“Who, by the way, belongs to Hamish.”
“If it hadn’t been for his cow, we would have made it.”
“Thank you,” David said. “That’s just what I told Hamish, but he didn’t believe me. He says we missed the bridge and went into the river upside down. He says I’m the worst driver he’s ever seen.”
“You should have hit his cow,” Edi said, her mouth full.
“My sentiments exactly. Here, let me pour that for you.” David used his left arm and his right hand to maneuver the teapot, his leg held stiffly out from his body.
“So what’s the story on the magazine?” Edi asked.
“The granddaughter Aggie has it and no one knows where she is.”
Edi groaned. “How old is she to be out unsupervised?”
“Sixteen and her goose is cooked. She told Mrs. Pettigrew that she was going home to Gramps, and told Gramps she had to work. Poor kid. When she does show up, she’s in for it.”
“So how long do we have to wait for her to return from wherever she is?”
“Us,” David said as he got up off the bed and walked to the window. “About that ‘us.’ You see, Hamish is a bit old-fashioned, and I had to tell him some fibs.”
When he didn’t say anything else, just kept looking out the window, Edi started to piece things together. “You told him we were married, didn’t you?”
“It was either that or I had to sleep in the barn. Sorry, but the feather mattress won over the straw.”
She thought about the way he’d pulled her from the water yesterday and she couldn’t begrudge him a bed. “All right, so we’re married and…what?”
David turned to her with sparkling eyes.
“In your dreams, soldier,” she said.
“If wishes were horses…” David said, then dragged his leg as he crossed the room to sit back down on the other bed. “It seems that Aggie the Missing is due back here day after tomorrow. All we can hope is that she shows up with the magazine.”
“You didn’t tell Hamish—?”
“I didn’t tell that old man anything. Mrs. Pettigrew made up a great whopping lie about the magazine being some sort of spy vehicle and the entire fate of the war resting on our getting it back. She—Why are you looking at me like that? Please tell me that isn’t true.”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, eating the last piece of toast.
“I want you to tell me every word that you do know and don’t even think about not telling me all of it.”
It took her about four minutes to tell him all that she knew. It wasn’t much.
“So you’re to give the magazine to this man…”
“Dr. Sebastian Jellicoe.”
“Then we’re to get him to London so he can be sent back to the safety of Minnesota—or someplace in the U.S. Is that right?” David asked.
“That’s what I was told.”
“But where he lives and the map to get there is inside the car, which is now at the bottom of an overflowing river.”
Edi leaned back against the headboard. “I memorized the map.”
“You did what?”
“While you were in the front of the car, whining that nobody would talk to you, I was in the back memorizing the map. I was hoping to find the marks in the magazine and memorize them too, but I couldn’t find anything.”