I just eyed him.
“I do wish to marry you,” he said to me. “I do.”
I gave him a small smile. “But you can’t.”
“But I can’t,” he agreed.
fitzwilliam
We arrived back at Rosings when it was still night and were able to sneak back into our beds. I wondered about the carriage we’d taken from Tiewater. My suspicion was that it would reset and not be here after midnight came tonight, on the morrow, when it was Thursday again, but I resolved I would make sure that was true.
For now, I simply put the horses in the stable at Rosings and left the carriage next to my aunt’s carriages.
I went to bed, slept a bit and then met Elizabeth for our morning walk. We had decided to do that again, as per usual.
She indicated to me that the dress she’d taken from Rosings was still in her bedchamber at the rectory, and that she wasgoing to see if it disappeared. “I may stay up until midnight just to watch and see if it poofs out of existence,” she said.
“That’s quite odd, isn’t it?” I said. “The tea we took that night, it did not poof out of existence, and the fire we made, it did not either.”
“Yes, good point,” she said. “We must test the boundaries of this. Perhaps that will prove the key to undoing it.”
Right, yes, that was what we planned to discuss this morning. It was only that, as I had lain in bed right before I fell asleep, I had thought to myself that I had already tried everything, and nothing had worked. What was left to do?
“You must go through for me all the things you’ve attempted,” she said. “You said you went to see clergy. And witches?”
“Yes,” I said. “But perhaps they weren’t really witches. Perhaps we should travel all the way to Scotland or something to find witches.”
“Are there witches in Scotland?” she said.
“Well, if there are witches anywhere, it would be there, I think.”
She considered, shrugged, and nodded in acquiescence. “Did you go to see a Catholic clergyman?”
“Well, no,” I said. “I suppose I didn’t think of that. I am not Catholic, Elizabeth.”
“Oh, neither am I,” she protested. “But there is something rather, I don’t know, arcane about the Catholic church? They are so shrouded in tradition and… and Latin.”
“True,” I said. “It does seem that if there were some way out of this, Latin might be involved.” A pause. “Do you read Latin?”
“Me? Oh, not really. I’m not really very good with French, truth be told. I never had a governess, you see, and I am loath to admit it, but I am not entirely skilled at practicing things that are difficult and boring.”
I chuckled, thinking of her piano playing.
“You, obviously, are a Latin scholar,” she muttered.
“I went to university. I studied Latin,” I said. “But, to be quite honest, I only ever had any skill at translating it. I can’t keep the conjugations straight. All my attempts to turn English to Latin were fraught with errors. But that shouldn’t matter, I suppose, for any good Catholic monk or friar or what-have-you must be excellent at Latin.”
“So, where is the closest monastery?” she said.
“I don’t know of any,” I said, thinking about it. “Say, do you even know any Catholics?”
“I…” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Well, there were servants at my Aunt Philip’s house who had rosaries.”
“I think there’s a church in Nettlestead,” I said. “We could go there and back in a day, likely. Perhaps not today, for we didn’t sleep well.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she said.
I nodded.
