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He could feel her eyes on his back the whole time he walked to his horse, mounted, and rode away.

Chapter Three

Cressida Turner watched until the stranger rode away. Then she turned back toward the house, only to meet Tom coming at a dead run.

“What’s happened?” he demanded, his hair standing up every which way and his face flushed. “Your sister said you’d gone out in a hurry.”

She smiled, hiding her clenched teeth. “Nothing happened. There was a man in the stables, looking around.”

Tom stiffened. “And?”

“And that’s all, or all I caught him doing. He says he’s a neighbor.” She snorted. “Such fine neighbors we’ve got here, all coming around to spy on how terrible things are.”

It made her fume; did ordinary neighbors sneak into each others’ stables and examine the horses? Of course not, as he knew full well. He hadn’t been surprised at all when he looked down the barrel of her pistol. She almost wished she’d had the nerve to fire the gun, just to rattle that calm, piercing gaze of his.

Tom’s face creased in a worried frown. “You can’t go running off everyone who comes about.”

Cressida looked at the heavy pistol in her hand and sighed. Her fingers felt stiff and cramped from gripping it so tightly. “Someone’s got to. You were fixing the sheep fence. Next time I’ll let you run them off, if you prefer.”

He didn’t look mollified, but nodded and fell in step beside her. Tom Webb had been in the army with her father, and he was as protective of Cressida and her sister as a fussy old hen would be of her chicks. “Did he give a name?”

“Alexander Hayes.”

Tom gave her a sharp look, and she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder just to be sure the man they spoke of was gone. “The dead man?”

Cressida shuddered. News of the resurrection of Marston’s most infamous resident had swept through the town like wildfire. Major Alexander Hayes, the younger son of a very old and prominent local family, had been thought dead on the fields of Waterloo some five years ago, which everyone agreed was a good thing, since rumor held that he’d turned out to be a traitor. His family had suffered terribly, according to local gossip. The elder Mr. Hayes died of despair soon after his son’s treachery came to light, and just this spring the new master of Penford had also died of a lingering illness. The family had lived very quietly for some time, still respectable but widely pitied. Major Hayes’s return, if he really was Major Hayes, would stir up the neighborhood to no end. She wondered what on earth he could want with her father.

“The obviously not dead man,” she said in reply to Tom’s question. “He doesn’t look even the slightest bit worm-eaten.” Far from it, in fact. Which was too bad. Now even people who were supposed to be moldering in their graves were coming around to pry into their troubles. Cressida would fear demons escaping hell to torment her next, except that she suspected they were already upon her. If only Papa would come home. . .

They had reached the house. The door stood open, begging a cool breeze to drift through, to no avail. It was as hot inside the house as it was outside. Cressida knew the heat was shortening her temper as much as her other worries were, and she dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, feeling her sleeve stick to her arm. She wished they hadn’t come here. If they still lived in Portsmouth, she could sneak down to the sea after dark and go for a swim to cool down. How she missed Portsmouth.

“George? George dear, is that you?”

Cressida paused, glancing at Tom. Her grandmother’s voice was so bright and hopeful, as if she truly believed Papa might just stroll into the house. Tom, looking grim again, opened his mouth, but she pressed a finger to her lips and handed him the pistol. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she straightened her shoulders and walked into the drawing room as if she hadn’t just confronted a stranger at gunpoint while he studied her horses with an eye to buying them at auction.

“No, Granny, it’s just I,” she said, going back to her seat. They’d been having tea when her ears picked up the sound of hoofbeats behind the house. She had slipped out with a murmured excuse to her grandmother, who was a little hard of hearing and hadn’t noticed the approaching horse.

Her older sister, Callie, shot her a questioning glance, but Cressida just smiled.

“I was sure it would be your father,” Granny said fretfully, her gaze lingering on the doorway. “Your step sounds so like his, Cressida. And he’s due home any day now.”

Cressida picked up her tea. Her father had been due home any day now for four months. He had gone missing before—or rather, he had left and not told them where he went or when to expect him back, but they’d always known it before. Papa would wink and pinch her cheek and say he was off, and he’d be back "in a fair while." "A fair while" had lasted anywhere from a fortnight to three months, but he’d always come back just before the money ran out. Papa seemed to have a knack for knowing when the money was about to run out.

Not this time, though. This time they were staring complete and utter ruin in the face, and there was still no sign of her father.

“I’m sure he’ll be home soon,” she said for her grandmother’s benefit.

“Of course he will.” Granny put down her tea and turned to stare out the front window, the one that faced the road. “Any day.”

He’d better, Cressida thought, staring into her tea, now stone-cold in the expensive new teacups Papa had ordered when they moved to Marston. Otherwise they were all sunk.

Later, while Granny dozed in her chair, Callie followed her to the kitchen when they cleared away the tea. “What was wrong?” she wanted to know, setting down the tray as Cressida put on her apron. Papa had hired a cook and a pair of maids, but they were all gone now. How fortunate that Cressida and her sister were quite used to having no servants at all. “You just jumped up and ran from the room, and then were gone a quarter hour. Granny remarked on it.”

“Did she?” Cressida poured out the dregs of the tea from the pot. “What did she say?”

Callie sighed. “She thought you might have heard Papa approaching. She's certain he’ll walk through the door at any moment.”

“If only he would,” she muttered. “I begin to wonder. . . ”