Page 28 of Give Him a Chance

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

’Mid groves and copses.’”

There was a lilting accent there, Lucy could not help but notice; one from the north, something she had never heard in Dixon’s voice before, but poetry as usual had drawn the truth out of its speaker, as it always did.

One could not hide with poetry.

She sat, transfixed, as Dixon’s gaze drifted away from her toward a place she could not see. A place that he had been, clearly, and loved. And had lost.

“‘Once again I see,’” came his gentle words, a northern burr thrumming through the words, “‘These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

The Hermit… The Hermit sits alone.’”

His voice faded, the absent look in his eyes remaining. And all Lucy could do was look at him.

This man… He was far more complex than she had ever imagined.

When Judge Bonner had instructed her to take the man home, she had presumed there would be a little cursing, a little light fingers around the silver, but that the man would ultimately behave himself.

Instead, she had been faced with a tall handsome man who spoke cryptically of his past, who appeared to see right through her, and who declaimed Wordsworth with the heart and spirit of a man who had been to Oxbridge and fallen in love with the classics.

Who precisely was Mr. Bernard Dixon?

Dixon cleared his throat. The warmth, the passion, faded in his eyes, and a nonchalance that surely had to be rehearsed rushed back into his expression.

“Or something like that,” he said with a shrug, leaning back with his hands behind his head. “I forget exactly—”

“But that’s Wordsworth! That is one of the greatest poets who ever lived!” Lucy blurted out.

Dixon shrugged. “You think so?”

“I do notthinkso, I know so, and I have had many debates with Cousin Gwen on this matter,” Lucy said amiably, then she dropped her eyes to the letters on the desk before her.

Ah. Yes, she needed to finish writing these so they could go out in the morning post. With some luck, and some empathy from Judge Bonner—such things had happened, once in a while—the six people she had advocated for today would be released and with their families by dinnertime.

That was, if Judge Bonner was adequately moved by her letters, of course.

Maybe she should just send him a book of Wordsworth’s poetry…

“What have you got there?”