If I Fall (7 page)

He was edging his foot into the sitting room, when he heard it. It sounded like a fork striking a glass, but some
how … human. It must have been the echo, he thought, but it almost sounded like a giggle. He immediately straightened to attention. But when no one emerged, his curiosity won out again, and his gaze returned to the sitting room. Where, if he was not mistaken, one of the heavy velvet drapes was twitching.

Unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him, Jack thought it best to ignore the twitching curtain, and instead remain at attention. Surely, that’s what a man like Lord Forrester would want out of a cadet he sponsored. Someone who obeyed the rules, and stayed where he was told, and…

And there was that giggle again!

Finally, he couldn’t help it any longer. Perhaps some ruffian had sneaked in and was hiding until he could thieve everything out of this room in the dark of night. Which Jack could not allow.

And so, he went over to the window, and drew back the curtain dramatically, his hand going automatically to his side, searching for his sword … which of course was not there, as he had no sword.

Instead of a thief, however, Jack found two girls. One far littler than the other.

When he drew back the curtain, the taller girl stumbled—she had been holding on to it for support, as the littler one was latched on to her leg. Jack caught her arm before she could fall, and was about to make some sort of exclamatory statement, such as an, “I say!” or even the practically-a-swear “My God!” but the smaller child beat him to it.

“Hide-and-seek!” cried the littlest, who could not have been more than three, with dimples and curly blond hair that bounced when she shrieked with laughter.

“Not yet, Mandy!” the elder girl said in a hushed voice, as she straightened herself, blushing up at him. She looked about nine or ten, and whereas her hair matched the youngster’s in shade, it was straight and plaited down her back. She looked up at Jack with the biggest green eyes, twinkling with mischief. “We’re hiding, don’t tell,” she whispered to Jack, as she gave him back his arm.

“Hiding from what?” he asked.

“Will you be quiet?” came a hushed whisper from the other side of the room—a brown, curly head popped up, freckles gone mad upon her nose and cheeks. “Papa will find us without any trouble when he hears you stumbling and making a racket. And Mandy, you’re supposed to hide somewhere by yourself!”

But little Mandy just shook her head, and inched closer to her sister.

“She couldn’t find any place to hide,” the elder girl whispered back.

“Of course she can, Sarah. You just baby her. Mandy, you’re small enough to fit in the cabinet, go over there.”

But Mandy simply shook her head and burrowed further.

“Wait, are you playing some sort of game?” Jack asked, utterly bewildered.

The eldest—Sarah—blinked back in surprise. “Of course we are. Haven’t you ever played hide-and-seek?”

“Well, I…” Before Jack could appropriately answer that question, which would have been embarrassingly in the negative (A vicar’s child, he had been taught, did not play games where nothing was learned or made useful. Was it any wonder he sought the adventure of the sea?), footsteps were heard in the hallway beyond.

“Come hide!” Sarah whispered. But when he hesitated, she sent him an exasperated look. “It will be an adventure!”

But again he hesitated just a moment too long, and as the door handle on the far side of the room turned, all three girls went rigid with excitement, and popped back into their hiding places.

Just then, a barrel of a man came thudding through the hall, his posture that of an ogre about to attack.

“I know you’re in here!” he cried, a stern expression on his
brow. When he saw Jack, however, his expression cleared and he straightened.

“Oh! You must be Dickey’s boy!” he cried, his face no longer that of an ogre, but now with an easy smile. “Forrester. Very pleased to have you in my home.”

“Er … yes, sir,” Jack said—straightening to attention and bowing at the same time, which ended up as merely awkward. “My father is Richard Fletcher. I am Cadet Jackson Fletcher, and … they told me to wait in the hall, but I—”

“Happy to have you! How is the Naval College treating you?”

“Good,” Jack said, unable to keep his voice from breaking embarrassingly. And then, when Lord Forrester made no re
ply … Jack couldn’t keep himself from rambling. “It’s different than I expected: I wanted to go to sea first, but my father didn’t want me on the ocean with no training and two wars going on—and it seems we would not have been able to obtain a King’s Letter in any case. But my years at the college count toward my required six as a midshipman, so it’s not lost time.…”

But Jack saw that Lord Forrester’s attention had wandered from himself to just over his shoulder.

And the curtain that twitched ever so slightly there.

And suddenly, Jack found himself playing the game, too.

“Ah, Lord Forrester,” he said, inching himself ever so slightly to block the view of the curtain. “I am so terribly honored that you have invited me to dine. Indeed, I did not expect such kindness.…”

“You didn’t?” Lord Forrester asked, his surprised attention back to Jack. “Nonsense, my boy. I knew your father at school. And how is the good reverend? We were all shocked to learn he went into the church instead of the law … all the way up in Lincolnshire, of all places! He would have made an excellent politician.”

“Yes, well, my father always says he would much rather be doing than telling everyone else what to do.” Jack quipped, and turned red in the face before he could stop himself. After all, Lord Forrester was a peer! He was one of the tellers, not the doers! He had just insulted his possible future patron!

Luckily, Lord Forrester just leaned his head back and gave a hearty laugh.

“That sounds like old Dickey. And it goes without saying that I would see his son properly fed for at least one Sunday dinner.” Lord Forrester nonchalantly sidestepped Jack, so he was now standing next to the curtain. “And I think you’ll be pleased with the menu. We will be serving that rarest of all delicacies…” He reached his hand back behind the curtain. “Little girl!”

Lord Forrester whipped the curtain back, revealing Sarah and Mandy who began to shriek and run. While Sarah ran with direction and aplomb, little Mandy could do barely more than run on short legs in a circle.

Lord Forrester trotted after her, making sure to not catch her too easily. Because as she shrieked, she giggled, and Lord Forrester kept saying, “I’m going to get you and serve you up!” and she simply shrieked more. Then Mandy ran behind the couch, and the other brown-haired girl had to get up and run, lest she be discovered, too. Soon the entire room was filled with running girls, chasing father, and hysterical laughter.

No, he had not been expecting this at all.

Jack shook his head ruefully. Had he ever been that young and frightened? Waiting in a hall and surprised to learn that young ladies of rank played hide-and-seek with their fathers. Although the pit that existed in his stomach when he had been thirteen and waiting in a Forrester foyer was uncannily similar to the one that rested there now.

He scuffed his toe on the marbled floor, the squeaky sound echoing off the marble tiles. Given the clamor of well-dressed gentlemen—“holding their place in line”—who existed just outside the front door, it was alarmingly quiet in the Forrester’s town house, with only the tick of a grandfather clock to keep him company. He did not expect a reception by any means. He hadn’t written a reply to Lady Forrester’s letter, as they had docked in London before any such note would have arrived. But as that damned grandfather clock ticked on, he did begin to wonder if the supercilious butler had forgotten him.

“Perhaps he stuck his nose too high in the air, and it got
caught on a cobweb,” Jack mumbled aloud, mollified by the echo that followed.

Jack was just about to try one or the other of the heavy doors that stood on opposite sides of the main hall, when the thudding of adolescent footsteps broke the silence, and a gasp floated down from the top of the stairs.

“Jack!”

And before he could formulate a thought, Jack found himself practically tackled by the young lady as she ran down the stairs and threw herself into his arms.

“Sarah?” he asked, disbelieving. The last time he had seen Sarah Forrester, she had been twelve, and just beginning to gain in height and womanly virtues. But this young lady that wrapped her arms—tightly—around his waist…

“La! Do be serious, Jack! It’s me! Amanda!”

“
Amanda?
” he couldn’t help but cry. Jack immediately pulled away and stared down into her face. “But Amanda’s the youngest!”

She laughed at that, which was followed by a decidedly unladylike snort. She covered her mouth quickly.

“My governess keeps telling me I have to
not
laugh if I’m going to laugh like that—but it’s too funny, you thinking I’m Sarah!”

Once given the benefit of a longer look, Jack recognized the blond curls down the back and slightly shorter dress style that exemplified youth. And he recognized the dimples that had been ever present on the child Amanda shining forth on the cheeks of the young lady in front of him.

“Well, you’ll have to forgive me, Miss Amanda,” he teased as he gave a smart bow. “The last time I saw you, you barely reached my waist. I didn’t expect anyone quite so tall.”

Amanda immediately hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. “I can’t help it,” she said mournfully. “Mother is afraid I’ll be taller than any gentleman who might wish to dance with me. Miss Pritchett—our governess, you know, although, she’s only my governess now—has recommended they restrict my food so I stop growing.”

Jack refrained from shaking his head. Talking to females—especially fifteen-year-old ones—was trickier than one expected.

“Well, I still have some inches on you, so I suspect you should feel safe to keep eating for a few weeks or so.”

Amanda giggled, and slowly her shoulders came back up to her full (remarkable) height.

“What brings you to visit?” Amanda asked, as she waved at the butler, who had magically reappeared and seemed to be eyeing Jack’s trunk with distaste. “Take that to one of the guest rooms, please, Dalton,” she instructed, before a quizzical look crossed her brow. “Whichever one my mother would say. You are staying, aren’t you?” she turned her gaze to Jack.

“Your mother wrote me, and asked me to do so,” Jack replied.

“She did?” she replied, then shook her head, making her curls bounce. “I wonder that she didn’t tell me—but then again, no one tells me anything anymore.”

“Anymore?” he replied as he offered Amanda his arm, which she took with girlish joy. They moved with absolutely no purpose whatsoever to the drawing room.

“Or ever, really,” Amanda sighed.

The first, and indeed only thing, that he noticed in the drawing room was the overwhelming amount of flower bouquets, of every variety, on every surface. If Amanda had been wearing mourning clothes, he would have thought Whigby was right and there had been a funeral.

“Ever since
the Event
,” Amanda continued, hardly pausing for breath, “everyone gets very quiet when I come into the room. I saw my mother elbow my father in the stomach when they
finally
started talking about something interesting!”

The Event. The importance with which Amanda imbued those words made Jack pause.

“And then, when we came to town again,” Amanda continued blithely, “or, more accurately, after Everything Changed, everyone’s been too busy to think of telling me what on earth is going on!”

Jack followed Amanda’s conversation as best he could. Again, he could hear the emphasis she gave the words “everything changed.” Talking to teenagers was like learning a new language, and Jack had to be careful to pick up on the cues.
Finally, he asked, “So you don’t know why there are a half-dozen gentlemen loitering on your doorstep?”

“Oh, them.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “They’re
always
there. You would think they would take the hint, but panting after Sarah is something of a badge of honor, I gather.”

“Panting after Sarah?”

“Mama likes to think I don’t know of course, but Bridget constantly grumbles about how Sarah’s swains have made it so she can’t even get in our front door, and they should be shot as trespassers. But then Mama says, ‘What a thing to say!’ and Lady Worth says, ‘It would certainly make the papers,’ but she says it like making the papers is a
good
thing.” Amanda paused long enough to ring for tea, frown quickly, and then smile again. “But maybe it is a good thing, because Bridget has
never
been mentioned, and I don’t think she likes it. But enough about all that. I want to hear about you! You’re so tan—were you in the West Indies? The East Indies?” She practically tore his arm off, she clutched him so tightly in her excitement. “Did you meet with any pirates?!”