She spent a sleepless night imagining soldiers breaking down doors, Jonathan dragged into the street, a blade at his throat.By dawn, she was hollow-eyed and shaking.
Her father left early, before the sun had fully risen and returned late in the afternoon.
“Peter August, what did you learn?”her mother asked upon seeing her husband’s troubled face.
“The French entered Eutin yesterday at midday,” he said.“They searched the bailiff’s house, among others.Fortunately, Lord Bowen left before they arrived.The bailiff says he took his horses and rode south, but no one knows where he went after that.”
Lise bit her lower lip.Then Jonathan was truly gone.As he should be.She was grateful he’d escaped the French.South could mean anything, toward Hamburg, toward Bremen, toward the border.Or toward the forests and back roads where a man could disappear.
“I asked at the inn,” her father continued.“No one has seen him.If the viscount is smart, he has left the area.”
Lise went through the motions of the evening — supper, the pretense of working on the German translation by the fire, then prayers on her knees in her room.When at last she climbed into bed, she lay awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the house settle around her.Her mind traced the roads and paths, imagining Jonathan alone in the dark.
The next morning, she awoke feeling dispirited.“I’m going riding,” she told Anna, when the maid brought in a cup of tea.
Riding her mare on a gentle circuit of the estate would take up the better part of the morning.The property was large enough that she could spend an hour in the saddle without venturing onto the public roads.And if she happened to go farther, maybe she might be lucky enough to run into the mapmaker.Perhaps he was still doing his job in the area, unaware that Bonaparte’s army was on the move.
“Fool,” she muttered, dressing quickly.It was ridiculous to dream of running into anything but squirrels and deer.
After braiding her hair and putting on her riding habit, she slipped downstairs and out the door before her mother could question her.The air was cool and damp, smelling of earth and of everything growing in nature’s last big push before autumn.When she entered the stable, the familiar smells of hay, leather, and the warm scent of horses greeted her.
Poking her head through the open doorway of Jacob’s room, she made out his form on the rope bed, wool blankets piled over him, still snoring.
Lise smiled.Her father wouldn’t appreciate knowing the young lad was still abed, but Lise was capable of saddling her own horse, so she left him.Taking her saddle down from its hook, she walked along the short row of stalls, glancing in at each familiar animal.Her mare’s stall was near the end, and she’d just reached her when she heard a faint rustle above her head.
Lise froze and looked up at the hay loft overhead, imagining what wild creature had made its home there.Jacob was supposed to keep the larger ones at bay, so the hay stayed as fresh as possible, without too many droppings.
Another rustle.Then silence.Setting down her saddle, she stroked her mare’s muzzle when it whinnied a greeting.When some straw floated down from overhead, visible in a sunbeam, Lise frowned.
Climbing the wide ladder beside her, she thought she’d merely peek over the top.Perhaps she would see a family of hazel dormice or even a barn swallow.Poking her head above the floor of the loft, she gasped.
Jonathan was there, half-buried in hay, his coat folded as if he’d used it for a pillow.But he wasn’t asleep.He was already sitting upright, with a pistol pointed directly at her.
“Lise.”Relief and something else — guilt, perhaps — crossed his face as he lowered his weapon.“I’m sorry.I needed a safe place where I wouldn’t be shot on sight.”
After climbing the rest of the way up, she sat down a careful distance from him.In the dim light filtering through the loft’s single small window, he looked weary, shadows under his eyes, a day’s worth of stubble on his jaw.
“The French came here two days ago,” she said quietly.“They were looking for strangers.For English spies.”
He nodded.“I heard they’d been making a sweep of the area from a farmer on the other side of Eutin.That’s why I left the bailiff’s lodging.For that reason and the fact that one of my maps disappeared from my room.Days of work vanished before I could get it into the right hands.I didn’t wish to seem ungrateful to my host, but someone in that household is up to no good.”
She took that in, imagining how the very top of the bureaucratic administration might have been compromised.“My father went looking for you yesterday.”
Jonathan startled.“Good God.He didn’t ask for me, did he?Not by name.”
“Of course not, but he came back worried.”
“I’m sorry to have caused concern.”Jonathan rubbed a hand over his face.“I thought it safer to disappear for a few days.Let the attention move elsewhere.”
“And you chose our stable.”She felt honored in some way, although perhaps it was reckless on his part.
“I chose the one place I knew I could trust the inhabitants.”He met her eyes.“I won’t stay any longer than I have to.But my work is important.To your sideandto mine.”
Lise looked at Jonathan.He was rumpled, fatigued, vulnerable in a way that didn’t suit him.She thought of him at his parents’ luxurious home when they’d dined together.How worried his mother must be for her son, regardless that he was a grown man.
Then she considered her own mother’s warning about her reputation and her heart, and of all the things that ought to matter more than Jonathan’s safety.Yet she couldn’t make herself care about any of it.Not when he was here, in danger, because of choices she didn’t fully understand.
“The current state of affairs is utter madness,” she said.“All of it.We are ruled by Denmark, we speak German, and now French soldiers appear behind every tree, demanding provisions and looking for English spies.What is any of it for?”
