Follow My Lead (13 page)

“Men often do not, as they are not the ones to barter with the butcher on Sundays.”

“Sad but true.” Jason tipped his hat to her. “I must bow to your superior argument.”

“Don’t bow to her arguments, Your Grace,” George mumbled from beyond the window. “At least not yet. Embattled conversation is fun for her. She would debate a pope about the virtues of sin.”

“And the devil into a righteous life?” Jason’s eyebrow cocked up. “Much like your father, if I recall.”

“Yes, in class he adored debating his students. And of course, during the student dinners he held.” She smiled at him again. “You could debate well enough yourself then, if I recall. And put away a decent amount of roast at the same time.”

Jason could only sit up straighter in delight. “Your father spoke to you of our shared suppers?” Alexander Crane invited a gathering of students to a meal once monthly, and Jason had been shocked to be invited while he had been Crane’s student. He hadn’t thought he stood out much, but to have been remembered by Alexander Crane, enough to be mentioned to his daughter, what a delightful and flattering thought.

But a frown simply crossed Miss Crane’s brow as she regarded him queerly. “Spoke to me?” she asked, and then shook her head. “Your Grace, you don’t remember me at all, do you?”

“Ah . . . erm . . . ,” were all the syllables Jason could manage. Miss Crane shook her head again and then returned her eyes to her book, smiling to herself. Whether she was amused at his lack of memory or at his acute embarrassment, he was not to know. Because the subject was rendered forgotten after they hit a bump in the road and George Bambridge, his head still luckily out the window, made a noise unheard of from the human side of the animal kingdom. Apologies were offered, Miss Crane kept her nose in her book, Totty sipped her flask . . . and the whole round started again.

They stopped at a posting inn on the outskirts of Dover for a very late supper and to rest. Morning tide was in a few short hours, but the opportunity to lay down flat in a bed was too tempting to pass up, so they took the rooms Jason had sent a rider ahead to reserve. It had been a beyond exhausting day—George’s stomach eventually settling, Totty sipping her flask and dozing at turns, and Winnifred reading, her anxiety over her upcoming trip obvious in the way her foot would wag, the way she occasionally clutched at the small heart-shaped locket around her neck.

As for Jason, he would only be too glad when he had seen Miss Crane safely on her ship, thus fulfilling his duties. And able to go back to London and . . . do what came next.

All members of the party were asleep before their heads hit their pillows.

But, despite Jason’s eagerness to deposit his charge and be on his way, when the first few streaks of pale pink light began to lift the sky, it was Miss Winnifred Crane who descended the stairs first.

She was alone in the pub room (which in the mornings was transformed into a breakfast room) when Jason found her. She couldn’t have been there for more than a few minutes, as she was mulling over her options at the bar, which was now the freshly stocked breakfast buffet, picking out a scone. She checked over one shoulder, then, seeing no one, knocked the scone on the bar.

“A bit stale, is it?” Jason asked, leaning his arms against the door frame at the base of the stairs.

Miss Crane jumped, only slightly, but enough to make Jason smile. Framed against the morning light streaming in the window, she looked even more like a child caught at mischief. It was hard to imagine that she was a woman, full grown and mature, embarking on a desperate quest.

“A bit. Likely yesterday’s scones, but it will do.” She put it on her plate and slathered a sufficient amount of jam over it. Jason joined her by the buffet and wrinkled his nose.

“Not hungry?” she asked as he made no move to fill a plate.

“That scone made quite a solid thunk,” he said, regarding the oily sausage and eggs speckled with . . . something. Normally, Jason could eat anything, in ridiculous quantities. And frequently did. Once, when he was up at Oxford he had, on a dare, eaten actual boiled shoe leather, paired with a concoction whose full list of ingredients were to this day a mystery to him—though he was certain it had included port, cow’s milk, and béarnaise sauce.

However, this particularly unappetizing repast matched with the prospect of another morning ride with George Bambridge’s queasy stomach . . . “Maybe it would be better if I waited a few hours to break my fast. After all, we’ll be at your ship within an hour or so, and then I’ll . . .”

“Be rid of us?” she finished for him, seating herself at a table. Jason came and sat next to her. The barman appeared, poured him a cup of coffee. At least that, he felt, would be ingestible.

He sipped it.

It was not.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” she said, taking a bite of a scone and then swallowing, hard. “We are not the most sterling company I could think of.”

“No!” Jason cried. “I do not begrudge you the trip. I have business in the area . . . and the conversation in the carriage is wholly agreeable . . . some of the time.”

“Of course it is.” She laughed. A very pleasant laugh. “As long as I’m not nervously tapping my foot and George isn’t retching out the window.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Actually,” she whispered, “it somewhat is.”

His eyebrow went up.

“I might have slipped some ipecac into his tea yesterday morning,” she confessed.

“Why?” Jason asked. “I don’t think your cousin can be dissuaded from accompanying you.”

“I had to try,” she admitted. “What comes next would be so much easier if I didn’t have to worry about George following me.”

“What comes next?” he asked.

She flushed, and took another bite of hard scone. “Switzerland, seeking out the letters that prove the painting’s authenticity. Or lack thereof.”

She became quiet then—either she thought her answer sufficient or she was too occupied chewing. “God, this is awful,” she finally said, choking down her bite of scone.

And in that moment, Jason realized, he liked this woman. Not in a romantic sense of course—Winnifred Crane didn’t seem to have a romantic bone in her body. But he could respect her desire to seek out her own path in life, as it were. It was an opportunity he had never been granted. And although he could not begrudge the luxuries of a Dukedom, he could appreciate her fervor. It made him . . . think. Of the what-ifs of his own life.

Stop, he told himself. This is nothing but foolish wistfulness. Admire her he did. Still, he would feel better when he no longer had a hand in her affairs.

“Miss Crane,” he said, leaning forward, “I truly wish you luck on your journey.”

“Thank you,” she replied, taken aback.

“And”—he reached into his breast pocket, pulling out a few coins—“if you happen to—”

“Your Grace, please,” she said, shaking her head. “It is completely unnecessary, I have enough funds to pay for my trip.”

“This isn’t for your trip.” He took her hand and pressed the coins into her palm. “It’s for a bottle of Burgundy ’93. If you happen across it.” He leaned in ever so slightly closer. “I should hate for your entire trip to be without a little leisure.”

They stayed there, frozen for the barest of seconds, their hands connected around a few discs of metal. The smallest zing of electricity passed through their fingers when he met her eyes. Jason’s breath caught. And if he wasn’t mistaken . . . Miss Crane’s did, too.

Curious. The kind of curious that Jason might wonder about, but he would not have the chance.

“Lord love a duck,” George said, thundering down the stairs, “I’m starved. Are there any kippers with these eggs?”

“For the love of all that is holy, George,” Totty said, following after him, “you spent all yesterday losing your lunch. Do you really think it best to stuff your gullet today?”

And as their hands fell apart, and Miss Crane picked at her scone, the moment passed without comment.

The Port of Dover was a clamor of activity at morning tide. Ships being loaded with passengers and cargo, most heading for Calais, located just across the Channel, but some headed for points further east in Europe, such as Amsterdam or Brussels. Different voices, different languages lapped over each other in a cacophony of noise that tumbled together incomprehensibly. Men supervising pulleys and flats of goods from the Continent made little time or space for novice ship goers, crowding them out of the way.

They had been late setting off from the inn. First Winn wanted to double-check that she had everything, then Totty was certain she was missing one of her trunks.

Jason considered them lucky to have arrived in Dover in the time they did—he must remember to reward Bones’s abilities under pressure.

“Stay here,” Jason commanded of Bones, who was unable to force their carriage any further into the fray. Jason eyed the teeming masses as he helped Totty and Miss Crane disembark. “This little adventure may take longer than anticipated.”

The four of them pushed through the gauntlet of fish sellers, ticket agents, importers inspecting their wares, and sailors still drunk from their shore leave last night. They made a curious line of ants, threading their way along the pier, followed by the porters who carried the travelers’ trunks up to the gangplank of the
Phoenix
, the packet that made one round trip daily to Calais, where a ticket agent waited impatiently.

“You all are cutting it rather close. We’re off in five minutes,” the ticket agent said to the eager Winnifred, the ambivalent Totty, and the begrudged George in turn, issuing them each paper tickets. A quick shrill of his whistle, and the porters jostled past them and were told where to deposit the luggage for loading. It all happened so fast.

Jason hadn’t thought that his mission would be executed so cleanly. So quickly. But there they were, standing at the gangplank of her ship, and he was five minutes from being done with Miss Crane and cleared of his obligation to Lord Forrester.

“Oh no, I’ll keep this one with me,” Miss Crane was saying to a porter as she held fast to her small portmanteau with one hand while worrying at that heart-shaped locket around her neck with the other. She turned to him, saw that he was watching her, and smiled. “It’s so crowded here, I simply don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle.”

“Yes,” Jason agreed, “I’m impressed we found the ship in good time.”

“I know!” She laughed awkwardly. “It’s very confusing. I confess, I thought for a moment we would end up on ship to Denmark or some such thing.”

As noisy and crowded as it was on the dock, silence fell between them, as they both searched for something more to say.

“Come along, Winn,” Totty called from halfway up the gangplank. “We’re about to cast off!”

“Yes, Winnifred,” George concurred from in front of her, “and I would like nothing more than to find our accommodations and go back to sleep!”

“Hurry up then, George,” Totty grumbled, pushing at the much larger man, urging him up the gangplank.

“Mrs. Tottendale, Mr. Bambridge,” Jason called up to them, “best of luck on your journey!”

He didn’t know if they heard him, intent as they were on boarding, but Totty turned and waved back, giving a pointed look to Miss Crane as she did so.

“Yes,” Miss Crane said, her hand still clasping her locket. “It seems I must go, else miss my own adventure. Thank you for your kindness in escorting me thus far.”

Jason gently removed that hand from the piece of gold at her throat, and bowed over it. “Good-bye, Miss Crane. And enjoy your adventure. I’m eager to know how it will turn out.”

“You and the rest of the Historical Society, no doubt.” She smiled. “I’ll do my best to make the story as entertaining as possible.”

And with that their hands parted and they parted company. As Miss Winnifred Crane took her first steps up the gangplank of the ship that would convey her to Calais, Jason turned away and wended his way back through the crowds.