Her eyes round. “The Midsummer Ball at Courtenay Hall?”
“Were you there?” I ask. “There were so many people that I fear I was quite overwhelmed.”
“I was not, though I heard of it, of course. Did they truly serve iced cream?”
I seize the opportunity to solidify my story, granting her a glimpse into this fabled “Midsummer Ball” that the Millers had mentioned took place last week. I know enough of Courtenay Hall to take her there—to the ponds and the mazes and the follies. The rest I can safely make up, and by the time I finish, she is glowing as if she attended the even herself. She spends the next twenty minutes peppering me with questions.
Nicolas is right. Miss Jenkins is indeed a lonely young woman, and as someone raised with two sisters, I feel a pang of sympathy for her plight, alone here on the moors where none of the local girls would be considered proper companions.
I want to agree with the girl’s grandfather—that if she has betrayed Nicolas, it is unwittingly. Yet as sweet and naive as Miss Jenkins seems, I must remember that it could be a false front. Or she truly is that naive and still working with her uncle against Nicolas, believing it the right thing to do.
Whatever the answer, Miss Jenkins accepts my story without question, and she does not think it at all odd that I am walking the moors alone, since she is doing the same.
As we are talking, her grandfather’s ghost appears to check on my progress, and he helps by nudging my answers in the correct direction. Soon Miss Jenkins and I are chatting like dear friends. She has helped me “fix” my boot—which was not truly broken—and we have continued walking as we talk. She shows me her favorite spot, from which she can gaze out over the ocean, and I sit with her as she tells me all about life in Hood’s Bay. She is desperately lonely, and I am an enthusiastic audience for her chatter. Of course, I am hoping to gain something from that chatter, something that will help our cause. That is not so easily done.
Again, the ghost helps, suggesting questions to ask, steering conversation toward Lord Norrington. Miss Jenkins—call me Emily, please—does not wish to discuss him. She gives no sign of disliking her uncle. Quite the opposite. He is “very good to me, and I am very fond of him.” He just isn’t, to her, an interesting topic of conversation, not nearly as interesting as, say, a young man she knows, one who is a doctor and “just a little bit wicked.”
She means Nicolas, though I am not convinced one could ever call him wicked. Well, yes, he has a wicked sense of humor. He is also a wicked flirt. That is not what Emily means, and I suspect she has not seen that side of him. She means that he is a fugitive, a supposed pirate. She does not say that—only that he was a privateer—and very handsome, and very charming and intelligent despite being, yes, a little bit wicked.
Is it strange to hear a young woman swooning over the man I spent the night with? Is it uncomfortable? Yes, but mostly because I fear she may have betrayed him, and I would hope she would never do that to a man of whom she is enamored. Because she is clearly enamored.
If she will not speak of her uncle, then I must encourage this talk of Nicolas to get a sense of whether she might have done him wrong. It is not impossible that she likes him and yet still betrayed his trust. How many girls have swooned over an unsuitable young man only to stand by when their fathers send him running at sword—or gun—point?
Her mother didn’t do that. Her mother was the young woman who followed her heart and stayed true to her unsuitable love. Emily seems so young and sheltered that I can scarcely believe she is already nineteen.
“Do you see?” her grandfather says beside me. “She cannot possibly have schemed against young Nicolas. She is half in love with him. She is like her mother. There is not a duplicitous bone in her body. When my daughter ran off with Emily’s father, I told myself she had betrayed me, but I came to see the lie in that, the self-deception. She ran off with him because she couldnotbetray him or her own heart. She could not lie to me and promise she would never see him again. That is Emily, too. She has not betrayed Nicolas.”
For his sake, I hope that is true. Imagine having a son who betrays your legacy, so you turn all your expectations on your granddaughter... only to learn she has done the same.
“You must gain access to my estate,” the ghost says. “To my son’s quarters.”
While Emily glances off at a butterfly, I turn a look on the ghost that makes him laugh.
“Not likethat, child. I almost wish my son were that sort of man so you might flutter your eyelashes and not need to trick poor Emily. Alas, while my son has many faults, chasing pretty girls is not among them. My granddaughter may no longer live on the estate, but she is welcome there and visits almost daily. Inveigle an invitation, preferably when he is not at home. I can lead you to his office. He is a meticulous recordkeeper.”
I answer something Emily says, and then I give her grandfather another dubious look.
“Yes, he keeps immaculate records,” he says. “I taught him well in that regard. I also taught him to keep them locked away. I bought an excellent safe for that exact purpose, an impenetrable one with a foolproof locking mechanism.”
Now my look has him smiling again.
“You are wondering whether I expect you to be an expert cracker of safes? No, child, because this safe is custom made. To change the combination, my son would need to bring a man up from London.”
“Which he has not done,” I say, too low for Emily to hear while she’s exclaiming over a distant ship.
“Yes. Why would he go through all that trouble to change the lock when the only one who knows the combination is deceased?”
I continue talking with Emily—which involves mostly listening and making appropriate noises asshetalks—while I work this out. I cannot deny the allure of such an escapade. Getting myself invited to the home of an evil lord so that I may sneak into his offices and steal papers from his safe? It is exactly the sort of adventure I write about. However, it is also the sort of adventure I know is best reserved for works of fiction.
That is not to say Nicolas and I couldn’t pull off such a caper. We could and would if the reward was great enough.Isit great enough, though? What are we going to find in that safe? I understand the late Lord Norrington thinks this a fine idea, but no matter how meticulous the current Norrington’s notes, whatexactlycould we find? A receipt for money paid to “nail the cabin boy in the pantry”?
Itispossible we could find something to prove Norrington is overtaxing the villagers or placing impossible regulations on local trade. But is that worth breaking into his office when the penalty could be death? We cannot even be certain the Crown would care about the overtaxation.
Wait.
Do we need to find proof of wrongdoing to take to the Crown? Or do we simply need to find proof of wrongdoing that we canthreatento take to the Crown? Threaten to deliver to the local authorities. Threaten to hand over to men like Lord Thorne, who would happily take down Norrington and who would not fear repercussions.
That is what we would be looking for. Not proof that Norrington had Andrés killed, but incriminating evidence of any sort that we could use against him. Use it to force a confession regarding Andrés? No, I cannot see either Nicolas or myself playing that particular role. But we can use it to alleviate the dire situation in Hood’s Bay.