burden,” I said. “Of course if you want to tell me, I want to hear. But I do not understand. If he has asked you to be his wife … do you not wish to be wedded to him, then?”
“Of course I do.” Eliza’s voice was low. Her fingers knotted in her plain wool shawl. “I want it more than anything. But … do you not see?” She turned to look at me again. “I have not exactly a sterling record of results from following my heart and choosing the course I most wish.” Her eyes focused on Joanna, who was racing up ahead, laughing and turning cartwheels in the grass—and accumulating a wealth of green smears all over her dress. “I have Joanna, and I would never regret that, nor trade her for anything, but—”
“But you fear that if you trust your heart again, as you did in eloping with Willoughby, you will find similar heartbreak all over again?”
“I … I suppose I do.” Eliza let out her breath. “And then there is the question of gossip—scandal. Not that I care for myself—I have faced all that before, these last five years. But Pierre—he would almost certainly be subject to all sorts of unpleasant censures from society if he married me.”
“That is his risk, though—and if he is ready to take it, I do not see that you should object.” I hesitated. I did understand Eliza’s fear—how could I not? And yet … what would I do, what would I feel at that moment if Jamie were to miraculously appear, striding towards me across the lawn. “Do you love him? M. de Courtenay?”
“I—” Eliza’s fingers twisted through the fringe on her shawl again and then she said, simply, “Yes. I do.”
“Then choosing to be with him … whatever the risks, whatever the opinion of the rest of the world … none of that can be more painful than being without him, can it?”
Eliza’s head came up with a start and she stared at me. And Marianne turned around from where she was standing with Elinor to look at me, a strange expression on her face. I had not realised she was listening to what Eliza and I said.
Then, slowly, Eliza smiled. “Do you know,” she said, “I believe you are right.”
My hands are shaking—but that is not the reason that the handwriting of this entry is such a disaster. I am writing in a carriage—Colonel Brandon’s carriage, to be precise—with this book propped on my knee in a vain effort to brace against the bumps and constant rattle of travelling quickly over open road.
Marianne came into my room this morning—at barely the crack of dawn—and flung my curtains wide. “Wake up! I have asked for some breakfast to be brought up to you on a tray. But you had better hurry and dress, because I have ordered the carriage to be brought round at seven o’clock.”
I blinked at her—wondering blearily whether this was some strange, delayed manifestation of the blow I had taken to the head. “Carriage?” I managed to say. I struggled to sit up and push the tangled hair out of my eyes. “Why? Where are we going?”
“I am not going anywhere. You are going to Weymouth.” Marianne turned away from the window to beam at me. She was already dressed in a simple round gown of pale lemon-coloured muslin, and above it her face fairly glowed. “Well, for strict propriety’s sake—and just so that I can tell Mother that I did not allow you to run entirely wild while you were in my care—I will ride along. But I promise to remain in the carriage when you go in to see Corporal Cooper. I imagine that you will wish to speak to him alone.”
That brought me upright and out of bed, staring at her in disbelief. “When I go in to see— Marianne, have you gone quite out of your mind?”
“No,” Marianne said. “I merely thought it was high time you took your own advice—you and I both. What you said yesterday to Eliza: You said that where there is love, being together—whatever the difficulties—cannot be harder than being apart.”
“But our mother—,” I began.
“I will speak with Mother. Besides,” Marianne added cryptically, “I believe that if everything works according to plan, she may not have so very many grounds for withholding her consent to your marriage after all. So hurry and get dressed,” she added in a brisker tone before I could ask what she meant. She glanced at the clock. “I have from Christopher the address of the inn where Corporal Cooper has been staying in order to make his enquiries. We leave in an hour.”
We left Delaford about two hours ago, now, heading for the coast. And if I try to write any more on this bumpy and rutted road, I shall probably end by stabbing myself with the pencil. Not that I have anything further to write, really. I suppose at the very least I shall know by this evening whether I wish to keep this journal—or whether it is doomed to be ripped to shreds and burned like its predecessor.
Later
I could never really have burned this book. I suppose I knew, even as I wrote the words, that I would not be able to do it—whatever the day’s outcome might be.
It was a little past noon when we arrived in Weymouth and found the inn—the King’s Head—where Colonel Brandon had directed Marianne. As promised, Marianne remained in the carriage while I went in. Though at that moment, I would almost have been glad of her company. My stomach was churning and my legs felt unsteady—and I had what amounted to a death-grip on the parcel I carried in my arms.
I had to clear my throat three times before I could ask the proprietress—a thin, sour-looking woman with a frizz of hair the colour of dirty dishwater—whether Corporal Cooper had a room here?
She looked me up and down with pursed lips—probably assessing whether I was a woman of easy virtue who might blacken the respectable name of her inn—but then said, grudgingly, that he was indeed renting a room.
“Is he here now? Might I—might I see him?” I asked.
That earned me another sour look. But at last she nodded and said that she supposed I might wait in the back parlour. It wouldn’t be proper, of course, for me to go straight up to Jamie’s room. But no one was in the parlour at this hour of the day, and she would go upstairs and tell Jamie to come down.
I felt as though I waited an eternity—perched on the edge of a hard-backed chair in the exceedingly ugly and ill-furnished parlour, and listening to the hectic drumming of my own heart. But at last the door opened. And Jamie came into the room.
He wore his army uniform, red coat and tan breeches, and he was freshly shaved. He looked as though he might have been writing and had hastily set the pen aside to come downstairs; his fingers had a smudge of ink across the tips. And his black hair looked untidy—as though he had unconsciously been running his hands through it as he wrote.
He did not say anything at first, only stood, staring at me.
The sight of him—looking more handsome even than I remembered—momentarily drove everything I had planned to say from my mind. “Where is Pilot?” I asked; they were the first words that happened to spring to my lips.
Jamie looked startled by the question. “Upstairs—sleeping on the hearthrug.” And then he frowned. “You came all this way to ask me about that great lummox of a dog?”
I drew in my breath. The truth was that however much Marianne had astonished me by arranging this trip today … it was a journey I had intended all along. For days I had known what I would have to do; known that I would never be able to live with myself otherwise, if I did not at least try to see Jamie one last time. So I swallowed and said, “No. I came to return these to you.”
I unfolded the cloth I had wrapped round the books I carried—Jamie’s Shakespeare books—and held them out to him.
At that, a look of confusion—and perhaps hurt—crossed Jamie’s dark gaze. “Did you not want …” He stopped, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. He seemed to force himself to meet my gaze, then, drawing himself straight and speaking more formally than he usually did. “I am sorry. I wanted … I wished for you to have something to remember me by. But if you do not want—”
I exploded, cutting him off before he could go on. “Jamie Cooper, you are an idiot!”
Jamie’s eyes flared wide with shock, but I was too angry not to continue. “Do you really think that I need a book to help me remember you?” I drew a breath and managed to lower my voice. “In the sonnets book, you wrote that you would be thinking of me with every heartbeat, with every breath. It is the same for me—the very same. More.” I felt an unwanted rush of tears prickle behind my eyes and dug my nails hard into the palms of my hands, trying not to cry. “My whole life, I have felt as though … as though wherever I go, I do not quite belong. No matter how I tried, I could never be as accomplished as Elinor or as pretty as Marianne. No matter how I try, I am not at all what a proper young lady ought to be. And when I do try, it usually ends in a complete fiasco—like my getting engaged to Aubrey. But when I am with you—” I blinked hard. “None of that matters. When I am with you, I feel as though I do not have to act or hide or pretend to be other than I am. Because you are like me. In all the ways that matter most, we are the same.”
“The ways that matter most—” Jamie shook his head. “Margaret, what matters most is that I will always be a Rom—a gypsy’s son. And you will always be a gentleman’s daughter.”
“That does not matter to me.” I looked at Jamie steadily. “Does it matter to you? Are you afraid that your tribe would never forgive you for marrying a gadjo girl? Or do you feel that way yourself—do you despise me because my ancestors were not Romany?”
Jamie looked shocked again. “God, no! And as for my tribe, I have none—not really, not anymore. But you … you deserve a husband you can be proud of—someone who can stand beside you, in your world. Not one who is … one who will always stand somewhere halfway between your world and mine.” Jamie pushed his hair back from his brow with one hand and shook his head. “That sounds as though I feel trapped—or resent the choices that have led me here. I don’t. I am sorry to have lost my family—my brother. But I cannot regret leaving all those years ago—or where the years have led me.” He stopped. “I have not told you—Colonel Brandon has been in touch with some of his old army friends. They have made arrangements for me to purchase a commission—a captaincy—if I want it.”
“Oh.” I felt rather blank with surprise. Not that I was surprised by Colonel Brandon’s being grateful for the service Jamie had done. But an army commission was—in the eyes of the world, at least—a vast step upwards to one in Jamie’s position. A captaincy meant an income, and the title—if not exactly the pedigree—of a gentleman. “A captaincy—and are you going to accept? Is that what you wish? To rejoin the army as an officer?”
Jamie lifted one shoulder. “I need to find Sam, wherever he is gone. And Chalmers … I want to see him captured, if I can. I want to make sure that he can no longer spread his poisoned webs and cause the deaths of good men. Besides, there is a war coming, and soon. Men like Chalmers—they are chipping away at Britain’s defences. Hoping to leave a way open for Napoleon’s armies to invade. All of those are good arguments for remaining in uniform. I even believe them. But I confess that—”
Jamie stopped and let out a long breath, straightening his shoulders. “I confess that mostly, I was thinking of you. Thinking that there would be not such an immense gap between us if I were to pay you addresses as Captain Cooper. Except that I am not sure … not sure that it lessens the gap enough.”
He looked down at his ink-stained hands. “I was writing to you, actually, when you came. Or trying to. Writing letter after letter only to tear them up again.” He raised his gaze back to mine. “Because whether I call myself Captain Cooper or Corporal Cooper or Jamie Kalderash, who I am will never truly change. And for me to ask you to give up everything by marrying me—”
“I would not be giving up everything.” My heart had started to pound. “I would not be giving up anything—not anything that I value,” I said. “Purchase your commission if you wish—if it is truly what you want—and I will be happy for you.”
Happy for Jamie, and perhaps a little for my mother, as well. I could understand now what Marianne had meant when she said that our mother might not have as many objections to a match between Jamie and me as she might have had before. There was no question that a captaincy would make a difference in the place Jamie held in society. But for myself—
I took a step towards him—close enough that I might reach up and touch his cheek. “But I do not care about your name, your rank—none of that matters to me. You said before that who you were would not change, and that is true—and I am glad of it. More glad than I can say. Because who you are is what makes any difficulties that the world may push in our way of no consequence at all. At least to me.” I swallowed. “Do you not see? Who you are? That is what made me fall in love with you.”
Jamie looked down at me, his eyes very dark in his lean face—dark and wondering, as though he could not quite believe what he heard. Slowly, his hand came up, sliding down my hair to rest at the curve of my neck. “Margaret.” His chest was rising and falling rapidly. “You said before— You called me an honourable man. And I know that the honourable thing now would be to tell you to wait … to consider. Not to commit yourself to anything you might later come to regret. But I … I cannot seem to do it. Not when there is something I wish to say … something I wish to ask you so much I can scarcely breathe.”
“I suppose—” My own breath was unsteady. The warmth of Jamie’s touch was seeping into me, making the blood race in my veins. “I suppose that you should ask it, then.”
Jamie seemed to brace himself—and then he took both of my hands in his. “Margaret Mary Dashwood, will you be my wife?”
I suppose there is really no need to write my answer here, but for the sake of completeness, I will set it down:
Yes!
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There are three families involved in Margaret Dashwood’s Diary:
Please note that in some cases, Jane Austen did not specify characters’ first names. Uncanonical first names (e.g. Colonel [Christopher] Brandon) and invented characters are shown in square brackets, and characters who were deceased at the start of the story are shown in parentheses. A comprehensive genealogical summary of the original Sense and Sensibility characters is available at pemberley.com.
Dashwood
(Henry Dashwood)
m. (first wife)
+-John Dashwood
| m. Fanny Ferrars
| +-Harry
m. Mrs. Dashwood
+-Elinor
| m. Edward Ferrars
+-Marianne
| m. Col. [Christopher]
| Brandon
+-Margaret
Ferrars
Mrs. Ferrars
+-Edward Ferrars
| m. Elinor Dashwood
+-Robert Ferrars
| m. Lucy Steele
+-Fanny
m. John Dashwood
+-Harry
Brandon / Willoughby / Williams
(Old Mr. Brandon)
+-(brother of Col. B.)
| m. (Eliza)
| sed. unknown (*)
| +-Eliza Williams
| sed. John
| | Willoughby
| | m. Sophia
| | Grey
| +-[Joanna]
+-Col. [Christopher]
| Brandon
| m. Marianne Dashwood
+-sister of Col. B.
* Col. Brandon’s unnamed older brother was married to Eliza (surname probably Williams), who was seduced by an unknown man and had an illegitimate daughter also named Eliza Williams. The second Eliza Williams was a ward of Colonel Brandon and was seduced by John Willoughby.
Middleton / Jennings / Palmer
Mrs. Jennings
+-Charlotte
| m. Thomas Palmer
| +-[William]
+-Mary, Lady Middleton
m. Sir John Middleton
+-children
The cover design incorporates “Miranda” by Sir Frank Dicksee (1878) and “Mares and Foals in a River Landscape” by George Stubbs (c.1763-8). The decorative typeface is Exmouth from PrimaFont Software, and the handwriting in the background comes from a letter written by Jane Austen.