5

T he grueling two-day journey was absolute misery.

Elizabeth's body hated being cooped up in a carriage. She could manage a few jaunts across town, and could easily make the trip from central London to nearby Islington, where she lived with her siblings. Much farther than that, however…

The boat to Balcovia last winter had been glorious. One could stand up on a boat. One could stretch, one could walk, one could swing one's sword on the empty deck in the early dawn. One could even find oneself immediately surrounded by a dozen tall, strapping Balcovian warriors.

A tiny enclosed carriage was rubbish compared to that. She did not blame her body for rebelling. The Wynchester family's finest coach-and-four was still a rickety coffin, rattling along on iron wheels over rutted roads laced with jarring holes. She couldn't even read her newest book on war strategies.

By the time her carriage arrived in Dorset, Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to find an inn and bury herself in cushions and cheap gin until her body recovered.

Unfortunately, their benevolent client would not hear of her rescuer spending unnecessary coin on accommodations. Miss Oak possessed a perfectly fine cottage in town, with a perfectly fine guest room in which it would be perfectly fine for Elizabeth to stay as long as it took to gain entrance to the castle and find the hidden will.

"Perfectly dreadful," Elizabeth muttered, flat on her back in the unfamiliar bed.

"What's that, dear?" came the immediate response from the other side of the closed guest-chamber door.

Elizabeth covered her face with a cushion.

Nothing could be more embarrassing than convalescing in a client's guest quarters instead of charging out to right wrongs. Nothing, that was, except the client in question hovering right outside the guest-chamber door, querying about Elizabeth's well-being every five bloody minutes.

"Are you sure you're all right?" came Miss Oak's muffled voice.

Elizabeth added another pillow to the pile atop her face. Smothering herself to death was preferable to answering this query for the hundredth time this morning.

During a flare-up, her siblings knew better than to pepper her with such absurd questions, which called attention to the very thing Elizabeth was doing her damnedest to block out. The more she thought about her pain, the more it hurt.

The more she could distract herself, the faster time went. The faster time went, the more she relaxed. The more she relaxed, the quicker she healed.

"Miss Wynchester?" came her client's concerned voice again. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine!" Elizabeth shouted through her pillows.

She was angry at herself, and at her body. Frustrated that here she was, a stone's throw from the castle, unable to do a bloody thing about it. Elizabeth hated feeling helpless. She was only of value when she was out swashbuckling, and worthless when lying about motionless.

What could be worse than a worthless Wynchester?

"How is the temperature in the room?" Miss Oak queried. "Do you need help opening the windows? The sash sometimes sticks."

For the love of God, Elizabeth could open her own damn windows. Usually.

"The windows are fine!" she called back. Please go away.

Elizabeth had not told Miss Oak that the carriage had rattled her joints out of their sockets and set her stiff back to spasming as though her muscles had been replaced with pointy springs.

She didn't tell anyone. Not anymore. Her body was nobody's business but her own. When she was a child, the adults in her life hadn't believed her. Accused her of lying about the pain. Forced her to do more, rather than less, in punishment.

Years later, when she'd finally seen a doctor, they weren't much more helpful. Baron Vanderbean had taken her to as many specialists as he could find. The ones who actually listened to her had been sympathetic, but baffled. No one could fix a problem they didn't understand. The best the doctors could do was dose her with bitter laudanum until she was barely conscious. And if that was the best they could do, she'd rather drink something she enjoyed.

She reached for her flask, hesitated, then dropped it into her open valise beside the bed. She'd stopped drinking as soon as she'd fallen into a dreamless slumber the night before. Gin was tricky. She needed just enough to fall asleep, but not so much that she felt worse the next day instead of better.

"If you need anything…" came Miss Oak's tentative voice through the wall.

"I don't need anything!" Elizabeth yelled through the pillows.

She needed a new back, new hips, and new legs. These were not things one could order from a warehouse. Elizabeth was saddled with what she had. At least she was starting to feel better. If she could get decent rest, it would at least be a sixty percent day—which would feel miraculous after suffering through a fifteen percent night. Her fingers dug into the blanket.

Was it so terrible to want to be the heroine on her own terms? Her swords were right there, in their own trunk, waiting for her. And waiting. And waiting.

Go to Dorset , Graham had said.

It'll be fun , Tommy had said.

Maybe you'll meet someone , Marjorie had said.

And fill a nursery with babies , Chloe had said.

Ha! Comedians, all of them. A regular family of court jesters.

If Elizabeth could get out of this bed, then yes, she'd absolutely be willing to climb back up into it with the right partner. She was far from prudish—or even a virgin. She'd have followed any of the Balcovian warriors back into their cabin, if her family hadn't been aboard the same ship to tease her about it.

But as for stumbling into a real romance… Whom were they bamming?

The only people in her family not to have found the person they were meant to spend forever with were Elizabeth and Jacob. Her brother would no doubt be next to fall in love. He was handsome and warm and sweet and romantic and cuddly and poetic—none of which applied to Elizabeth.

Smitten women regularly threw themselves at her soulful brother. If he ever set down his snakes and raptors, he could find a match within seconds. Elizabeth secretly wanted a match and had had no luck.

Jacob was a poet. He was in tune with his feelings. Expressive. Eloquent.

Elizabeth was a lifelong curmudgeon who would rather hurl herself on the knife of despair than expose any vulnerability.

Perchance because she suspected the real problem was not that she hated other people so much as Elizabeth being the unlovable one. If she was a heroine, it was of the unlikeable variety. And so she reacted in the only way she could: by going on the attack before others could strike first.

"If you want tea…" Miss Oak began on the opposite side of the door.

Elizabeth dug her fists into the pile of pillows on her face to block out her scream.

"… there are biscuits in the oven," Miss Oak finished.

Biscuits. Elizabeth flung the pillows from her face and sniffed the air. The cottage indeed smelled like biscuits. Warm and sugary. Her stomach growled in anticipation.

With great care, she tested the suppleness of each joint and muscle one by one. Forcing her body into action before it was ready was the easiest way to exacerbate the problem. Contrarily, stretches and light exercise actually helped the recovery process.

Definitely at forty percent. Maybe even rising to forty-five.

It would have to be good enough.

Elizabeth eased out of bed. Her hips were stiff, but mobile. Her back sore, but not spasming. Her legs and knees, as good as new. This might even end up being a seventy percent day.

"Don't eat all the biscuits," she yelled. "I'm coming."

She cleaned up with the bowl of water at the side table, then slid on a fresh dress. Clothing sorted, she made a halfhearted pass with a hairbrush, then hurried to open her door.

Miss Oak was right there , beaming at her.

And in her hands was a tray of piping hot biscuits.

Elizabeth picked up a biscuit, tossing it from hand to hand between bites so that it would not burn her fingers. "When I finish these, I shall solve the puzzle and collect your sister's will. Maybe Densmore has already found it, and all I'll have to do is retrieve it from him."

Miss Oak brightened. "Do you want me to come with you? I'm rubbish at puzzles, but I've known my nephew all his life."

"It's better for you to stay here." Elizabeth selected a second biscuit. "If Densmore won't hand over the will or allow me in to search, I might have to do… diplomacy."

Miss Oak nodded. "My nephew can be hardheaded. I hope he'll listen to reason."

"He'll listen to"— a sharp sword —"my brand of persuasion, I am certain."

Elizabeth took another biscuit. These were exceptionally fine biscuits. Almost as good as the ones Cook made at home.

Her heart gave a pang at the thought. She'd scarcely been gone two days, and she missed her family already. But there would be no going home until she resolved the problem.

"What kind of clues did your sister leave when she made puzzles for you as children?" Elizabeth asked.

Miss Oak made a face. "Impossible ones. Oh, they were always logical in retrospect, but my brain doesn't work in double meanings. Which is partly how we came up with our institution. As a childless woman who has always longed for children to care for, an orphanage is the perfect vocation for me. Whereas my sister couldn't wait to instruct an entire school full of eager-eyed pupils in the art of puzzles and wordplay, amongst other topics."

Elizabeth shuddered. As a childless woman who prayed nightly for her unencumbered streak never to end, administering an orphanage sounded like hell on earth. She would rather do anything else. Such as tear a castle apart with her bare hands if that's what it took to find the will and help her client's dreams come true.

"You don't remember what any of her old clues were like?"

"That was decades ago, my dear. I can tell you the absurd question Arminia wanted to ask the potential instructors we interviewed: ‘What we caught, we threw away. What we didn't catch, we kept. What did we keep?' Bizarre. I still don't know the answer."

"Lice," Elizabeth answered without hesitation. "Or fleas, perhaps, but in this case the answer is definitely lice."

Miss Oak blinked. " Lice ? Who would guess that?"

"Anyone who's ever tried and failed to rid themselves of the itchy little pests. Or who recalls an ancient legend about the Greek poet Homer and a pair of fishermen on the isle of Ios."

"Naturally," Miss Oak murmured with a wondrous shake of her head. "My sister would have loved you. If we knew any of the clues she'd meant to leave behind, you probably could follow them to the hiding place."

"Are you absolutely certain we don't have any hint?"

"Arminia would have given the clues to her husband, not to me. And she died before she could do that much. Remember, they took ill at the same time."

"But are you certain she took all her clues to the grave? One cannot predict one's own death. An apoplexy, a carriage accident, an unfortunate batch of shellfish… There are any number of ways she might have died before her husband. Surely someone as clever as your sister would have accounted for such a circumstance."

Miss Oak looked impressed. "You're right. Arminia must have left the first clue long before she took ill. Something that wouldn't look like a clue to the average person but would make sense to her husband. Of course, we don't know what it was or where it might be, so I'm not sure how that helps."

Elizabeth considered. "You know what would help me search? A sense of the castle. Can you describe the layout of the rooms, as best you recall?"

Miss Oak brightened. "I can do better than that. Arminia and I refined countless sketches of how we planned to turn Castle Harbrook into an orphanage. I can give you maps of the castle's interior as it stands now, and how it will look once it becomes a school."

"Just a ‘before' map, please. I'll see the renovations in person, once you've opened your school."

Elizabeth took one last biscuit as Miss Oak hurried to a portable escritoire and rifled through a large stack of papers.

At last, her client withdrew a document in triumph. "Here's your map. It may not be perfectly to scale, but it's as close as I can provide. Is there anything else you need?"

"Thank you." Elizabeth folded the map carefully and tucked it into a hidden pocket Tommy had sewn into her skirt. "One last item. Have you a conveyance I can borrow?"

"Didn't you come in a carriage?" Miss Oak asked with confusion. "You placed it in rented mews down the street."

Elizabeth shook her head. "I was hoping to arrive at the castle in something a little less extravagant. I don't want to tip my hand before I've had the opportunity to introduce myself."

"Well," Miss Oak said doubtfully, "I usually walk wherever I need to go, but we can borrow a simple pony cart, if that's something you think you could use."

"Oh, I can use it." Elizabeth smiled her cobra smile.

A pony cart was perfect. The earl would never see her coming.