“Do not insult your sister, young man,” Clarion said sternly. “She has had an ordeal.”
Wil ignored him. “We did well. Reilly said I looked just like you. I practiced walking like you do, so I just sauntered up to the carriage and Corporal Goodfellow handed me up like a real lady.”
Fanny spoke simultaneously, “I must look a fright. We slept on the ground last night.”
“May I suggest we allow Miss Hancock to bathe and rest? We will send supper up on a tray, and Farley should be here within an hour,” Clarion said. His word wassuggest, but Eli knew a command when he heard one. The children were sent to the nursery with a promise of a visit from Fanny in the morning.
Eli struggled to his feet, prepared to assist Fanny to rise, but Clarion got there first, offering her a hand and then his arm. “Feel free to eat, Benson, but I’ll have your report after I escort her to her room.”
Eli trailed after them as far as the drawing room door. Fanny glanced back at Eli once, but she leaned on her brother’s arm as he led her up the stairs and appeared to reassure him as they walked.
It was over. They were back in the real world, and Fanny, his Fanny, was back in the care of her brother. The earl. Eli’s employer.
*
Fanny sank downinto the warm water scented with lavender and emptied her mind for a moment. It didn’t last. What crowded back was Eli. Eli holding her through the night. Eli feeding her blackberries. Eli leading her by the hand, cajoling, bullying, and teasing so she could walk one more step and then another. Eli carrying her up the stairs, bringing her home. Peace settled over her. Her future may still be murky, but she knew the bone-deep peace that comes when someone cares for you.
“Shall I wash your hair?” Susan, safe, well, and cheerful, offered.
“Yes, please.”
Soon enough the maid had her scrubbed, dressed in a soft nightgown and buddled into a thick robe. Susan arranged the contents of the supper tray on the table while Fanny dried her hair by the fire and Susan chattered about her own adventure.
“Only two of ’em came, because our men had already taken three of theirs the first time. ‘She ain’t here,’ Goodfellow told them. ‘Leave afore we do you like we did your fellows.’”
“They simply left?”
“No, ma’am. They demanded to see. The boss one, he sent the other over, and Goodfellow set a gun up alongside his head, but he looked in anyway, knocking on the seat like you were hidden in the hallow. But you weren’t, of course, and they left. Wil asked Goodfellow why we didn’t shoot ’em, and Goodfellow said as how it was safer not to start shooting with us in the carriage. I think your brother was cast down that there was no fight.”
“Where?” Fanny asked.
“We were past Nottingham. Right on the road to Ashmead. Took nerve, that. After noon it was.”
Eli and I were just coming free of the woods. Miles from the devilish louts.She cast another prayer of thanksgiving heavenward.
Fanny dragged herself to the table, believing herself too tired to eat. Two bites reminded her how long she’d gone without food, and she tucked into a savory beef stew with vigor.
I wish Eli had come up so we could eat together.She knew the thought for ridiculous as soon as it passed through her mind.In your bedroom? You dressed in nightclothes, Fanny?She missed him.
A knock interrupted her train of thought. Susan opened the door to Clarion and a gentleman Fanny recognized from the Willow, Dr. Farley.
The physician beamed at her. “It seems nature, a bath, and a good meal have done my work for me,” he said.
Susan tucked Fanny in bed at the physician’s bidding and hovered nearby. In short order he had checked her pulse, dismissed any thought of fever, and pronounced her fit and healthy. “A good night’s sleep should finish the job,” he said.
“Is Eli—”
“He is my next concern, Miss Hancock. You’re not to worry.” His avuncular smile might have comforted her on a different night. She found the maelstrom of her emotions too difficult to sort and had no energy for the man.
Clarion gestured toward the door. “Sleep well. We can talk tomorrow.”
They were gone before she could say more. She stared at the ceiling a moment in frustration, sighed, and reminded herself she could talk it all over with Eli in the morning. Her lids drifted shut, and she slept.
*
Eli was urgedto the kitchen, where Goodfellow and the staff hovered around, plying him with warm bread, savory stew, and an apple tart delightful enough to bring joy to the most hardened heart. Wil followed, making short work of more tart. All the while, the threads of stories twisted and folded around one another—the carriage ride, the pretense, the robbers in one thread; the horses, the woods, the sleeping hard, walking miles in another—until they both came to a neat conclusion, everyone safe and at Clarion Hall.
Paul Farley popped in, reassured Eli repeatedly that Fanny was fit and well, pronounced him equally so, and happily accepted an apple tart.
