She sniffed, but the sound didn’t set his teeth on edge like it had before. Odd, that. “I am offering to accompany you in the search, so that you will not put my birds out into the snow as soon as your own are back in the coop where they belong.” She peered at the far side of the yard, where the fence was high and undamaged. “Where do you suppose they’ll have gone to?”
Mr. Brome chewed his mustache in irritation. “That Wraxhall girl was saying something about the abbey.”
“That’s a good half mile away,” Mrs. Outerbridge said, and spun on her heel. “We’d best get started.”
Mr. Brome, like any good soldier, fell in line.
Deep in the woods, Miss Inch was on the hunt. Her Pinwheel Bantams’ plumage was bright and distinctive, and she’d caught sight of one of her cockerels not too far from the collapsed tent. It was either Reginald or Rothgar, she couldn’t tell which without the other standing next to him. Whatever his name, he’d led her a merry chase into the wood, but now she was certain she had him cornered in a small dale at the base of the hill. Trapped between the sharp shadows of the holly bushes on the one side, and on the other a fallen log overgrown with mushrooms and moss.
Miss Inch slowly set her lantern down, flexed her hands in her woolen mittens, and seized the chicken.
At least, that was the intention.
At precisely the moment she moved, the cockerel dove sideways, crying out in alarm and kicking up a dust of snow and needle-edged leaves with the force of his flapping wings. Miss Inch tried to alter course mid-gesture, following the bird’s movement—he just brushed the tips of her outstretched mittens as he slipped around her and dove for escape back down the path she’d followed.
Miss Inch caught sight of a flash of vivid red, just before her bad knee gave out and she flopped face-first into a snowbank with what she feared was an abysmal lack of grace, elegance, or basic dignity.
Another squawk from the cockerel—damn him—and then an even more unwelcome sound. “Is that you, Miss Inch?”
She knew that voice at once.
For a moment, Miss Inch thought she just might lie there on the ground until the snow melted and she could slink home and lock herself in her room and succumb to a fatal bout of embarrassment. That voice had once laughed at her jokes, even the bad ones. That voice had once whispered naughty things across the soft, lace-edged lawn of a pillowcase, and loving words beneath the boughs of a tree in spring. But its vowels were cold as winter now, its consonants sharp as ice.
Miss Inch’s nose had gone numb, which was a bad sign, and her breath had melted enough of the snow to trickle beneath the wool of her scarf and ice the soft skin of her throat. She jerked herself upright on instinct, then wished she hadn’t.
Miss Rushcliff was standing there, her coat blood-red and aggressive against the white and black and evergreens, and she held Reginald-or-Rothgar prisoner, his crown of plumage a starburst or a dahlia or a rose in dark-gloved hands that Miss Inch once had loved. Her eyes were wide beneath the curve of her bonnet and the black velvet ribbon tied beneath her chin. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Miss Rushcliff—Caro, whispered some traitorous memory—had been pretty at age twenty, but now at five-and-thirty she had matured into the richness of true beauty. The way wine became brandy, with time. And heat.
Miss Inch squelched the memories of heat, pushed herself up, and tried to brush the snow from the wool of her coat. It clung, frustrating her, and with a huff she gave up the attempt. Her bad knee was a throb of pain; she put all her weight on her other leg and tried to ignore it. “Thank you for catching my cockerel,” Miss Inch said. “If you’ll hand him over, I needn’t keep you from your own search.”
Miss Rushcliff blinked, and appeared to shake off some spell. “Of course,” she said, and held out the bird.
Miss Inch reached out, glad the thick wool of her mittens hid how her own hands were shaking. She shuffled a step sideways, trying to grasp the body of her bird without putting her hands over Miss Rushcliff’s.
She couldn’t bear the thought of touching her again and having the shaking of her hands betray what she was really feeling. Even through two layers of wool and leather, she feared Miss Rushcliff would know.
She’d always been able to see through Miss Inch’s bravado. Once, that had been a pleasure, a secret game the two of them could play even when there were others about.
Now, it was a knife to a heart that refused to stop beating no matter how many times it was pierced.
Miss Inch had gotten her angles wrong, however. Reginald-or-Rothgar saw his chance and took it. With a wrench and a toss of his plumed head, he twisted free of both women’s grasp and pelted between two birch trees and up the hill to the east.
And he had vengeance, as well as escape: that twisting trick of his had left Miss Inch’s and Miss Rushcliff’s hands entangled.
Too close, after too long, and the silence of the woods felt like the old kind of secrecy. Miss Rushcliff’s gasp was soft, but it might as well have been a peal of thunder for the way it shook Miss Inch down to her bones.
She yanked her hands back. “I’m so sorry!” Ugh, she was hopeless. What was she even apologizing for?
Miss Rushcliff’s gloved hands opened and closed, then fell back to her side. “I should be the one apologizing,” she said. A faint crease appeared between her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Quite sure,” Miss Inch said—then spoiled it by wobbling as her bad knee gave out and she had to catch herself before she fell. Again.
Where was an earthquake to swallow a girl when she needed it?
A hand caught her elbow, steadying her. Even the wind in the trees seemed to hold its breath.
Miss Inch looked up into Miss Rushcliff’s blue eyes, so full of concern. And something else: regret? Shame? That couldn’t be right. “Your knee again?” she asked knowingly.
