With that cut from the narrative, it is an exciting tale of derring-do, with me swooping in to warn Nicolas, being shot by his would-be killers, nursed back to the health by the pirate-physician and so on, all near-death escapes and pirate ships and masquerade balls and subterranean passages. It does make quite a thrilling tale, though from the looks Rosalind is giving me, she would prefer a story with far fewer near-death escapes. Edmund devours every word. So does Bronwyn, up until I mention the gladius and I show it and, being a historian, she spends the rest of my story enrapt in examining the short sword.
When we bring the tale to a close, I take Edmund to bed. I tuck him in, and he makes me promise Nicolas will be here tomorrow. Then I slip back downstairs and find Nicolas telling the part about Andrés.
“That is...” Rosalind blinks back tears, touching her pregnant belly. “I do not have the words.”
“It is unbelievably horrific,” Bronwyn says. “I am so sorry, Dr. Dupuis.”
“Nico, please.”
“I am sorry for your loss. I am only glad that you and Miranda can put his spirit to rest. We will do whatever we can to help. I don’t think we can travel back to your time, though. I’m still not sure how Miranda got there.”
“Providence,” Nicolas says with a smile. “She arrived in time to warn me. Just as you passed through to meet Lord Thorne. The stitch, as you call it, sends people where they need to be.”
Bronwyn glances quickly at Rosalind. “Not in every case.”
“My sister went through accidentally,” I say. “She was trapped in the twenty-first century for four years. We thought she’d perished.”
“Oh.” Nicolas sits upright. “I apologize, Lady Courtenay.”
“It’s Rosalind, please. While my stay in the twenty-first century was involuntary, I did enjoy their much more relaxed social protocols.”
“Which were also more relaxed in the eighteenth century,” I say. “I think the current social constraints are all ours.”
“Speaking as the Victorian historian, they are mostly yours,” Bronwyn says. “Even Georgian England wasn’t quite so... uptight. As for the stitch, I am starting to believe it is different things to different people. For me, it was a door to William, even when we were children. For you, Miranda, it was a door to warn Nicolas of an ambush and then to return here before you were both captured. For Rosalind, it was”—she shrugs—“an accident. A twist of fate. But it has righted the error and allows her family to pass freely. The point is that while I don’t think we can help you directly, Miranda, we can play armchair detective.”
“Bronwyn has solved a few murders herself,” Rosalind says. “She freed ghosts haunting Thorne Manor.”
“And Rosalind helped a ghost at Courtenay Hall,” Bronwyn says. “So we are more than happy to offer our services, putting all our heads together to solve this particular murder. You said you found papers in this Norrington’s office?”
“Yes,” I say. “But we left them in the nineteenth century.”
“Non, crécerelle,” Nicolas says. “I grabbed the satchel before I passed through. It is upstairs.”
“Crécerelle?” Bronwyn says, her lips twitching. “That means kestrel, doesn’t it?”
I roll my eyes. “He thinks it suits me.”
Bronwyn turns to Rosalind. “It’s a small North American hawk. A force to be reckoned with, despite its small size. Seems fitting, I think.”
Rosalind grumbles under her breath.
“I will bring the satchel,” Nicolas says. “While staying far from that time stitch.”
Nicolas retrieves the satchel,and we divide up the papers we took from Norrington’s safe. In them, we find mostly important business documents that do not aid our cause at all.Legitimatebusiness documents. We also find a small stack of what Bronwyn calls “blackmail-worthy” documents. Proof that Norrington knows he is imposing undue regulations on the people of Hood’s Bay in an attempt to control the sea trade there. More specifically, he wants to control the harbor itself and turn it into a rival for Whitby. To do that, he must force the fishermen out, as they are using docks. He must also put small rival trading firms out of business.
I do not pretend to understand it all. Nor does Nicolas. He may have spent time on the high seas, but he wasn’t engaged in what one might consider legitimate shipping. However, the business William Thorne shares with August does exactly that, and so Rosalind and Bronwyn pore over the papers and find proof that Norrington is trying to force out fishermen and small competitors.
William and August may be able to find even more, along with suggesting strategies for stopping Norrington. Rosalind will send August a telegram in the morning. Bronwyn mutters that she wishes she could just “text them,” and I have no idea what that means, but Rosalind heartily agrees. I really do need to visit the twenty-first century at some point.
For now, my concerns are in the eighteenth, with helping Nicolas stop Norrington and free Andrés’s ghost. We will return there on the morrow to see what else we might do while awaiting August and William’s response.
There is nothing more to be done tonight, and it is quite late, so we retire. Thorne Manor—not being Courtenay Hall—has only two guest rooms. I suspect Bronwyn wouldn’t blink if I took one with Nicolas. Rosalind would blink, but only momentarily. It is Nicolas who separates us, saying that he will take the small one if I do not mind sharing my sister’s. I do mind, quite a bit, actually, but it seems the alternative would see me alone in the second guest room while he sleeps in the hayloft.
We head off to our rooms. As I shut the door to ours, I whisper to Rosalind that I need to speak to Nicolas.
“Speak to him?” she says. “Or sneak into his room?”
“Sneak into his room.”