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“Very good, thanks. Good morning, Miss March.” The name took me aback for a moment then I grinned to myself. I had played at being Miss Hammond for too long. It was time to reclaim my own name once and for all.
I looked up and flashed him a quick smile. “Good morning.” My face fell as I took a closer look at him. A spectacular bruise was blossoming on his jaw, and I jumped to my feet.
“Oh, heavens! It’s worse than I thought last night. I still can’t quite believe Gerald did that to you. He’s always seemed so mild-mannered.”
Sebastian touched his jaw ruefully. “Yes, well, apparently still waters run deep in his case.” He glanced down at the newspaper on the table. “I see you’ve the morning edition there. I suppose they’ve been rude about you?”
I pulled a face. “Brutal. As expected. One doesn’t just jilt a peer’s son with impunity,” I said with an attempt at lightness. “But I’m far more interested in this story about the aviatrix who’s gone missing in Syria.”
I handed the newspaper to Sebastian, who skimmed the article quickly. He gave it back without a word and I looked at him curiously. “Are you quite all right, Mr. Cantrip? You’ve gone very white under that bruise.”
Sebastian summoned a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Have I? I suppose it’s just the delayed effects of yesterday’s dramatics. Shock and all that. I’ll be right as rain in a bit.”
“Won’t you have some breakfast?” Father asked him, his expression thoughtful.
“No, sir, thank you. They fed me quite heartily at the inn. I merely wanted to pay my respects on my way back to London.”
“You’re going back? Already?” I masked the pang I felt with a quick smile. “Of course you are. You have a parish there, and I’ve managed to drag you away from it and through the muck. Shall I see you out?”
He followed me to the front door of the cottage.
“I know what you’re worried about,” I said, pitching my voice low. “But you aren’t named in the newspaper piece,” I assured him. “They haven’t any idea how I got away, and I won’t tell a soul. I ought to have realised what awful trouble you could get into by helping me, and I won’t forget it. Really, I owe you most dreadfully and I never forget a debt.”
He shook his head, his expression dazed. “You are a unique young woman, Miss March.” He hesitated on the doorstep. “I wish I didn’t have to dash away.”
“So do I,” I told him. “I feel as if I’ve just imposed on you horribly and haven’t had the chance to make it up to you.”
For an instant the buccaneer flash was back in his eyes, and I wondered just how hard he found it to be a properly behaved member of the clergy. “Would you like to make it up to me?”
I felt a thrill at his audacity, but I primmed my mouth, remembering propriety for once.
“Thank you. For everything.” I put out my hand, but he ignored it. Instead he settled both of his hands on my shoulders, leaning down to brush a quick kiss to my cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and his whiskers rasped a little against my skin. Before I could respond, he was gone, out the door and out of my life as quickly as he’d come.
I closed the door behind him feeling a little deflated and oddly nostalgic. He had been a perfect companion in my little adventure, and I could never have managed my escape without him. After months of Gerald’s chilly affections, being around Sebastian had been like basking in summer sunshine. It was absurd, I told myself firmly. I had only just met him. One couldn’t get homesick for a person.
When I returned to the breakfast table, Father was looking thoughtfully at the newspaper I’d left behind.
“Everything all right, Father?”
He gave me a bland smile. “Quite, my dear. Now, finish your breakfast and perhaps you and Masterman would like to take a nice walk and get acquainted with the village. This will be your home for as long as you like.”
* * *
It took fewer than twenty minutes to walk completely around the village, and by the time I finished I had a pebble in my shoe and had counted precisely seventeen front curtains twitch as we walked past.
“It seems the entire village has already heard about our arrival,” I told Masterman.
She pursed her lips. “People are the same wherever you go, miss—interested in gossip and scandal, and you’ve given them meat enough to feed on for a year.”
We had just come to the pond on the village green and I stopped. I had been considering how to approach her ever since she had told Mother she would stay with me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Masterman, not exactly. But she was my last tie to Gerald’s family and my near-miss as the future Viscountess Madderley. The sooner I severed that connection, the better. Besides, there was something uncanny about her, a quiet watchfulness I didn’t entirely understand.
I cleared my throat. “It’s really very good of you to stay on, all things considered.” I chose my words carefully. “After all, working for me won’t exactly count in your favour when you apply for a new position.”
She said nothing as we walked on, and I decided to push just a little further. “I mean, you won’t want to go on working for me forever. I don’t even know what my plans will be.”
“I am certain you will figure it out,” she said mildly.
I suppressed a sigh. She was going to be difficult to dislodge, I decided. And the only solution was a more direct approach.
“See here, Masterman—”
She turned to look at me, her hazel eyes placid. There was a slightly greenish cast to them, like a mossy stone on a riverbed. “I am not leaving, miss.”
I gaped at her. “How on earth did you know that’s what I was about to suggest?”
She shrugged. “It’s only logical. Mrs. Hammond suggested it last night and you lit up like Bonfire Night.”
I ducked my head. “That wasn’t very kind of me. I apologise, Masterman. And it isn’t that I don’t like you. You mustn’t think that.”
“I don’t,” she replied with that same unflappable calm.
“Oh, well, good. Because I do,” I assured her with a fatuous smile. “It’s just that—”
“I make you uncomfortable,” she supplied.
“That’s not at all what I meant to say,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush warmly.
“But it is what you feel,” she said. There was no malice in her voice and her gaze was calm and level. I heaved a sigh.
“Very well. Yes. You make me uncomfortable. I’m afraid you’ll always be a reminder of how badly I behaved.”
“But I don’t think you did behave badly,” she told me.
I stared at her a long moment. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It happens to be true,” she said. She began to walk and I hurried after, suddenly eager to talk to her. There was something curiously topsy-turvy about the mistress chasing after the maid, and I grinned as I caught up to her.
“You don’t think I ought to have married Gerald?”
“Absolutely not. Miss March, what do you think a servant’s chief responsibility is?”
I thought of the endless round of brushing clothes and whipping hems and pinning hair and shrugged.
“It’s to be watchful—to see all and understand what we see. I watched you with Mr. Madderley, and I could tell from the first moment I saw you together you were entirely unsuited.”
“You might have told me,” I said, kicking a pebble.
“You did not ask,” she returned mildly.
I grinned again. “All right, Masterman. I’ll give you that. And you can stay on if you like.”
She gave me a brisk nod to indicate her acceptance. We walked on in silence for a little while, taking a turn around the pond. A few apathetic ducks bobbed on the glassy surface and a limp lily floated along. There was no one else on the village green, and even the smoke coming from the chimneys drifted in lazy circles.
“Masterman, with your gift for watchfulness what do you make of our present circumstances?”
She looked around the village, taking in the quiet shops and tranquil, sleepy air of the place.
“I think, miss, we are in very great danger of being bored.”
* * *
She was not wrong. After that, our days settled into a pattern. Masterman and I went for long walks each morning, and after luncheon Father painted in his studio while I tried to make friends with George, although he remained stubbornly unmoved by my charms. I asked him to teach me to make his clever little soufflés or roast a duck or let me polish the silver, but each attempt was met with a firm rebuff. “That’s your side of the cottage,” he would state flatly, pushing me out of the kitchen and back into the hall. It was too bad really, because I was bored senseless and genuinely interested in acquiring a few new skills. It might come in handy to be able to roast a duck, I thought, but George was unwilling to oblige.
So I occupied myself with brooding. I wrote no letters and received only one—a curt message from Mother stating that she had returned the wedding gifts but that I had been remiss in returning my engagement ring to Gerald. It was an enormous pigeon’s blood ruby, a relic from the days of the first King George and worn by every Madderley bride. The viscountess had been particularly resentful at giving it up, and I was abashed I hadn’t thought to give it back to Gerald when he left the cottage. I made a note to take it with me when I went up to London next; I couldn’t possibly trust such a valuable jewel to the post. But London held no charms for me in my present mood. I had given up reading the Town newspapers after the second day. They were vitriolic on the subject of my almost-marriage, and going up would mean facing people who had decided I was only slightly less awful than Messalina.
So I buried myself in books, raiding Father’s library for anything that looked promising. There were a handful of Scarlet Pimpernel books and an assortment of detective stories, but beyond that nothing but weighty tomes on art history. I had almost resigned myself to reading one of them when I discovered a set of books high on a shelf, bound in scarlet morocco. They were privately printed, that much was obvious, and I gave a little gasp when I saw the author’s name: Lady Julia Brisbane. She was Father’s youngest sister, and the most notorious of our eccentric family. After a particularly awful first marriage, she had taken as her second husband a Scot who was half-Gypsy and rumoured to have the second sight. The fact that he was distantly related to the Duke of Aberdour hadn’t counted for much, I seemed to recall. There had been scandal and outrage that a peer’s daughter had married a man in trade. Nicholas Brisbane was a private inquiry agent, and Aunt Julia had joined him in his work. Ending up a duchess must have been particularly sweet for her, I decided. Father had talked about them my first morning at the cottage, and as near as I could guess, these books were her memoirs.
I turned the first over in my hands. Silent in the Grave was incised in gilt letters and a slender piece of striped silk served as a bookmark. I opened to the first page and read the first line. “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I slipped down to sit on the carpet, the books tumbled in my lap, and began to read.
I did not move until it was time for tea, and only then because Father joined me. He beckoned me to the table by the fire, giving a nod of his silvery-white head to the book in my hands.
“I see you’ve discovered Julia’s memoirs.”
I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs. I had spent the whole day wandering the fog-bound streets of Victorian London with my aunt, striding over windy Yorkshire moors and climbing the foothills of the Himalayas. I took a plate from him and sipped at my tea.
“I can’t believe I never knew she did all those things.”
His smile was gentle. “It’s never been a secret.”
“Yes, I always knew she went sleuthing with Uncle Brisbane but I had no idea the dangers they faced. And you—”
I broke off, giving him a hard look.
He burst out laughing. “There’s no need to look so accusing, child. Yes, I did my fair share of detective work, as well.”
“I can’t believe Aunt Julia almost killed you once with her experiments with explosives.”
“Once?” His eyes were wide. “Keep reading.”
He urged sandwiches and cakes on me, and I ate heartily, suddenly ravenous after missing luncheon entirely.
“That’s what I want,” I told him.
He had been staring into the fire, wool-gathering, and my voice roused him. He blinked a few times and looked up from the fire. “What, child?”
“I want what Aunt Julia has. I want a purpose. I want work that makes me feel useful. I don’t just want to arrange flowers and bring up babies. Oh, that’s all right for other girls, but it isn’t right for me. I want something different.”
“Perhaps you always have,” he offered mildly.
“I think I have,” I replied slowly. “I’ve always been so different from the others and I never understood why. My half-sisters and -brothers, my schoolmates. Don’t mistake me—I’ve had jolly enough times, and I’ve had friends,” I told him, pulling a face. “I was even head girl one year. But as long as I can remember, I’ve had the oddest sense that it was just so much play-acting, that it wasn’t my real life at all. Does that sound mad?”
“Mad as a March hare,” he said, his lips twitching. He nodded to the mantelpiece, where a painting hung, a family crest. Our family crest. It was a grand-looking affair with plenty of scarlet and gold and a pair of rabbits to hold it up. “Family lore maintains the old saying about March hares is down to us, that it isn’t about rabbits at all. It refers to our eccentricity, the wildness in our blood. And the saying is a tribute to the fact that we do as we dare. As do you,” he finished mildly.
I started. “What do you mean by that?”
A wry smile played over his lips. “I know more of your exploits than you think, child.”
“Exploits! I haven’t done anything so very interesting,” I protested.
He gave me a sceptical look. “Poppy, give me some credit. I mayn’t have been a very devoted father, but neither have I been a disinterested one. Every school you’ve been to, every holiday you’ve taken, I’ve had reports.”
“What sort of reports?” I demanded.
“The sort any father would want. I had little opportunity to ascertain your character myself, so I made my own inquiries. I learnt you were healthy and being brought up quite properly, if dully. Araminta has proven herself a thoroughly unimaginative but unobjectionable mother. At first, I thought it best, given the sort of family we come from. I thought a chance at normality might be the best thing for you. But the more I came to discover of you, the more I came to believe you were one of us. They do say that blood will always tell, Poppy.”
I gave him a look of grudging admiration. “I’m torn. I don’t know whether to be outraged that you spied upon me or flattered that you cared enough to do it.”
His smile was wistful. “I always cared, child. I cared enough to give you a chance at an ordinary life. And if you think that wasn’t a sacrifice of my own heart’s blood, then you’re not half as clever as I think you are.”
His eyes were oddly bright and I looked away for a moment. I looked back when he had cleared his throat and recovered himself. “I’m surprised you found me clever from my school reports. The mistresses were far more eloquent on the subject of my behaviour.”
“No, your marks were frightful except in languages. Looking solely at those I might have been forgiven for thinking you were slightly backwards. It was those reports of your behaviour that intrigued me, particularly the modest acts of theft and arson.”
“But those were necessary!” I protested. “I broke into the science master’s room to free the rabbits he’d bought for dissection. And the fire was only a very small one. I knew if the music mistress saw her desk on fire, she’d reveal where she’d hidden the money they accused the kitchen maid of stealing.”
He clucked his tongue. “Impetuous. Instinctive. Audacious. These are March traits, child. We’ve been living by them for the past six hundred years. There have been epic poems written about our oddities, and more than one king of England has had cause to be grateful for them. And now you are one of us.”
I gave a little shiver as if a goose had walked over my grave. “Rather a lot to live up to.”
He shrugged. “I should think you would find that consoling. You have an ancestor who eloped with her footman, another who rode his horse into Parliament, a great-grandmother who used to dance with a scooped-out pumpkin on her head because she found it cool and refreshing. And those are the ones I can talk about in polite company,” he added with a twinkle. “Don’t be put off by your legacy, Poppy. Embrace it. Follow your own star, wherever it leads, child.”
“Follow my own star,” I said slowly. “Yes, I think I will.”
The only question was, where?
* * *
The next day I had my answer. I had gone to the pantry to try yet again to help George with the washing up, determinedly cheerful in the face of his resistance.
“You will come to like me,” I promised him.
“I have my doubts,” he replied shortly. I put out a hand to wipe a glass, and he flicked the glass cloth sharply at my fingers. “Leave that be.”
“I could read to you while you work,” I offered. I picked up the book he had stashed on a shelf in the pantry—Northanger Abbey.
I sighed. “It’s not Austen’s best, you know.”
He snatched the book from my hand. “It’s Austen and that’s good enough for me.”
