Turning the key, she flung back the door. The corridor was empty except for her Harry, grim faced and intent, yet still she had to say, “Shh!”
With a single glance, he encompassed her change of clothes, and warmed her with a nod of approval. “I won’t tell anyone. Do you know how to shoot?”
“No.”
“Can you use a knife?”
Irritated, she snapped, “No. But I know how to needlepoint!”
“Very useful if we needed chair covers. You can ride?”
“Like the wind.”
“Then we’ll ride. Go down the back stairs to the stable.” Harry shut her door and locked it, then pocketed the key. “Quietly now.”
She went, trusting him like the lovesick fool she was. “Lord Granville is waiting for me on the veranda.”
“Good. He’s out of the way. Lord Granville is an impostor.”
She stopped short, then moved on with Harry’s hand in her back. “An impostor? What do you mean, an impostor?”
“Quietly,” he warned again as they hurried down the stairs. Before they reached the bottom, he moved in front of her. He looked both ways, then led her out of the stairwell and through the servants’ quarters to the outer door. “I mean, I know Lord Granville, and that’s not Lord Granville.”
Jessie hurried after him, indignation bubbling over—but quietly, as he had instructed. “You know Lord Granville? And you let me discuss him in such a manner?”
Again Harry looked out before he allowed her to descend the stairs to the ground and into the foggy air. “I didn’t say I liked him.”
Harry sounded slightly ironic, and that infuriated her all the more. “That man on the veranda is so Lord Granville. He looks very like him!”
Taking her arm, Harry set a pace that was almost a run. “On Lord Granville’s behalf, I am insulted.”
She trotted at his side like a faithful dog and wondered if she hated him. “I have never heard anything so outrageous.” The mist curled between them, and she could see nothing of the cottages. She could hear nothing but the waves, eternally grinding at the shore. For all she knew, the two of them were alone—and she was in peril. From whom, she didn’t know. From Lord Granville, or from Harry? “Where, pray tell, is the real Lord Granville? Are you saying he is such a weasel he couldn’t bear to come down to court me himself and so sent an emissary?” An idea that infuriated her.
“Shh,” Harry hushed her soothingly. His own voice was deep and calm, pitched to reach her ears and no farther. “Nothing quite so bad. You see, the real Lord Granville didn’t know that his mother—”
From inside the inn, she heard the report of a gun. She jumped violently, clutched at Harry. “Wha…? What was that?”
He didn’t pause, but pulled her along even more quickly. “It’s not good.”
Jessie tried to turn back. “Miss Hendrika?”
“She’s not worth a bullet. Probably the lock on your door.”
“Are you saying he wants to shoot me?”
“Just your door. He wants to take you hostage.”
She assimilated that. “Why does Lord Granville—”
Harry shot her a glare.
“What would an impostor want with me?”
As the stable broke through the fog, Harry said, “Damn!”
The door stood open, the damp ground trampled by a dozen hooves. “The horses are gone,” she whispered.
“Mischief, indeed.” Harry’s nostrils were white and pinched.