Miss James began to cry, tears dripping down her cheeks, and she was too worn down to swipe them away. “May I bring my dog? He’ll be fine; he merely requires a quiet period to heal. I can’t leave him behind.”
Howard’s heart wrenched with dismay. She was even prettier when she cried. Almost as pretty as Miss Carstairs, whom he would love forever. He’d like to hug her, to promise her everything would be all right, but it would have been completely inappropriate.
But Miss Carstairs and Miss Grey would have her fixed in a trice.
“Of course you may bring your dog,” he murmured. “What’s his name? Mutt?”
“Yes, Mutt,” Clara said.
“A grand name it is too.”
Mutt woofed softly, and Howard patted him on the head, then he motioned to the outriders, bidding them to aid the two females.
He stood to the side, observing as the servants fussed over them. They and their wounded animal were settled in the vehicle, their meager possessions too, and he grinned with satisfaction.
Howard Periwinkle was saving the day for the Lost Girls yet again! What a story he would have to tell!
He went over and climbed in too.
Jacob was nearly home, but he turned his horse down the lane toward Joanna’s cottage. Tim and Tom were with him, so he should have ridden on by, but he felt as if magnets had grabbed hold of him and forced him to stop.
The prior week, he’d left Ralston Place in an enraged hurry to chase after Margaret and Sandy. As a result, he hadn’t sent a message to her. When he didn’t visit again, what must she have thought of his behavior?
She probably suspected he’d climbed into her bed, and then—having lifted her skirt like the worst cad—had gotten what he’d craved and was finished with her. He hoped she didn’t presume that to be the case, but how else would she have viewed it?
“Do you know Miss James very well?” Tom asked, bringing his horse up alongside.
“Yes, I know her very well. How about you?”
“Only in passing. We were wondering: Can she cast magic spells? Pa says it’s superstitious nonsense, that there’s no such thing as magic and she’s just a normal person who’s learned some doctoring, but the stable boys claim she’s really powerful. They’ve watched her change her dog into a bird.”
Jacob laughed. “First, I agree with Sandy, and I don’t believe in magic. Second, I know her dog quite well too. His name is Mutt, and he can’t fly—no matter what the stable boys tell you.”
Tom scowled. “Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure.”
Tom called to his brother. “The Captain says her dog can’t fly.”
“She can’t fly either,” Jacob said, “but she has some interesting talents. She’s a very powerful healer, and she might be a clairvoyant too.”
“She can see the future?”
“I think she can.”
“Could she see mine?”
“We’ll ask her. She won’t always consent. She has to feel you’re not the sort who would judge her badly for it.”
“I wouldn’t judge her. I promise.”
On the trip from Scotland, he’d let the boys’ chatter alter into a drone, while he pondered his life and what direction he’d like it to take. During the long miles, he’d arrived at some decisions.
He was eager to marry, but not Roxanne. Bizarre as it sounded, he yearned to marry Joanna. It was such an outlandish prospect that it might push the Earth off its axis. Family members would faint. Acquaintances would snicker behind his back. Strangers would ridicule him to his face.
But he would be delighted forever. From the moment he’d met her, his father’s ghost had been hovering, ordering him to pay attention, to note what had been placed right in front of him. That was Joanna James, the most beautiful, exotic, intriguing woman he’d ever encountered.
Most men would pick her to be a mistress rather than a wife. She’d be kept hidden to supply illicit entertainment, but he wouldn’t live like that.
His father had navigated those depressing waters, and it had delivered him to a spot where he’d loathed his wife so completely that he was constantly gone. It meant Jacob had grown up thinking he’d hate to be a father, but suddenly, he wanted children! Fancy that!
Previously, the notion had appealed to him in a vague way. A man was supposed to sire sons after all, but Tim and Tom had made him realize how grand it would be to have a few sturdy, rambunctious boys of his own.
His children would know him well, and he’d be a steadying presence who would guide and mentor them on their road to adulthood. Jacob would bring that dream to fruition—with Joanna. She was the oddest choice he could settle on for a bride, but she would give him a happy home, happy children, and a happy life.
She’d marry him, wouldn’t she? If he asked, wouldn’t she accept?
As the possibility arose that she might decline, his pulse raced with alarm. She was such a peculiar woman. She didn’t believe he was much of a catch, and she had that idiotic aversion to matrimony, so he’d have to wear her down. On contemplating how amusing it would be to persuade her, he grinned, ready for a battle he was determined to win.
He burst out of the foliage to her gate, prepared to jump from the saddle and rush to her door, but the sight that greeted him was so disturbing that he wondered if he wasn’t in the wrong meadow.
Her cottage had burned to the ground. The roof had caved in, and three of the walls had collapsed. He could see charred furniture in the wreckage, the detritus of her world reduced to ashes. The smell of smoke was still heavy in the air, and the forest was very quiet, as if the animals were hunkered down, mourning what had occurred.
Had she and Clara survived? Surely Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to take her from him!
“Oh,
