by Rose Lerner
Sir Jasper stood and walked back to Agnes, speaking to her in a low voice. Amy strained to hear. She caught “my house,” “Lady Bedlow,” something she thought was “get her alone” and “woods” but might not have been, and her own name. Everything else was a murmur whose sense she could not fully grasp but which somehow made her intensely uneasy. “Wait for me there,” he finished.
“But sir-” Agnes said, audible and agitated.
Amy heard his next words very clearly. “Oh, come now, it’s not as if you have any affection for the woman.”
“No, sir, but-”
“If you care for your daughter at all, you will do it. I can see her saved, or I can send her to the Assizes.”
There was a pause. “Yes, sir. I’ll go at once.”
Sir Jasper strode out.
Amy heard a rustling thud that might have been Agnes kneeling. “Kit,” she said softly. “Mama has to go out now. Stay here, sweetie.”
“Mama go where?”
“Mama is going to help Josie.” Agnes’s voice shook. “Stay here and watch the pretty lady. Don’t go outside. There are angry people outside.”
“Angry?”
“Because people like Sir Jasper think they own us,” Agnes told him, sounding stronger for a moment. “But they don’t, do they, Kit?”
“No,” Kit said doubtfully.
“They don’t own you on the inside, Kit. Always remember that.” Agnes went out and shut the door behind her.
Something was very wrong. Amy did not know what; she only knew, deep in her bones, that something was wrong, and that Sir Jasper wanted to hurt Nev’s wife.
Amy opened her eyes and considered, staring at the ancient thatch. Yesterday she had managed to walk from her bed to the door and back again without stumbling. Of course, she had leaned on the door frame for a minute or two in between. She did not know if she could make it to the Grange to warn the Bedlows. She did not even know where the Grange was. And Agnes had said there were angry people outside. Whatever that meant, it couldn’t be good.
She could lie here and pretend she had heard nothing. Even if Penelope were hurt, what did it harm Amy? Nev might even take her back if his wife was out of the way.
Amy sighed and threw back the blankets. She sat up, slowly, and her head spun. Standing, she balanced herself with a hand laid flat against the wall.
“Kit? We need to go for a walk.” The child would slow her down, but Amy could hardly leave him behind.
“No outside. Mama said.”
“Mama told you to stay with me. And I’m going for a walk. Do you know where the big house is?”
“Grange,” Kit said. “Sloship gave me sixpence.”
That took her a moment. “His lordship gave you sixpence?”
Kit nodded.
“If we go there now, he’ll give you a shilling,” Amy promised. “Do you know how to get there from here?”
“Another riot?” Lady Bedlow was white and trembling, but Nev had no attention to spare.
“Is this true?” he asked. “How many are involved?”
“It’s true,” Mr. Snively said. “I saw them with my own eyes. Thirty at least and half of them drunk. They want an audience with Sir Jasper. They’re on their way here now.” There were gasps from a number of the guests. Nev distinctly heard his mother’s sharp intake of breath; when he glanced down at Penelope, however, she looked merely intent, her brown eyes fixed on the vicar’s face.
“Where in Heaven’s name is the baronet?” Snively asked.
“He walked out just a minute ago.” Remembering his earlier unease, Nev gestured to a footman. “Go find your master. Tell him it’s urgent.”
Ten excruciating minutes later, made worse by Snively’s unbroken moralizing on the rebellious nature of the English peasant, the butler entered the room. “Sir Jasper is not in the house, my lord. Nor in the stables or any of the outbuildings. Shall I send to the home farm?”
“Send everywhere. Do it quickly.” Nev did not know that he trusted Sir Jasper to deal with the crisis, but they must have a magistrate to read the Riot Act. Or the sheriff, but he was miles away, nearly to Bury St. Edmonds. Perhaps the people would simply disperse. Or perhaps they will hang Sir Jasper to the nearest tree.
“Very good, my lord.” The butler bowed his way out.
Nev looked down and met Penelope’s fearful, resigned eyes. She knew what he was about to say. “I’ve got to go talk to them.”
She opened her mouth as if she were going to protest, then shut it tightly and nodded, once.
“Stay by Thirkell. He’ll protect you if things get ugly.”
She gave a little sobbing laugh. “Who’ll protect you?”
Nev felt a rush of anger. He took his arm from around her. “What do you care? You’d be a deal freer as a widow than a separated wife.”
Now she drew in a sharp, shocked breath.
He looked at her white face, and out of all the ruin of his life today, this was the only thing that mattered. He took a quick step away from her before he could do something stupid and selfish, like beg her to stay. “I’m going to see if I can reason with them,” he said loudly. “All of you stay here. I doubt they will try to hurt you, but you will be safer together.”
“I will go with you,” Mr. Snively said. “Perhaps I can bring them to a sense of their insolence, their hubris if I may say so-”
“You may say nothing of the kind. I consider your hypocritical moralizing partly responsible for this disaster. You will stay here or by God, I will see you broken.”
The vicar fell back, muttering to himself in a shocked undertone.
Several of the other men offered to come with him, but he didn’t know any of them. He didn’t know what they would do. “In a direct contest of strength, five of us will have no better chance than one,” he said. “If it comes to that, we’re already lost. Stay here and protect the women.”
“Let me come with you at least,” Thirkell said. “I know I’m useless, but I’d have your back.”
“I had rather have you than anyone,” Nev told him. Anyone but Percy. And Percy was gone. “But I need you here. Don’t let anything happen to Penelope or my mother.”
Thirkell drew himself up. “Never.” He was going to say more, but Lady Bedlow threw herself on Nev, sobbing.
“Don’t go. Barricade the doors, and when those wretched folk get here we’ll shoot them all. Don’t go, Nate! What will I do if something happens to you? I can’t lose two of my children at once!”
He put her away from him gently. “You haven’t lost Louisa. She’ll be back in a few days. And I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Come, Lady Bedlow.” Penelope’s face was still bloodless, but her voice was steady. “Come and sit by me. You heard Nev. He’ll be back soon.”
To Nev’s surprise, Lady Bedlow allowed Penelope to put her arm around her and lead her to a chair. Penelope looked back at him, once. “You had better be,” she said. “I care.”
Nev had not ridden as far as he would have liked-a mile, give or take-when he saw them ahead of him on the path, a crowd of laborers and their wives. He thought there were more than Mr. Snively had estimated, perhaps forty in all. As the vicar had said, some were drunk. Some held pitchforks and other potentially deadly farming tools, some held-Nev’s heart sank-guns. More poachers, he supposed. When he drew closer, he recognized many of the faces: the Baileys, Aaron Smith, the families of some other of the poachers, more of his laborers. Helen Spratt was there, holding an old fowling piece. He thought for a moment of staying in the saddle, but he did not know how a display of aristocratic authority might strike them at the moment. He dismounted and walked toward them, leading Sir Jasper’s horse.
The group stopped, clustering together. Whispers and murmurs blended together so that he could not hear what they were saying, except for his name. When Nev was ten feet away, Aaron came forward to meet him. “My lord,” he said derisively. “Get out of our way.”
“Where are you g
oing?”
“We’re going to talk to that buggering son-of-a-bitch Sir Jasper and tell him to free our folk.”
“Sir Jasper isn’t at the house. No one can find him. You’d better talk to me.”
Aaron’s brows drew together. “You aren’t a magistrate. You can’t release Josie.”
“You should be glad Sir Jasper isn’t at home. You know that once he reads the Riot Act, you have twenty minutes to disperse before he can take you all by force.”
Aaron sneered. “No doubt he’d try to run us down and kill us like they did those poor folk at Manchester,” he said, loud enough that the assembled mob could hear him. “Let him try. We’re not going to stand like sods and take it the way they did.” There were cheers, and a couple of men raised their guns.
The horse stamped and snorted nervously behind him. Nev quashed a tremor of fear and raised his voice. “This is madness. You cannot do this. For the love of God, go home.”
“We can’t do this?” Aaron asked. “Why? Because we’re the dirt under your feet and we must be good little children? Because Mr. Snively says God says we can’t? Because you’re used to us taking orders and now you’re scared?”
“No,” Nev said, though he was scared. He heard the Oxbridge cadences of his voice project over the crowd and wondered how he sounded to them. “You can’t do this because it will not work. What do you think will happen to you if you kill a baronet and justice of the peace? Do you think the Crown will simply let you walk away? They’ll make you an example to all the countryside, and the poachers too. They’ll hang you and send your children to the workhouse.” He lowered his voice. “Help me stop this, Aaron. Do you think Agnes will be pleased to see you hang by her daughter’s side? I see she had better sense than to come out here.”
Aaron flushed. “I don’t know where Aggie is. And I don’t think she gives a damn whether I’m hanged. But I’m not about to let her little girl die without a fight.”
“Even if Sir Jasper did release Josie and the men,” Nev told the crowd, “he would only retake them all next day, when he could get troops to back him.”
“We know,” Aaron said. “We know you gentry’s word can’t be trusted. It happened to Downham in ’16. We’d be gone before he could come after us.”
Nev looked at them. Some had been here since before he was born. “Really? You’re all going to pick up and leave your homes, every one of you? No, most of you will stay, and then you’ll be arrested and you’ll turn on one another. Don’t you remember why your men are in jail to begin with?”
There was suddenly a ring of empty space around the Baileys. Mr. Bailey’s face flushed. An uncertain mutter rose up among the men.
Nev began to hope he might be successful. “Go home. Go home peacefully before anyone else sees you. I promise I will do everything in my power to save your friends. I am already hiring the best lawyers I can find-”
“Hang lawyers!” someone yelled, and the mood of the mob shifted to violence. “Lawyers are lying, thieving buggers! Free the men now!”
“See how you like losing your family!”
“The only one who might identify us to the magistrate is you!”
A rock flew out of the crowd and struck Nev hard on the shoulder.
Penelope reflected that she and Lady Bedlow were very different women. Penelope wished only for peace to sit silently by the window and watch the drive for Nev’s return. Lady Bedlow’s fear, on the other hand, rendered her even more voluble than usual. She kept up a steady stream of anxious questions (whose answers she did not wait to hear), disjointed reminiscences about Nev’s prowess in school as an orator, and vows of vengeance against any laborers who dared to so much as raise their voices in her son’s presence. In this Mr. Snively encouraged her until Penelope could no longer tell where her hangover ended and her nerves began. Or, God, her morning sickness, what if she were really going to have a baby and something happened to Nev?
She wouldn’t think about it. She couldn’t. If he didn’t come back, and she had told him she might leave him-
There was a brief silence. Penelope drew a grateful breath, and then Lady Bedlow said softly, “Mr. Snively, if he doesn’t come back-”
“You must be brave,” Mr. Snively said. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”
“For God’s sake be silent!” Penelope’s voice was half a shriek, and all the conversations in the room stopped abruptly. “Not another word! You’re driving me mad!” Lady Bedlow’s jaw dropped, hurt tears starting in her eyes. Everyone was staring. Penelope knew she ought to feel ashamed, but she didn’t. She only wanted Nev.
A woman she did not know put a hand on her arm and began speaking in a low, sympathetic voice. Penelope shook her hand off. “Don’t touch me!” She turned back to the window. There was someone coming up the drive, but it was a woman, so Penelope wasn’t interested.
Whispers rose around the room in a wave. Penelope didn’t care, so long as they left her alone. She felt someone coming up behind her, and tensed for a confrontation.
“Steady on,” Thirkell said. “Nev’s talked his way out of worse scrapes than this.” He didn’t say anything else, only stood solidly at her shoulder. Penelope felt comforted.
She watched the woman come slowly up the drive and realized it was Agnes Cusher. Her heart quickened. Had Agnes been at the riot? Did she bear news?
Agnes was almost at the door. Penelope glanced at Lady Bedlow, sobbing quietly into Mr. Snively’s handkerchief. She had better hear what Agnes had to say herself first.
“I have to use the necessary,” she told Thirkell, then slipped out of the room and half ran to the front door. The footmen must all be searching for Sir Jasper; no one saw her ease the door open and slip out.
Agnes started back, looking shaken. “B-bad news-”
Penelope closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t faint. “What happened? Is he alive?”
“Who?”
Penelope was at once disappointed and transcendently relieved that the woman had no news of Nev.
“I’ve come about the girl. Miss Raeburn. She’s taken bad, calling for you.”
“Calling for me?”
“You’ve got to come and talk to her. I’m afraid she’ll do herself a hurt. She liked you, that time you came to visit.”
Penelope did not want to go. She wanted to stay here and wait for Nev. Selfish, she reprimanded herself. It did not hold the same weight it once had.
But what would Nev say if Penelope let his mistress suffer alone? What if Miss Wray were really to injure herself?
Agnes actually reached out as if she would take Penelope’s arm, though she didn’t quite dare. “Come on. I shouldn’t even have left her alone for this long. Not with the men up in arms.”
A fresh fear struck Penelope. She should not go out with only another woman, not today. It might prove dangerous. But she couldn’t take Lord Thirkell with her; she had to leave him here to protect Nev’s mother. And she could not ask for any other escort, because any gentleman present would be sure to recognize Nev’s mistress, and it would be a scandal.
“Please, you must!”
The desperation in Agnes’s voice decided Penelope. “Let’s go.” She started down the steps.
Amy, her eyes closed, leaned against one of the huge oaks that lined the long drive to the Grange. Sure enough, Kit had known the way, but it had seemed to take years to get even this far-years of putting one foot down in front of the other, sweating, and struggling for breath. She had spent the last month indoors, in rooms with tiny windows; the sun was blinding. The heat too was unbearable, even in the shade. It was at least another quarter mile to the house, and the world was already starting to wobble around the edges.
“Come ’long.” Kit tugged at Amy’s skirts. “Shilling.”
Amy opened her eyes reluctantly, seeing the little boy through a wash of blue produced by too much sunlight.
Kit waddled a few feet toward the manor and stopped, staring at Amy insistent
ly.
“Coming, Kit.” Amy pushed herself upright and started forward. She made it three steps before she tumbled and fell, the flats of her arms hitting the gravel with a painful scraping. She lay with her cheek against the ground and stared at the rolling park that was Nev’s birthright.
Something terrible was going to happen to Nev’s wife because Amy was too weak to make it another quarter of a mile. Her last thought before she lost consciousness was that the heroine of a play would have managed it.
Nev’s arm throbbed where the rock had hit it. “Think about what you are doing,” he shouted, placing a calming hand on the restive horse. “Who is tending the harvest while you play at storming the Bastille?”
There was silence.
“I know my father didn’t treat you well. I know you have no reason to trust me. But I’m trying, and I am going to save your friends. You aren’t helping them by proving Sir Jasper right that you all wish to murder the gentry in their beds. Bring in the harvest and be patient-”
Aaron Smith looked uncertain.
Helen Spratt stepped out of the crowd. “We’ve been patient an awful long time.” The coarse tones of her voice cut effortlessly through Nev’s words. “I’ve been patient, and my mother was patient before me, and my grandmother. I ain’t going to be patient anymore. I’m getting Harry back.” She leveled her fowling piece at Nev’s face from two feet away. “Get out of my way.”
The crowd drew back, gasps and shocked whispers rising.
“Helen,” Aaron said, real alarm in his voice.
Nev’s heart pounded, and Sir Jasper’s horse snorted behind him, pacing backward. I can’t die, he thought. I have responsibilities. He had to stand aside. But if he did, they would march to Greygloss and do something unalterably foolish, and they would all be hanged, every last one.
Besides, Penelope and his mother were at Greygloss.
He straightened. “No. If you want to hang, the quickest way to it is by shooting me. Well, here I am.”
“Helen,” Aaron Smith hissed. “Don’t.”
