Читать книгу Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 22

JULIA DIDN’T GO downstairs until the second dinner gong had rung, hoping to avoid conversation with the family in the main salon and holding on to Alice’s hand because…because she was a selfish, craven coward, that’s what she was.

“I like it here,” Alice told her as, still holding Julia’s hand, she jumped off the last stair, landing gracefully in her satin soft-soled slippers, her curls bouncing around her smiling face. “Everyone is so very nice, and I’m not stuck away in the nursery eating porridge. Although Buttercup will miss me horribly. Could I please go back upstairs and—”

“I don’t think there’s a place laid for Buttercup, sweetheart,” Julia said, smiling, then swiftly said something to divert the child. “But I have heard that you will sit beside Callie at every meal now that you behaved so well at luncheon this afternoon, and she’s almost as fine a companion as Buttercup, isn’t she?”

Alice became very solemn. “She’s better, but we can’t tell Buttercup because she’ll be sad.”

Walking slowly, in no hurry to enter the dining room, Julia said, “I thought Buttercup was a boy rabbit.”

“He was, but Callie and I decided that no boys should be allowed in the nursery, so now he’s a girl. We don’t like boys. They’re very fickle, you understand. We took a pact and everything.”

Now Julia grinned. “Is that so? Well, my darling, I think that’s very wise of you and Callie.”

“She says so. That we’re even brilliant, because boys are lower than snails, and that’s quite low. Julia? What’s a fickle?”

“Um…well…I suppose Callie meant that a fickle person plays with you very nicely one day and then ignores you the next—and for no good reason, too,” Julia said, trying not to think of Chance as she explained.

“Oh. Like Court being nice to Callie, tossing a ball with her one day and then when she wants to play again today, calling her a pernikious brat and telling her to go away?”

“Pernicious, sweetheart. And yes, that’s it exactly,” Julia said as they entered the dining room to see half the chairs still empty. Spencer was there, his left arm in a sling, his expression bordering on petulant, as if he dared anyone to say he was still too sick to have left his bed, but he was the only male Becket present.

Julia knew where Chance had gone, but to see that Rian, Court and Ainsley were also absent? Clearly something was afoot. And just as clearly she shouldn’t comment on that fact.

“Come sit next to me, Alice,” Cassandra called out cheerfully. “We’re all just sitting where we want to tonight, except for Spence, of course. He’d rather be in Hades than here with all us girls.”

“Stubble it, brat,” Spence growled halfheartedly, reaching for his wineglass as Julia sat down beside him.

Morgan, who was already seated across the table from her brother, made an elaborate business out of unfolding her serviette and placing it in her lap. “My, aren’t you the cheery one, Spencer Becket. What’s the matter? Wouldn’t the other boys invite you along to play?”

“That means they’re all fickles, and shame on them,” Alice solemnly informed Julia as she tucked a linen serviette into the neck of the child’s pretty pink gown, just as her father had done for her when she was a little girl.

“Yes, dear,” Julia said, biting back a nervous giggle. “But we’re polite ladies and we don’t make such comments in company.”

“Oh. But they are fickles, aren’t they?”

While Morgan and Spencer continued their argument, Julia tapped a finger against her own lips before intoning seriously, “Porridge. Nursery.”

“I’m sorry.” Alice pulled a comical face and quickly turned to speak with Cassandra.

“Morgan,” Elly said quietly from the head of the table, her chin lowered as she appeared to be inspecting her water glass, “that will be enough, thank you,” and both Morgan and Spencer went silent, holding their argument to glares across the table.

Then Eleanor looked up, smiled at Julia, who was suitably impressed with the seemingly fragile young woman’s quiet air of command. “Papa and everyone went to the Last Voyage to visit with our friends, something they do once a week, leaving us ladies on our own. Poor Spence couldn’t go with them, not with his injured arm.”

“Yes, your arm,” Julia said, something contrary in her not about to willingly swallow Elly’s fib. Either these people trusted her, let her in, or she would be as contrary as she wished to be. Even if her papa was sitting on some lovely cloud, tsk-tsking and racing to convince the other angels that he’d “raised the child up much better than this.”

So looking, she hoped, merely idly curious, she asked, “How did you come to injure your arm, Spence? A sprain, I suppose? I did notice that your mount had suffered some sort of…misadventure. Did you fall off?”

“I most certainly did not,” Spencer shot back angrily. “And where’s Fanny? Why is she always late?”

Morgan dipped her spoon into the soup that had already been set before everyone. “To annoy you would be my guess, brother dear. Oh, here she comes now.” Then in a low whisper Morgan added, “Bloody hell.”

Julia, whose back was to the door, turned in her chair to see Fanny entering the dining room on the arm of Lieutenant Diamond. There was color in the girl’s cheeks, but all the flawless Irish complexion around those two spots of color had gone deathly pale.

“Look who I found as I was returning from my walk,” she said, her cheerful tone not accompanied by a smile. “Lieutenant Diamond has come to see Chance and Papa. I’ve told him Chance is gone about the king’s business, didn’t I, Lieutenant?”

“That you did, Miss Fanny. Good evening Miss Becket, Miss Carruthers, ladies—and, of course, Mr. Becket,” Diamond said as he bowed, his eyes on Morgan, who was blinking rapidly in his direction, her flirtation just a tad overdone. “A fine man, your brother. But I did still hope to see Mr. Ainsley Becket on a matter that I’m sure is of no interest to you ladies.”

Spencer belatedly got to his feet, also to bow, although his greeting was more in the way of a short, sharp nod of his head. “As Fanny also probably already told you, our father isn’t here.”

Morgan rested her chin in her palm as she leaned one elbow on the table. “Oh, hush, Spence. And on the contrary, Lieutenant. I find your brave work with the dragoons highly interesting…and very exciting.”

“Morgan, sit back,” Elly said, “Juanita needs to put down those bowls.”

Julia was distracted for the moments it took Juanita to place a large bowl in the center of the table, then deftly follow up by transferring two heavy platters balanced on her beefy right arm to the table before turning on her heels and heading back toward the doorway that led to a set of stairs and the kitchens below.

Two things amazed Julia, had amazed her from the beginning, about the dining room at Becket Hall. One was that other than for the soup course (for everyone but Alice), the food was delivered in large bowls and platters, and everyone helped themselves, then passed the food to the next person. Highly informal, the Beckets dining as she and her papa had at the vicarage, with no attentive servants, no separate courses. Not at all, she knew from novels she had read, the way things were done in London society.

The other thing that amazed her, even more than Juanita’s bulk or the soft white blouse and many-colored striped skirt she wore, was the fact that the woman had no right hand.

Chance had told her there were two servants—she must really think of another way to think of these people than the ill-fitting title of servant—one man, one woman, each missing a hand. But she had thought he’d been teasing her. Was the penalty for thievery still the cutting off of a hand? Not here in England but on those islands she was so curious to learn about in more detail?

What did not amaze her was that Juanita was a part of this very unique household.

Julia was brought back to attention as Alice tugged on her sleeve. “Is Morgan a flirt, Julia?” the child asked, thankfully quietly. “Callie just said she’s an abomipal flirt.”

Julia swallowed a laugh, at the same time wishing the inquisitive Alice had held her question until after dinner, when she took the child upstairs to the nursery. “Abominable, dear, and no, she isn’t. She’s merely young.”

“No she’s not. I’m young.”

Julia patted Alice’s hand as she reconsidered the wisdom of allowing Alice at table, then whispered, “Later, sweetheart. Look, Callie’s spooning some peas onto your plate for you. Isn’t that nice? You told me you like peas.”

“I love peas. I just don’t like soup. It’s too dribbly,” Alice corrected and turned back to her plate.

This finally let Julia free to listen to the conversation taking place as Eleanor, their hostess, allowed Lieutenant Diamond to remain standing—a clear sign that he wasn’t going to be invited to break bread with the family.

“…unfortunately, we also discovered three fresh graves. Forgive me, I shouldn’t speak of such things in front of you ladies.”

“Only three?” Spencer whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he picked up his soup spoon, showing himself to be both daring and very young. “Perhaps the other two dug themselves out and ran away.”

Julia’s stomach did a small flip. Spencer had sounded quite happy. Had she really convinced herself that there was some sort of romance, some dash, in Chance riding out with the smugglers? There was no “romance” in dead bodies. Men most certainly were put together with more of a liking for bloodletting than were women, if she was to be any judge.

But even more than that, Lieutenant Diamond must be silenced, a thought that hit her only a heartbeat before Eleanor Becket said coolly, “There are children present, Lieutenant, the fact of which it should not be necessary to point out to a gentleman.”

“And there’s your problem,” Spencer said in between mouthfuls of soup, his unruly black curls half covering his face, and Julia believed she could actually feel the heat radiating from him. “You can put a pig in a scarlet coat. Doesn’t make him a gentleman. Does it, Lieutenant?”

Julia closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up at Lieutenant Diamond. There were inappropriate times, there were inappropriate questions. Alice had certainly proved both with her innocent questions. But then there was just opening one’s mouth and flat-out sticking one’s head on the block.

The soldier bowed twice, in both Spencer’s and Eleanor’s directions. “I accept that insult, sir, and offer a thousand apologies, Miss Becket. I only wished to inform your brother and Mr. Becket that these are dangerous times on the Marsh and becoming more so daily. It would appear we have our own war going on here, beyond that of our struggle against Napoleon.”

Then the lieutenant turned smartly once more, to look at Spencer. “I see you’ve been injured, Mr. Becket. Perhaps you could indulge an officer of the Crown and tell me how you came about that injury? Is it…recent?”

“I’ll bloody throw you out on your ear, that’s what I’ll do,” Spencer said, lifting his left arm and ruthlessly ripping off his sling. He tossed the black silk on the table, clearly ready to leave his chair so he could put his words into action.

Julia couldn’t help herself—she gave him a sharp, sideways kick under the table, the side of her shoe landing squarely against his anklebone. Spencer, who was already half out of his chair, abruptly sat down and turned to glare at her.

The tall, blond-haired soldier lifted his chin, looking down on Spencer. “My, Mr. Becket, guest as I am in this house, I must say your reluctance to cooperate with the king’s representative in this area is most disconcerting. Almost, Mr. Becket, as if you have something to hide.”

It was now or never, Julia decided. Either she was a part of this family or she wasn’t.

“Oh, Spence, calm yourself, please,” Julia said, laying a hand on his forearm. “There’s no need to be so gallant in my defense.”

Spencer frowned in obvious confusion. “I…but I want to—”

“Yes, dear, I know,” Julia continued quickly. “I had only begged your promise not to tell Chance, that’s all. I never meant to have you come under improper suspicion just to save my embarrassment.”

“But I—”

“Spence, let Julia speak,” Eleanor said from the end of the table. “It is, after all, her story to tell. Go on, please, Julia.”

Julia’s mind had been working nineteen to the dozen inventing a story that would completely protect Spencer, and now she took a steadying breath and looked at the lieutenant, whose fine English coloring was already, she noticed, going a little green.

“Miss Carruthers,” Lieutenant Diamond said hastily, “I assure you, I would not wish to embarrass you in any way or ask Mr. Spencer Becket to break a confidence. Mr. Chance Becket would be—”

“My fiancée would be extremely put out with me if I did not answer questions put by you, sir,” Julia told him, cutting him off, because this had to be said. “I was out walking by myself today—such a fine day, you’ll agree—and foolishly believed the handsome bay horse inside the stable yard fence wouldn’t mind if I stepped inside the fence to pet it. Well, it appears, sir, the horse did very much mind, and if it weren’t for Spencer’s timely arrival, I might well have been trampled. I have so little experience with horses, you see. I was very naive. They aren’t like puppies, are they?”

“Oh, Julia, that’s awful!” Alice exclaimed, and Cassandra quickly put her arm around the child and pulled her tight against her chest, effectively quieting her.

These Beckets worked well together, Julia thought quickly before continuing her enormous fib. “Well, sir, I came away with nary a scratch, but Spencer bruised his arm badly, and that poor horse suffered a nasty scratch against the fence.”

She patted Spencer’s arm, then folded her hands on the edge of the table as she smiled at the lieutenant. “I should have known I couldn’t hide my reckless action from Chance and I will confess all to him when he returns. But if you could please, Lieutenant, be discreet if you should happen to see him as he is out and about on the king’s business, I would greatly appreciate that kindness. Chance worries so over me, you understand.”

Their food grew cool as Lieutenant Diamond apologized for a good five minutes and then finally took his leave.

In the silence that followed, Julia nervously counted to fifteen inside her head before anyone spoke. And then everyone spoke at once.

“Callie pinched me when I tried to talk. That wasn’t nice,” Alice complained, and Cassandra quickly apologized.

“That was brilliant, Julia. Diamond all but ran out of here, fearing for his commission and seeing himself in the mud on the Peninsula, going toe-to-toe with the French like a real soldier,” Fanny exclaimed as she used a large fork to skewer a thick lamb chop.

Morgan grinned. “You tell a fine tale, Julia. Horses aren’t much like puppies? I could hardly keep from laughing and ruining everything. And Spence as the hero? Do you think the good lieutenant saw my eyes cross at that bit of nonsense?”

“Shut up, Morgan,” Spencer ordered in the way brothers speak to annoying sisters as he retrieved his sling and tossed it to the floor. Then he turned to place a kiss on Julia’s cheek. “Morgan’s right, though. That was brilliant, and I was an idiot. I should have known Chance wouldn’t let his heart cloud his judgment.”

Now it was Julia’s turn to go pale, a moment before she felt color running into her cheeks. “Yes…thank you, Spence.”

Alice tugged on her sleeve. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt, Julia?”

“Positive, darling,” she said, hugging the girl close as she looked at Eleanor, who had yet to say anything.

Eleanor just looked at her, as Julia held her breath, then nodded in that ladylike, regal way of hers and went back to her soup.

Julia exhaled and picked up her own spoon.

“Spence?”

“No more, Morgan,” he growled.

“Very well then, suit yourself. See if I care a snap if you bleed to death.”

Spencer looked at his left sleeve and uttered a soft curse. Clearly his violent show of no longer needing his sling had reopened his wound.

“If you’ll allow me to be excused, Elly?” he said, getting to his feet to bow to Eleanor. Julia could now see both the dark wet patch on his sleeve and the trickle of fresh red blood running down over the back of his hand.

Spencer made it halfway out of the dining room before slowly crumpling to the carpet in a faint.

And that fairly well put paid to the Becket’s evening meal.

THE NEXT MORNING Julia and Morgan donned heavier capes, as the weather had turned damp and misty, and made their way along the shoreline to the village, Chance’s ring tucked up in Julia’s pocket.

“Do you know how Spencer is this morning?”

“Spence is fine. Odette took care of him, but she was angry. Couldn’t even remember her English, but just kept railing at him in that mix of French and whatever it is she speaks when she’s upset.”

Julia shivered. “I don’t think I’d like to be on the receiving end of Odette’s anger. But Spencer really worried me last night.”

“Spence is much too headstrong,” Morgan said dismissingly, neatly hopping from the shale and sand up onto the wooden flagway that was wide enough for she and Julia to walk side by side. “Hot-blooded. Always wanting to play the hero. Papa should simply buy him a commission and let him trot off to war. It’s all Spence wants. All Rian wants, too. They’re both terrified the war will be over before they can get there.”

“And this worries you?” Julia asked, carefully picking her way on the wet, slippery flagway.

“No. Not a bit. A person should do what a person wants to do. And it’s even worse for us women.” She stopped, turned to smile at Julia, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Don’t you ever wish to just do something? Forget about your skirts and your fragile nature and just do something? Be somebody?”

Julia frowned, truly not understanding whatever it was Morgan was trying to say. “I am somebody, Morgan, and so are you. And Mr. Becket is wonderfully lenient. You won’t find such freedom of behavior in London.”

“Then that’s decided. I won’t go. You tell Chance for me, would you? Tell him I most humbly decline his kind invitation—or something of that sort.”

“Chance invited you to come to London for a season?”

“Uh-huh, but I won’t go now, not if there are going to be a multitude of rules Chance would expect me to obey, because we’d both end up being very disappointed,” Morgan said, turning to peer into the small, dusty shop window. “Oh, Ollie’s waving me in. I suppose the leather has arrived for my new riding boots. Italian leather, you know. The very finest.”

“But aren’t we—never mind,” Julia said, smiling at her own naiveté. From Florence to Spain to the French coast to Romney Marsh. “Shall we go inside?”

“No, no, I’ll take forever. Ollie insists on new measurements each time.” Morgan leaned closer. “I think he likes holding my feet and looking at my legs, but he’s an old man now, and I don’t see the harm, do you? I giggle and tell him my feet are ticklish, and he smiles and blushes.”

“You’re incorrigible, you know,” Julia told her. “And I think I like you very much. Where is the blacksmith located?”

“At the end of the village and then another few steps along, in case the forge catches fire. I’ll join you when I’m done or you can just walk back here, if you don’t mind? Waylon’s probably waiting for you.”

“Will I have to giggle as I let him hold my hand to measure my finger?”

“Only if you want his wife to take a pitchfork to you,” Morgan said, winking, and Julia headed toward the blacksmith shop, now able to see the smoke rising from the forge.

She couldn’t help but notice people stopping, staring at her, so she lifted her chin and smiled, nodded to the ladies and kept moving, her pace increasing as she passed by the larger building displaying a burned-wood overhead sign, Last Voyage.

By the time she reached the smithy, Julia wondered if she had grown a second head, for all the curious looks she was getting, which possibly explained why she hadn’t noticed she was being followed.

She’d pulled open one of the remarkably heavy doors and taken no more than two steps into the dark, overheated shop smelling of hot iron, where a leather-aproned man the size of a door himself yelled at the young boy working the bellows on a nearly white-hot fire, when a voice behind her said, “Guard the door, Gautier.”

Julia instantly froze in place, then turned about to see Jacko. Looming over her, smiling that delighted, deadly smile. Just the sort of smile Julia imagined the devil wearing as he welcomed newcomers to hell.

“Good morrow, Miss Carruthers,” he said, gifting her with a rather insolent salute. “Gautier? I said, guard the door.”

“Oui, Jacko.”

Julia stepped back several paces, then peered around Jacko’s heavy-shouldered bulk to see a small man in a tight-fitting red-and-white-striped seaman’s jersey and rather ragged, definitely baggy drawers. Gautier smiled at her.

“From the outside, Gautier,” Jacko said, still smiling at Julia, and the little Frenchman hit the palm of his hand against the side of his head, said, “Mon Dieu, naturellement. Pardon,” and scrambled through the doorway, closing the door behind him.

Silly as all this melodrama seemed to her, Julia was becoming rather uneasy. “Precisely what do you think you’re doing, Jacko?”

“I think that’s obvious, don’t you?” He turned and lowered the bar onto the hooks attached to the door, then called out, “Waylon! Take the boy and leave. Use the back door.”

Waylon, who was possibly as large as Jacko, took one look, then grabbed the boy by his arm and pulled him toward the rear of the building.

Julia folded her arms and tried to appear calm as Jacko approached the forge. Waylon had mistakenly left an iron rod still heating in the fire, and Jacko slid on a glove, then picked up the rod, its tip glowing white-hot. “Pretty, isn’t it? And yet so dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Wanting to scream, wanting to run, Julia instead stood her ground. “Am I supposed to be terrified, Jacko?”

His eyes sparkled, looked amused, and his tone was light as he smiled at her. “That would be the general idea, Miss Carruthers, yes.” He took a step toward her, and she retreated in spite of her determination to stand her ground. “Tell me about your father.”

Now Julia was terrified, even as she realized she was more terrified of Chance finding out she’d lied to him—a sin of omission, but a sin nonetheless—than she was of Jacko and his menacing weapon. “You’ve been to Hawkhurst?”

His grin was positively delighted. “Oh, and aren’t you the clever one. And a quick thinker, too. I’ve heard about Lieutenant Diamond’s visit last evening. Not just the wound to Spence but to his horse, as well. Very clever, very quick, very credible. And, yes, Miss Carruthers, I’ve been to Hawkhurst.”

“I can explain…”

“Really,” Jacko said flatly. “Just let me safely deposit this pretty thing into the water bucket, and then the two of us can sit over there on those fine oak chairs of Waylon’s…while you explain.”

Julia quickly did as he said, for her knees were knocking together so badly she was sure she might fall down otherwise.

Jacko picked up the other chair as if it weighed no more than a feather, turned it around, straddled it, then rested his crossed arms on the carved back of the chair. “So? What do you want to tell me?”

“What you already know, I suppose. That I am from Hawkhurst,” Julia began, untying her cloak because it was so very warm in the smithy, even though her fingers were cold and clumsy. “And my father was the vicar of Saint Bartholomew’s.” She looked down at her shaking fingers. “Until he was asked to step down.”

“Ah, there we go—and so quickly, too. Confession is good for the soul, isn’t it?” Jacko asked, leaning his large head on his crossed forearms, grinning at her. “And why was he asked to step down?”

Julia glared at him. “Although I’m at a loss as to how you found out, you obviously already know why.”

“That I do, that I do. But now I want you to tell me.”

“He was accused of thievery by his superiors from Rye.”

“So your holy papa was a thief? Stealing from his own church? And then he died, all suddenlike, before anyone could be told and he could be carted off to trial. How’d he die, Miss Carruthers?”

Julia blinked furiously as her eyes began to sting. “I won’t answer that.”

“He hanged himself,” Jacko said for her. “Took himself up to the attics of the vicarage that same night he was accused and hanged himself.”

How dare the man push at her like this? “He did not! My father died in his bed. I found him in his bed. He died in his sleep.”

“So everyone told me. Except for the man I found sweeping out the church. He told me something different.”

Julia hugged herself, began to rock. “Penton? Penton’s a simple man. And he drinks sometimes, poor soul. Nobody listens to Penton.”

“Drinks quite a bit, in truth, when someone else is paying down the blunt,” Jacko agreed.

He was still smiling. How Julia wanted him to stop smiling. But maybe Jacko was like some dogs—when the tail wagging stops, the dog bites.

Julia rushed into speech. “Why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you let my father rest in peace? Yes. Yes, Penton helped me cut Papa down and put him in his bed. He helped me wash him, prepare him for burial, so no one would see him…see him as he was. And my father was wept over by his congregation and buried in the churchyard. And I came to London and met Chance and to my great surprise found myself back here. Is that all you wanted to hear?”

“He was fronting for the local smugglers, wasn’t he? He’d give them money from the church coffers to buy goods across the Channel, then they’d pay him back, until the next time. Not for profit—unless you can call a cask of tea or perhaps some silk or lace for the pretty daughter profit—but to help his struggling congregation. How long had he been doing this? Who knows. But there was a storm or two at a bad time, and the goods had to be scuttled to save the men, so now there was no money when the officials from Rye came to call.”

Julia nodded, giving up the fight, as it seemed there was nothing Jacko didn’t know. “They were suspicious in Rye even before the storm. The church officials demanded answers, and Papa wouldn’t give them to them, wouldn’t betray our congregation, didn’t even tell our people he was in trouble.”

She looked at Jacko. “They were his people. For as long as I can remember, they were his people. And he’d rather die than betray them. There,” she ended, wiping at tears with the back of her hand, “are you satisfied now?”

“I am that.” Jacko got to his feet, hiked up his trousers that had a tendency to slip low on his belly. “You’ll do.”

“I’ll do? Really. And precisely what does that mean?”

“Only a fool trusts the town drunkard, Miss Carruthers.”

“What?”

“I needed to hear the story from you, Miss Carruthers, and you were brave enough and proud enough to tell it to me.” He gave a quick tilt of his head. “And I suppose I wanted you to know that I know. You knew too much, you see, and reacted too well—on the Marsh, with that fool Diamond last night. Now I know why. Your papa may have killed himself to protect his congregation but mostly he did it to protect you. Because you were also a part of it.”

Julia sighed. “Only marginally. But, yes, I was involved from the time I was a young child. I would have stood with him, Jacko, proudly. But he didn’t give me the opportunity. I understand why he did what he did and have come to grips with his death and can even remember him fondly now. You’ll tell the others? You’ll tell Chance?”

Jacko shrugged. “Don’t see the point, do you? Unless you want to one fine day. Not as if you’ve lied to us. You lived in Hawkhurst, your papa was the vicar and now he’s dead and buried in the churchyard as the holy man he was. Oh, and Penton, his pockets full, is aboard ship and on his way to Saint Augustine in America, which he’ll learn when he eventually sobers up and looks over the rail.”

Julia’s heart leapt in her chest. “He’s gone? You did that for my father and me?”

“We protect our own here, Miss Carruthers.”

“So you no longer believe me to be a danger to…to the family?”

Then Julia had to grab hold of the chair behind her as Jacko advanced on her with his lumbering walk before bending to raise her hand to his lips. “Welcome to the family, Miss Carruthers. Chance would be more the young fool than I take him for if he let you go.”

“Julia,” she said, her mouth so dry she could barely get out the words. She still wasn’t sure quite how it had happened, but Jacko had accepted her. “Please. I’m Julia.”

Jacko’s smile suddenly didn’t seem quite so dangerous, although she doubted she’d ever be so foolish as to consider the man harmless. “All right then,” he said, nodding. And then he shouted out so unexpectedly that Julia jumped. “Waylon! Haul your singed arse back in here and fix Miss Julia’s betrothal ring. What a pitiful excuse for a smithy you are, Waylon, letting a lady stand waiting on you.”

Julia bit back a laugh as Jacko winked at her even as Waylon and his young assistant came scurrying back into the smithy.

But that didn’t mean that her hand refused to stop shaking for the whole of the time Waylon measured her finger and refit the ring…especially when she had a sudden thought: had Morgan deliberately maneuvered for her to be alone with Jacko? Had this entire meeting been planned?

But when Morgan finally joined her at the blacksmith shop, her smile was devoid of guile as she asked Julia if she wanted a piece of rock candy she then handed to her in a twist of greased white paper.

“I saw Jacko,” Julia said, accepting the sweet as the two of them waved good day to Waylon and made their way back toward the village proper.

“Did you?” Morgan remarked in seeming innocence, licking her fingers after popping a small bit of the confection into her mouth. Then she winked broadly at Julia. “Had the old warhorse come to Waylon to be re-shod?”

Julia smiled at the small joke as she wavered between two conclusions. She was overreacting to what she had romantically imagined to be a family not only rife with secrets but loyal to the death…or this really was a family rife with secrets and loyal above all to each other.

No matter which conclusion was correct, she knew she was very glad to be on the inside with the Beckets rather than classed as the enemy….