"Yes, and we'll need them on the journey," Jasper replied. "I've no intention of sitting cramped in a post-chaise for a week with that girl spitting and struggling. We stick to the plan: Denis will bring her to Finchley, where we'll transfer her to the chaise and we will all go to Shipton. There, my impatient, lusting son, old Elgar in the parish of Edgecombe will do as I tell him. He'd tie the knot between you and a sheep if so ordered. And you will spend your wedding night in the crypt."
"What about Denis?"
"He'll have his reward, but don't worry, no one will interfere with the exercise of your conjugal rights."
Jasper drank deeply of the brandy punch, feeling its warmth curling in his belly. His father had died because of Chloe's mother and Hugo Lattimer. He'd waited fourteen years for his revenge, and he wasn't going to bungle it because of the impatience of a brainless lad who thought with his loins. He didn't want Lattimer to be more than one day behind them when he began his pursuit. One day would be long enough to get the marriage over and the scene in the crypt set up. It would be an exact replica of the scene of Elizabeth's presentation, but this time Hugo Lattimer would be in no position to do anything but watch. And afterward, Jasper would kill him, bringing the blood feud full circle.
There was a knock at the door and Denis came in, shaking snow off his curly-brimmed beaver. "It's the devil's own luck," he declared disgustedly. "I had everything set up, and now this." He gestured to the window.
"Patience," Jasper counseled yet again. He ladled punch into a third goblet. "We'll lose nothing by waiting a day or two."
Denis took the goblet with a murmur of thanks. "I'm just afraid that something will happen," he said. "I've got her right where I want her… she'll do anything I suggest at the moment. But I have this feeling that it's like… it's like… I don't know… she's like a thread stretched so tight, it's bound to snap at any moment."
Jasper looked up sharply. "Why? What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know. Nothing that you can put your finger on, but… but I can feel it. There's something." He drank from the goblet and said slowly, feeling for words, "Sometimes I have this feeling that she's just using me. Sometimes I don't think she sees me at all, even when she's paying me the most particular attention."
"Oh, nonsense," Jasper said. "Fanciful nonsense. The silly chit's fallen head over ears in love with you. She's a baby with no more experience of the world than a five-year-old. I expect she's overawed by you."
Denis would have liked to believe that, but he couldn't. But he couldn't explain his conviction any clearer either, so he let the subject drop.
"Have you kissed her?" Crispin demanded with the irritability of envy.
"A peck on the cheek," Denis said. It was impossible, too, to put into words his knowledge that however willing Chloe was to play games with him, there was a line she wouldn't cross. At least, not voluntarily.
"I don't want to frighten her by being too insistent," he explained.
"There'll be plenty of time for that," Jasper said. He straightened and stretched, wandering over to the window. How long before the snow abated? It was the devil's own luck, a snowstorm this early in December. But it shouldn't take hold and they'd be on the road within the week.
.Hugo let himself into the house that same afternoon, reflecting that this was an evening they would all spend within doors. No one in their right minds would put their horses to the shafts in these conditions unless it was a matter of life or death.
He closed the door behind him, wondering where Samuel was. Two of Beatrice's offspring playing tag raced through the hall, skittering on the polished wood as they ran between his legs before bounding up the stairs. He picked up the letters on the console table and riffled through them. After a minute, it occurred to him that the house was strangely quiet. And for once there was no evidence of Denis DeLacy in temporary residence, he thought grimly, going into the library.
The fire had been allowed to go down and he frowned, bending to throw another log on the glowing embers. Where was everyone? He didn't have a large household, but it was surely large enough to ensure that the fires could be kept in, particularly on a day like this.
He strode into the hall and bellowed for Samuel. There was no immediate response and then suddenly Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Hugo!" Her voice cracked, filled with tears, and he strode to the bottom of the stairs.
"Sweetheart, what is it?" The rarely used endearment went unnoticed by either of them.
She flew down the stairs and into his arms. "It's Peg," she sobbed against his chest. "She's gone."
"Gone… gone where?"
"I don't know! She can't read or write, so she couldn't leave a note… and she didn't say anything. She's just disappeared."
"Now, just a minute." Hugo stood her upright and pulled out his handkerchief. "I can't hear a word when you're mumbling into my chest. Start at the beginning."
"There isn't a beginning," she said, taking his handkerchief but not using it, so the tears still poured unchecked down her cheeks. "She's just gone, that's all. Out into the snow. And she's left the baby. Why? Why
would she do something so silly, Hugo? She'll freeze to death."
"She's left the baby?" Hugo struggled to absorb this.
"Yes. Just walked away and left her."
"God's grace," he muttered. "Now I'm responsible for a foundling as well as a menagerie."
"How can you be so heartless!" Chloe exclaimed through her tears. "Peg's out there in all that snow…"
"Of her own free will, lass," Hugo reminded her. Taking her arm, he eased her into the library, closing the door behind them. "She wasn't happy here."
"I know, but why wasn't she?" Chloe huddled over the fire. "I don't understand it. She had plenty to eat and drink, and warm clothes, and… and a home. Why would she walk away from that?"
"Come here." Hugo sat down on the couch and drew Chloe backward, pulling her onto his lap. "I know it's hard to accept, but you can't save the world, not even with a heart as big as yours."
"I know I can't," she said, gulping. "I just want to save some of it."
He held her tightly for a minute, then took the neglected handkerchief from her and mopped her tears. "Blow your nose."
She did so vigorously and then leaned back against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I wish she hadn't gone out in the snow. Why wouldn't she wait… I don't understand, Hugo. What could have driven her?"
"I don't really know," he said, stroking her hair away from her brow. "But people do things we can't understand sometimes. Peg lives on the streets. It's what she knows. There must be people out there she knows… there was a grandmother, wasn't there?"
"Her nan," Chloe said. "She said she could sometimes sleep in the washhouse… but why would she want to do that when she could be warm and dry here? It's not sensible."
"Impulses usually aren't. But you have to remember that Peg knows that world out there. It's her world." He traced the delicate arch of her eyebrow with a fingertip.
"I know one can't make people accept help," Chloe said with one of her devastating flashes of mature insight that still surprised and delighted him. "And since I don't think I was trying to help her just so that / would feel good, I shouldn't feel miserable just because she prefers to do something else."
She was silent for a minute, then continued rather more cheerfully. "Well, at least she left the baby. And at least she was able to have the baby safely… but.,." She sat up as a thought struck her. "But you know what will happen to her. She'll get pregnant again… she doesn't know about potions or… or withdrawing… or things like that. She'll be pregnant again in no time. And she's so young. She told me she didn't even know how old she is." She relaxed against him again with a heavy sigh.