She smiled wearily at me and patted my hand. “Thank you, I appreciate your concern. There is nothing you can do now, although there may be a time when you are called upon to stand behind the Union. As for Maggie…well, we won’t discuss her now. She is so very emotional, and is often overly excited about imagined slights. Good night, Miss Whitney, and thank you for bringing the situation with your notebook to my attention.”
I could not ignore that gentle but pointed hint, and so departed for home. When we arrived at my sister’s house, Jackson silently handed me down and prepared to leave.
“I’d like a word with you for a moment, Jackson—gracious!”
I turned to look at the man who swayed into me as he walked past. He smelled of strong spirits and I would have thought nothing more about it except I saw a glint of gold when he begged my pardon. He moved off down the street in rather a serpentine fashion, pausing now and again as if lost in thought.
“Yes, miss?” Jackson reminded me he was still waiting.
I dragged my attention back to Jackson. A wiry man of about thirty-five, Jackson had shifty gray eyes, and hair that was so blond it was almost white. A short upper lip, combined with the inability to look me in the eye, gave me suspicions as to his moral character.
“It’s about Annie. . . .” I paused, still disturbed by the encounter with the drunkard. “Have you ever seen that man before?”
“No, miss. You mentioned Annie?”
“Hmm. Yes. Annie. Oh, I understand you have been walking out with her.”
Jackson
dipped his head, and mumbled that he had once or twice, but had not seen her lately.
I ignored his excuse and took a deep breath. “I realize that, as I am not your employer, it is not my place to question you about so personal a matter, but Annie
is
my maid, and I value her a great deal. I would not like to see her hurt in any manner.”
He looked in the vicinity of my left shoulder, and said, “No, miss. Nor would I want to see Annie hurt.”
“What, if you don’t mind my asking, are your intentions towards her?”
He shifted his focus to a spot some inches from the top of my head. “Intentions, miss?”
“Yes, intentions,” I said firmly. “Do you plan to marry?”
Evidently I startled him with my directness, for his gaze dropped to my right hip. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to—I’m not the marrying type, miss.”
“I see. Thank you, Jackson, you have told me what I want to know.”
I went into the house, more concerned than ever about Annie.
The next morning dawned with a clear sky, and as the sun rose, so did my spirits despite my concern over Griffin. A wire announcing my sister’s imminent return came, requiring a discussion with the household staff, but that was soon taken care of. I avoided thinking about Mabel’s reaction to my New Womanhood, and more specifically my support of women’s rights, by borrowing my aunt’s horse Marianne for a solitary ride in Rotten Row.
The Row was busy that Saturday, with couples and families out riding in the unusual spell of warm spring weather. I saw one or two acquaintances as I rode, but kept my conversations short.
A sudden, bellowed, “Good morning, Miss Whitney,” from immediately behind startled me into a precarious lurch, forcing me to jerk back on the reins to retain my seat. Marianne stopped abruptly, directly in the path of the horse behind, which responded to the sudden obstacle by giving her a sharp nip on the rump. She bucked in protest at the assault, and I slid out of the saddle and onto the ground with a solid thump.
I looked up from where I was sprawled in the dirt and commented, “I should have known it was you. What other man would find it necessary to knock me to the ground to greet me?”
Griffin
, for it was he who rode the horse behind me, roared with laughter, slapping at his leg in a most common manner. He wiped his eyes, then leaped down and helped me to my feet.
“On the contrary, my dear Miss Cassandra, experience has shown that you are just as likely as I am to be the catalyst for such a greeting.”
I ignored the jibe. Brushing myself off, I went to retrieve my horse. I checked the bite; it was minor and did not require attention.
“Help me up,” was my only comment as I tried unsuccessfully to remount.
“Certainly,” he replied cheerfully. “Always glad to be of service. Put your foot here.” He made a step with his hands. Placing one hand on his strong shoulder and the other on the saddle, I stepped onto his hands. He heaved me up and almost over the other side of the horse.
Clutching the sidesaddle and arranging my skirt as best I could, I gathered the reins and reached for the offered riding crop. My hand closed on his, and I looked down on him for a moment.
“Are you riding alone?” I asked, flooded with the by-now-familiar conflicting emotions and various tingling body parts that seemed to accompany his presence.
“I am.” He jumped into his saddle from a standing position (something I have always wanted to learn, but have never been able to convince anyone to teach me), and walked his horse over to me. “May I join you?”
“It would certainly be better to have you where I can keep an eye out for you, in case your horse decides to take another bite out of Marianne.” I tapped at the mare with the whip, and we set off at a brisk trot.
Griffin
eyed my tenuous riding posture with some concern. “Are you sure you’re not going to fall off again?”
“I never would have fallen off if you hadn’t startled me, and your horse brutally attacked mine.”
He grinned at me and my heart melted into a puddle. “Winston wouldn’t attack a lady unless provoked. He’s as gentle as a baby.”
“Oh really?” I questioned, noting the firm hand he used to control the gray stallion. “Then I am sure you wouldn’t have any qualms about letting me try him.”
“No.”
“But if he’s so gentle—”
“No!”
“He is lovely.” I reached over to pat the stallion’s neck. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to part with him?”
“I’d sooner cut off my left…er…no, I am not selling him.”
“I notice your hand is better,” I said conversationally.
“Yes.”
“It is curious, your having so many accidents since your return home. You don’t think—”
“No!” he snapped.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to be somewhat moody now, yet he made no move to part company. Deciding any further comments about his accidents would be poorly received, I broached a subject about which I was curious.
“Tell me about Rosewood.”
He looked startled by my request. “Rosewood? Why do you want to know about Rosewood?”
“It burned down, did it not?”
“Yes,” he said warily.
“Why?”
He gave me a considering look, then sent Winston into an easy canter. Marianne followed suit without my urging.
“Well?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“It’s part of my theory of why someone would want to do away with you.”
He frowned in response to my smile. “You’ve been reading too many novels. There’s nothing suspicious about my run of bad luck lately, and for the fire at Rosewood, it was caused by a faulty gas pipe.”
“Ah. So there is not a tribe in Africa that has condemned you to death for the sacrilegious act you committed upon the chief’s eldest daughter?”
“Not his
eldest
daughter.” He grinned suddenly, sending my heart soaring. “No, no angry African tribe. You’ll have to look closer to home for your murderous theories.”
“So, you admit it is more than one person,” I teased him gently.
“What about you?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly. His grin had evaporated, the familiar frown having returned.
“Me? I am not the one who is having suspicious accidents.”
“That’s not what Helena says.” He pulled the horse up, his voice suddenly grim. “Evidently you ran into trouble the night you both went to that blasted meeting.”
“Oh that,” I waved a hand, thinking for some reason of the man with the gold tooth. “He was a simple thief who saw an opportunity and took it. He was obviously intimidated by there being two of us, or else he would have asked for our jewelry as well.”
“Even you can hardly dismiss such an attack. Why were you walking home?”
“I like walking,” I said airily. “I find it beneficial to the constitution. You are making too much out of a little incident—nothing happened other than the loss of a bag and a few shillings.”
“Both of you could have been hurt.”
“But we weren’t.”
We glared at each other until a passing rider distracted us.
“You haven’t finished telling me about Rosewood,” I pointed out as our horses walked on.
“I wasn’t aware that I had
begun
telling you about it.”
I stopped Marianne. He rode on a few paces, staring ahead until he noticed we were not at his side. He turned back when I spoke. “Tell me, Mr. St. John, is it women in general, or is there something specific about my person that forces you into rude and belligerent behavior?”
He glowered at me for a minute, then a slow smile spread across his face. All those tingly parts of me began to cheer as he walked Winston over to me. “What do you want to know about Rosewood?”
Caught once again in the snare of his amber eyes, I felt a blush creeping up over my neck and face as he looked at me steadily. I stifled the sudden clamoring of my mind as it urged me to throw myself into his arm, and tried to remember what we had been discussing. “Why did it burn down?”
“I told you—it burned because of a gas pipe.”
“Gas pipes seldom burst suddenly into flames and burn down houses. There must have been a reason for it to do so.”
He looked away for a moment. Tension was written into every muscle, so much so that his fingers were positively white with strain, and his voice, when he spoke, was flat and devoid of emotion. “One of the gas jets was left open in my mother’s room.”
I gasped, horrified at the thought of a woman trapped in a fire.
“My mother has been dead since I was fifteen,” he said quickly. “The room was unoccupied.”
I knew by the pain in his eyes that there was more to the situation than a simple fire, and touched his hand, wanting to ease the pain. “I’m sorry. It must have been horrible for your family to lose your home in such a manner.”
He looked down at my hand for a moment, then met my eyes. I flushed with his nearness, with the sudden flare of heat in his eyes as he leaned toward me. I was suddenly aware that we were alone on a shaded bend of the Row, just the two of us, a man and a woman, and he was about to kiss me.
His saddle creaked as his lips brushed mine, heat from the contact bursting into life deep in the untouched parts of me.
Ask him now
, my brain demanded.
Tell him the position is his if he wants it.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, his breath fanning across my mouth, his eyes burning into mine.
“I don’t seem to be able to stop,” I admitted, filled with conflicting emotions. Every sensation seemed to be
right
with Griffin, and yet I knew that no proper lady acted this way.