The Summer of You (11 page)

Would the movement pass him by? Was it simply a passing deer or waterfowl, wandering across his path? No, it was more direct than that, more focused. A female force, marching right up to his door.

He heard the light, deliberate steps on the porch, could hear the hand rise through the air. Byrne wrenched open the door and stared directly into the deep brown eyes of Lady Jane.

“Well, I told you I’d give you a few days,” she said immediately upon his opening the door.

There was a moment, so slight Byrne could not count its passing, that those eyes held him rooted to the ground.

“Beg pardon?” Byrne said, after regaining his own ground.

Her cheeks were flushed under her straw bonnet. Her eyes sparked with purpose, her voice and posture determined. This was not the contemplative, deductive woman who sat with him by a creek a few afternoons ago. Nay, hers was a body that was straining for action. That wanted to jump at the bit and leap into something headlong. And it sent his blood pumping.

“The highwayman?” she replied, stepping inside the house with no preamble.

“You just crossed the property line,” he remarked wryly.

“Yes, well, I want to see what the plans are that you came up with.” She began inspecting various cluttered surfaces, rifling through meaningless papers. “Did you spend any time coming up with a plan?” She paused as she ran a finger over the table, leaving a stripe in the dust. She wrinkled her nose at him, then, in a motion that could only be described as prissy, flitted the dust off her fingers.

“On how to catch a highwayman?” Byrne asked drily.

“No, on how to drain the lake and catch all the fish—of course on how to catch the highwayman,” Jane snitted, her mood unlike any that Byrne had ever seen. It was impatient and fractious. She practically vibrated with energy.

He consciously held himself still, lazy, hoping to let his body language influence hers. “As a matter of fact, I did,” he drawled.

Point of fact, he hadn’t stopped thinking about it. When she initially proposed the idea, he had scoffed. The entire walk home he thought of every reason to reject it: It wasn’t his place. It was inherently dangerous; he was meant to be recuperating, living a quiet life. Lady Jane should be nowhere near a highwayman—and she was far too eager to see such an occurrence.

But, he’d thought, as he walked back to his front door—if he were to stake out this highwayman, he would first want to learn where he had been making his robberies—exact locations, and every one of them. Chances are he would avoid thieving too close to his actual home, so as to not draw attention to himself. What was the man taking? If ’twas only banknotes and coin, it would be less traceable than if he were taking jewels off ladies’ necks. He would need a means of pawning those goods . . . Byrne would have to acquire a list of everything that had been taken, exactly, down to the last farthing.

By the time he had entered his home and collapsed on the fragile-looking but surprisingly sturdy settee, he was mulling over how to go about following the highwayman’s routes.

“Dobbs!” he’d called out, and that good man emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray of bread and meat, complemented mightily by the bottle of whisky at its side.

“Thought you might like to eat on the veranda this evenin’,” Dobbs said, bypassing Byrne and moving to the small porch out the front door. “It’s turning warm, might be nice to be outside.”

“Dobbs, do you know anything about the highwayman?” Byrne called out, not moving from his chair. He heard Dobbs setting down the tray and rustling with the flower-patterned china.

“Not much beyond what everyone in the village says,” Dobbs said as he reemerged.

“Then you know that people seem to have the opinion that I am the man in question.”

“Now that you mention it”—Dobbs had the grace to look sheepish—“it might have come up once or twice.”

Byrne sat forward, began rolling his cane between his hands, a habit he’d developed while he was thinking. Dobbs waited patiently for Byrne to fill the silence.

“If I asked you to find out where the attacks have taken place, do you think you could do it?”

“I could ask around . . .” Dobbs conceded with a smile, but his eyes remained wary. “Am I going to like what you’re plotting, sir?”

“Probably not,” Byrne replied.

And for the next two days, as the temperature of the northern counties rose exponentially, as the lilies bloomed faster and larger than ever and the frogs croaked late into the night, Byrne plotted and planned.

Then he waited for Lady Jane.

But now that she stood before him, rifling through his belongings, he was oddly nervous. Not that the course he had decided on would be met with disapproval or sarcasm, no. But some twitching schoolboy energy, a need to impress, overtook him.

He watched her bend over to look at the bottom shelf of a case of books—and suddenly, his thoughts did not belong to a schoolboy anymore.

“Well, where are they?” she asked, standing up straight and drawing Byrne’s attention back to her flushed face.

“Hmm?”

“The plans!” she cried, her frustration belied only by a small laugh. Even she could see she was acting slightly at odds with the calm, intelligent demeanor she usually presented. She crossed the small room and came to stand directly in front of him, holding out her hand. “Let me see them. Now . . . please.”

Byrne considered her for a moment, her sparkling eyes and high color, the smart little straw hat that shielded her face but would do nothing to protect her slim shoulders and arms from the sun. He could see freckles rising just from her walk through the woods.

“Do you have a shawl?” Byrne asked.

“No,” she replied, somewhat taken aback. “It’s hotter than a frying pan; a shawl would be almost as unbearable as these petticoats.”

Byrne held his tongue in check, sheer force of will keeping him from giving voice to his thoughts.

“And since a shawl is able to be left off, I have done so,” she concluded with a sniff. Her hand was still outstretched, still waiting for him to hand her some kind of paper, some agenda, something organized and double-checked. He grinned.

“Then you’re lucky I have a fondness for freckles.” He took her outstretched hand in his and pulled her out the door.

Jane discerned very quickly where they were going, having walked these trails and wooded paths hundreds of times in her youth. But since Byrne seemed intent on his direction and strong in his steps (with the help of his cane, of course), Jane let him guide her up the smallest of the steep fells to the east of Merrymere.

They made the long climb in silence—and the weather did not assist. About halfway up, Jane could tell Byrne was beginning to falter, but he persevered. And Jane gripped his hand all the tighter.

Once they reached the crest of the fell, Jane allowed herself to glory in the view.

Breathtaking. Up this high, the wind blew away the heat and left only the glory of the vast landscape around them. They could see all of Merrymere and the connected lake beyond it. If they turned south and squinted in the afternoon sun, they could see the waters of Windermere. They could see Reston, its various rooftops nestled against the full foliage of ancient oaks, and the Broadmill River, with small crafts floating on it, some flat, bearing goods, some simply holding men looking for a few fish. They could see the roads running into the country, the farms, and the sheep and milking shorthorn cows that bunched in herds along the sides of the fells. They could see everywhere.

“The first incident occurred over the winter,” he said, letting go of her hand to point to the south of Merrymere and Reston. “It was down past the valley, on the main road from Windermere. Plenty of visitors from that direction—but not in the middle of January. They ended up robbing the mail, because it was the only coach to come that way.”

“Where did you learn all this?” Jane asked.

“I have a friend who helped me discover the locations of some of the robberies.”

“How did your friend come by the information?”

“I have determined never to ask that question.”

“Sir Wilton is the local magistrate. Did he go to him?” Jane’s brow wrinkled. “And if your friend told you the locations, how do you know the mail was the only coach—”

“I only have the information he gave me. Everything beyond that is conjecture,” Byrne replied. “I have a theory, if you’d allow me to elaborate.”

“Oh, my apologies,” she said, immediately contrite. “Please continue.”

“Now”—he smirked at her—“there was another robbery, in March. Still cold, but the weather was turning. That one was on the road leaving Windermere, and farther away.”

“But Mrs. Wilton said”—Jane blushed, but continued—“she said that the robberies were practically in town. In Reston.” Noting that he was looking at her again, in that way of his, she held up her hands. “Again, my apologies.”

“No, you’re correct. In April and May there were three robberies, each farther north, closer to Reston.” Byrne squinted into the western sun and pointed to direct Jane’s sight. She inched closer to him, peering down the length of his arm. “There were none in July—” he continued, and Jane started, forcing his eyes to hers.

And his eyes were alarmingly close to hers.

“Ah . . . none in July?” Jane asked. “While you were in London?” She could feel a small hum of excitement. “That’s highly inconvenient, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Byrne concurred, returning his gaze to the horizon. “It could be considered proof of my perfidy by the more suspecting.”

“Idiotic people,” Jane breathed, shaking her head.

“Yes, well, it’s those idiots we are attempting to impress,” he replied.

“But I could tell them—”

“No. What we have to do is deal with the here and now. So,” he said as he moved to a jut of rock and leaned against it. “Those three in April and May were each successively closer to Reston. And back in January, there was a break-in on the high street.”

“Dr. Lawford’s, and then Mr. Davies’s shop was ransacked,” Jane supplied, “according to Victoria Wilton.” She watched as he chewed over that knowledge. “It means they must be local, doesn’t it? That they first stole from the town proper?” she inquired softly.

“It is possible that the storefront robberies are not connected,” Byrne argued, his face shuttered. “A different methodology and all that. But I do believe the thieves to be local.” He looked at her then. “They are getting more comfortable, more bold.” His eyes narrowed as he squinted into the distance. Jane could practically see the cogs in his brain turning. “The first occasion, in the winter, was out of desperation. The second, in March, was a test to see if they could do this properly. Then, the better they get at their robberies, the more comfortable they feel closer to town. There were another two in early August, the last a mere week before your storied arrival.”

Jane moved to lean against the rock beside Byrne, its cool surface a pleasant sensation in the sun and wind. She didn’t even allow herself to think about the grunge to which she was exposing the back of her day dress. She was too intrigued by the expression on Byrne’s face. When he was speaking about the robberies, his voice was direct, impassioned; color came to his face, and his focus—when she wasn’t constantly interrupting him—was unparalleled.

He was born for this. The hunt . . . it was in his blood.

“One thing is for certain,” he was saying, “the man, or men, who do this . . . it’s homegrown. It’s someone who lives here, or in Windermere at most.”

“Because the attacks are so regular and becoming so close to town?”

He nodded, an approval of her assessment. “Maybe they discovered it’s easier to blend into the background in the village, or they are so much closer to home, it cuts down the amount of time they are exposed between the robbery and reaching safety.”

“But they are also more likely to be recognized,” Jane countered, and Byrne held up a finger, ready to counter.

“They know the town; they know the carriages. They know who to rob and who not to. Those who travel to the north to view the country, staying only a few days . . . those carriages—”

“Are the ones that have been taken,” Jane concluded. “So no one would be able to recognize voice or stance or . . . or anything, really.” She sighed. “This spying business is more detailed than I anticipated.”

“It does take some getting used to,” Byrne agreed drily.

They stood there for some minutes, letting the air cool them and the view stir them. It wasn’t something that she thought about often while in London, but the north . . . oh it was beautiful country. And standing on top of the world was the most peaceful Jane had felt since . . . since three days ago at the creek. And before that, a brief moment of calm while contemplating having tea in widow Lowe’s house. He was recalcitrant, and according to the village, a criminal hermit, but Jane was more content in Byrne Worth’s presence than she had been in . . .

In years.

“What do we do next?” Jane asked after a few moments.

“We?” Byrne replied.

“Yes, we,” Jane replied with a little laugh. “I trust you do not have some underlying prejudice against working with a woman.”

“None at all,” Byrne replied, “so long as said woman is willing to acknowledge her limitations.”