The Silver Lord. Miranda Jarrett

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      Chapter Four

      It took considerable determination for Fan to make herself walk slowly across the lane towards Captain Claremont, as if she’d been planning all morning to do exactly that. What she really wished to do, of course, was to race back to Feversham, lock every door, and bury her head beneath her bed pillow upstairs like a terrified cony in her burrow. But Father had taught her that danger was best confronted face-to-face, and so she did, even managing a polite smile to mask the thumping of her heart.

      “Good day, Captain My Lord,” she called as he swung down from his horse. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”

      Clearly surprised, he turned at her voice, ducking around the chestnut’s neck to find her. He smiled warmly as she came closer, and swept his black cocked hat from his head to salute her, there in the middle of Tunford.

      “Miss Winslow,” he boomed, his voice so cheerfully loud that she was certain they must be hearing it clear in Portsmouth. “Good day to you. I did not expect to see you here, either.”

      She’d forgotten how very blue his eyes were, as if they’d stolen the brightest color from the sky above, so blue that she had to look away, towards the wagons and the grinning sailors watching them with undisguised curiosity.

      “You are making a journey, Captain My Lord?” she asked, foolishly saying the obvious as she hoped and prayed he was going somewhere on the far side of the world.

      “I am,” he declared, the sunlight glinting off the gold buttons on his coat. “And likely you have guessed my destination as well. Feversham, Miss Winslow. Feversham, my new home port. You have received the letter from Potipher, I trust?”

      “No,” said Fan faintly, the awful certainty knotting tightly in her stomach. “I have had no letter from anyone.”

      “No?” The captain frowned, his blue eyes clouding. “Potipher was to have written to you. So you’d know, you see. So you’d be prepared.”

      “No letter,” she said again, and swallowed hard as she tugged her shawl higher over her shoulders. She didn’t want to know, and she didn’t want to be prepared. “I’ve had nothing from—”

      “Miss Winslow!” The shopgirl came puffing up beside them, her expression as stern as her round face could muster. “Miss Winslow, if you don’t be wanting them garnet ear-bobs, then I must be taking them back to the shop.”

      “Oh, I am so sorry!” Fan flushed, her fingers flying guiltily to the earrings. “I forgot I even had them on. Here, take them back, if you please. I do not think they suit me after all.”

      “I think they suit you vastly well,” said the captain gallantly. “A spot of color is just the thing for you.”

      The flush in her cheeks deepened, more scarlet than any miserable garnets, and hastily she pulled the earrings from her ears.

      “Thank you,” she said, pressing them into the girl’s waiting palm. “Besides, they’re too dear for me.”

      “How dear can they be?” asked the captain. “What’s the price, missy?”

      “Twenty-five shillings, M’Lord,” answered the shopgirl, simpering up at him as she brazenly tripled the price that she’d asked of Fan earlier. “They be French garnets and filigree-work.”

      “And now they shall belong to Miss Winslow,” he said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket for the coins, “for I cannot imagine them hanging from any other ears than hers.”

      “No!” gasped Fan. True, she’d been fancying them, but fancies didn’t account for gossip, or whispers, or how accepting such a gift from him would rob her of all respect from the men in the Company. “You cannot! I will not take the earrings! That is—that is, it’s not proper for me to accept such a gift from you!”

      His face fell, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a rare, restless little gesture of indecision for a man like him.

      “It is not intended as a gift such as that,” he explained. “Not as a gentleman to a lady, that is. I meant it to make up for Potipher not sending that dam—that letter to you, as he ought to have.”

      “Why?” she demanded, though she was already guessing—no, she already knew—the truth. He would be the new master, for as long a lease as the Trelawneys would grant him.

      “Because I haven’t just let Feversham, as I’d first intended,” he said, unable to keep the satisfied pride from his voice. “I’ve bought it outright.”

      She stared at him, dumbstruck. He’d bought Feversham? Had his captain’s share of that Spanish treasure ship truly been so vast, or were even younger sons of dukes wealthy enough to make such a purchase with ease?

      “That is where I’m bound now,” he continued, “to take possession. There’s nothing to be gained by wasting time, is there?”

      Aware of her shock, his smile turned lopsided as he answered quickly to fill her silence. “No, no, there isn’t, not at all. But this will be easier for us both if we—”

      “No.” Abruptly she turned away from him. Everything in her life would be changed by this impulsive purchase of his, from warning the men, to changing the place along the stream where their tea was landed, to making sure no further messages were delivered to her at Feversham.

      Oh, yes, and more change as well: she must leave the house where she’d been born and find a new place for herself to live. No wonder she was walking so fast now she was nearly running.

      “Hold now, Miss Winslow, don’t flight off like this,” he said, his long stride easily keeping pace with hers. “We’ve matters to discuss.”

      She kept her gaze straight ahead, quickening her step. “We do not.”

      “And I say we do.” He wheeled around, blocking her way. “Isn’t there some place more private than the middle of the street where we can talk?”

      “I told you,” she said, trying to step around him, “there is nothing to be said!”

      “But there is.” He caught her arm to stop her, his grasp through the rough linsey-woolsey of her sleeve hard enough to make her gasp indignantly. “I don’t give a tinker’s dam if we talk here where the whole world can listen. But knowing these are your people, I’d think you’d want it otherwise.”

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