“No, sir,” Jacob said, quickly. “I did wonder when I heard the day before yesterday that the lady calling herself the Lady of Carr Abbas had a servant called Fivepence, and I was almost certain yesterday afternoon when we saw Mrs. Kirby and Kat at the bakers. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to hear what Kat had to say about what wasgoing on. Sir, I would never plot against you, or agree to cheat you, but now that I’ve met Kat again, my first loyalty is to her.”
The captain gave a slow nod, and then justified Jacob’s respect for him by saying, “I think I need to hear the whole story from the beginning. Would you care to take a seat on this log, Lady… I mean, Miss Ellen? And Miss Fivepence, will you sit beside her? Jake and I shall sit on the blanket here at your feet. Now. Please explain.”
Miss Ellen and Kat exchanged glances. Miss Ellen, it seemed to Kat, wanted her to take the lead, and so Kat said, “To explain properly, I need to start with Lady Miller. She was the tyrant of the household even before Baron Miller, her husband, went to his reward five years ago. Her favorite daughter was the one most like her, the eldest, and Lord Miller’s favorite was the second. Miss Ellen, the third, was picked on by her mother and her eldest sister, and ignored by her father and her second sister.”
“Papa and Clara preferred horses to people,” said Miss Ellen, very kindly and somewhat unexpectedly giving an excuse for her family’s behavior against her.
“When Lady Miller died, six weeks ago, she left the Miller residence to the eldest daughter, her husband’s stables to the second daughter, and to her third daughter, Miss Ellen, she left one guinea and what remained of my indenture.”
“But you passed your twenty-first birthday more than a year ago,” protested Jacob. “Surely nothing remains of your indenture.”
Kat twitched one eyebrow into a quizzical arch. “Precisely,” she said.
Captain Harraway also had an indignant protest. “Only one guinea!” In addition, he reached out one hand, as if to shelter Miss Ellen from harm. Kat was beginning to like Captain Harraway.
“It was more than one guinea, though,” Miss Ellen said, frowning. “Kat, it was one hundred and fifty pounds.”
Oops. Something must have showedon her face.
Miss Ellen’s eyes widened. “Kat! You did something, didn’t you?”
Jacob chuckled.
“One guinea was grossly unfair,” Kat pointed out. “Miss Miller and Miss Francine both received valuable estates, and Lady Miller didn’t even leave you enough to quit the house where you were hated and bullied. Let alone enough to live independently or for a dowry, which either she or Miss Miller could certainly have afforded.”
“You did something,” Miss Ellen repeated, this time nodding her head, as if it was no surprise to her, and certainly she knew Kat well enough not to be surprised. “You robbed the safe,” she surmised.
Kat nodded. “There was more than four hundred pounds in the safe, but I needed to leave enough money for the servants to get their share.”
“You robbed the safe?” Captain Harraway sounded shocked but with a hint of something else. Laughter, perhaps?
There was no doubt about Jacob’s laughter, since he was almost choking with it as he said the same words. “You robbed the safe? Of course, you did. You always did your best to protect Miss Ellen. Captain, sir, remember we did something similar recently, also on the side of the angels.”
“Point taken,” said the captain. “Carry on, Miss Fivepence. You robbed the safe, and I suppose you and Miss Ellen left home before you were caught. How did you come to be here?”
“Mother’s will said I was to have the contents of the purse in the safe. I take it Kat swapped purses,” said Miss Ellen. “No one at home could have known, but after the solicitor had given me the purse, my sister demanded that Kat and I leave.”
Kat picked up the tale, explaining how she disguised herself as a man to offer Miss Ellen greater protection, how she chose to bring them to Ealing because she had heard from Mrs. Kirby that Carr Abbas had an absent owner, and how she had wooed Mrs. Dove-Lyon with game and produce.
By the time she had brought her story up to the present day, Captain Harraway was shaking his head, but he was smiling.
Jacob was grinning openly. “What a grand plot, Kat,” he said. “The only thing that went wrong was that Miss Ellen’s betrothed is the actual owner of this place, and you could never have expected that.”
“I would have told you before we married,” Miss Ellen said to Captain Harraway. “In fact, I am already part way through writing you a letter.”
“Miss Ellen doesn’t like lying,” Kat explained. “Ididpoint out that I was the one telling lies, but she insisted that she cannot marry you without explaining the… um… measures we had taken.”
The measures theyhad taken. That was one way of describing it. But in Jake’s view, the powerless ought not to be punished or criticized for making what shifts they could to survive. And in terms of powerlessness, a pair of unmarried women cast out of their home might not be the worst on the scale, but they were certainly up against a huge number of dangers and barriers.
Captain Harraway changed the subject. “I suppose I am to take it that Fivepence comes with you when you marry.”
Her chin lifted imperiously, Miss Ellen declared, “I would not have survived without Kat. She can stay with me for as long as she wishes to remain in my employ. If you have a problem with that, then I suppose I must call off.”
“I am happy to have your champion under my roof,” said Captain Harraway. “Fivepence, I have one condition, though. I shall need your promise to discuss any further schemes with me before youcarry them out.”
Impressive. Anyone else would have demanded no further schemes, which would have been hypocritical, for the captain had benefited from Jake’s ideas and actions often enough, and—given the doe-eyes he and Miss Ellen were casting at one another—was currently benefitting from Kat’smeasures, as she called them.
Kat was regarding the man with narrowed eyes. “You still plan to marry Miss Ellen?” she asked.
