Clara slept badly that night.
Her dreams were a jumble: hedges that moved like dancers, Carston’s wheel rolling into a church, her father sitting at a table with Agnes and Judith, all arguing over where her compass should point.
When morning came, pale and hazy, she felt as if she had been trampled by Brand’s cows.
Mrs. Graham’s maid, Hetty, brought hot water and a basket of linen with unusual solemnity.
“There’s letters came early,” Hetty said, setting the basket down. “From the village. Mr. Trask has ‘em in the office. Looks…serious.”
“Serious how?” Clara asked, heart lurching.
Hetty twisted her apron. “I shouldn’t say,” she said. “I only heard Fenn muttering about ‘bad news traveling on thin paper.’”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
“Thank you, Hetty,” she said, already moving toward her gown.
She dressed with fumbling fingers, barely remembering to pin her hair.
In the corridor, she nearly collided with Eliza, who was moving at her usual harum-scarum pace but with an uncharacteristic tightness around her mouth.
“Have you—?” Eliza began.
“Heard there are letters,” Clara said.
“Yes,” Eliza said. “Trask sent Giles to find Rowan. Mama’s sulking because she says important letters should never arrive before she’s had her chocolate. Judith says—”
“Never mind what Judith says,” Clara cut in. “Do we know who they’re from?”
“Not yet,” Eliza said. “Come.”
They hurried together to the estate office.
Rowan was already there, coat thrown on over his shirtsleeves, hair disheveled as if he’d dressed in haste. Trask stood behind the desk, two letters open before him. His face was grim.
When Clara and Eliza entered, both men looked up.
“Miss Harrow,” Trask said. “I was just about to send for you.”
“Is it my father?” Clara blurted, stomach clenching.
“No,” Rowan said quickly. “No. Not that.” His eyes were soft. “I would have come to your room myself.”
She exhaled, knees weak with relief.
“Then…?” she prompted.
Trask picked up one letter.
“This is from the magistrate,” he said. “He’s been called away. Illness in his family. There’ll be a new man sitting his chair come autumn. A younger one. From town.”
“That does not sound…immediately dire,” Clara said cautiously.
“No,” Trask said. “But it means any future disputes may be judged by a man who doesn’t know our hedges. Who may not care.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “Terrible timing. But not ours to choose.”
“And the other letter?” Eliza asked.
Trask hesitated.
“This,” he said slowly, “is from Mrs. Pike. Thomas’s mother. To you, Miss Harrow.”
Clara’s heart stuttered.
He held out the second letter.
Her name, *Miss Clara Harrow*, was scrawled on the front in a shakier hand than Thomas’s.
Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.
*Dear Miss Harrow,* it began, without preamble.
*I hope you will forgive an old woman writing. Thomas is with you, I think, or on the road, or at the inn. He is not here. That is why I write.*
Her vision blurred.
*There has been an accident,* the letter went on. *On the Redhill road. The coach from Wrox Hill overturned in the rain. Several hurt. Some worse. Thomas was not in the coach, thank God, but he was near, with his cart. He helped pull people out. In doing so, he put his back to a horse that had gone wild and it kicked him. Hard.*
Clara’s hand flew to her mouth.
*He is alive,* Mrs. Pike wrote. *But the doctor says his leg is broken in two places. He will not be on the road for some weeks. Maybe more. I know you depend on him for letters. For work. For your father’s medicines. I did not want you to worry when he did not come. Or to think he had abandoned you. He is very sorry. He keeps saying, “Tell Clara I’ll count hedges from the bed if I must.”*
A choked laugh escaped Clara.
*I am old,* Mrs. Pike went on. *And there is much to do. If you can come, when you are able, it would ease my mind. Not to nurse him; I can do that. But to tell him that the world beyond his window still exists. He frets, you know. He always has. Too much heart for such a scrawny boy.*
*Yours respectfully,*
*Margaret Pike*
Clara lowered the letter slowly.
“Thomas,” she whispered.
Rowan’s face had paled.
“Is he—?” Eliza began.
“He is alive,” Clara said. Her throat burned. “But hurt. His leg…broken. He cannot drive. For weeks. Maybe more.”
Trask swore under his breath.
“That road,” he muttered. “I told them to shore up that ditch. Did they listen? No. Woxhall always did think water flowed uphill for his convenience.”
Rowan rubbed a hand over his face.
“I am sorry,” he said. “For Mrs. Pike. For Thomas. For you.”
Her mind was already spinning, calculating routes, needs, time.
“Without Thomas,” she said slowly, “our letters…will be slower. Our connection to town…weaker. My father’s medicines…Selwyn sent enough for a month, but after that—”
“After that,” Rowan said, “we will send our own man.”
She blinked.
“Your own man?” she repeated.
“I have grooms,” he said. “Footmen. Horses. Moorborne is not cut off because Thomas is laid up. We will see to it your father has what he needs.”
“I cannot ask—” she began.
“You are not asking,” he said. “We are offering. You are not the only one who has depended on Thomas’s back without realizing it. We owe him. And you.”
She swallowed.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Eliza, who had been unusually silent, burst out, “We should go see him.”
“All of us?” Trask said dryly.
“Not all,” Eliza said. “But someone. He’ll be miserable, stuck in bed, with only his mother and the vicar for company. He needs…news. Stories. Proof that life has not shrunk to four walls and a broken leg.”
Clara’s heart twisted.
“Yes,” she said. “He does.”
She looked at Rowan.
“I should go,” she said. “Soon. Tonight, if possible. Or tomorrow at dawn.”
“That is a day’s ride,” Rowan said. “At least. You are just come from such a journey.”
“I am not made of glass,” she said. “Nor chalk. I can sit in a cart again.”
“I did not say you could not,” he said. “I said only…you should not do it alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” she said. “Mrs. Pike will—”
“Mrs. Pike is needed at home,” he cut in. “With Thomas. You…” He exhaled. “I will come.”
She stared at him. “You cannot—”
“I can,” he said. “Carston has slunk away for the moment. The magistrate is gone. The tenants are fed. The lambs are mostly born. I can spare two days. Trask will not let the hedges collapse in my absence.”
“Perhaps I’ll roll them flat with a wheel,” Trask muttered.
Rowan ignored him.
“Eliza can manage Mother,” he added, half to Judith.
Judith, who had been listening from the doorway with an expression that combined concern and calculation, nodded.
“I will handle Agnes,” she said. “I shall tell her you are inspecting tenant cottages. That will satisfy her sense of propriety and her love of misery.”
Clara hesitated.
“The Redhill road is…” She swallowed. “It overturned one coach already.”
“We will not be in a coach,” he said. “We will take the lighter carriage. Or even ride, if you prefer. And we will be cautious.”
Her instinct was to protest again.
He read it in her face.
“Do not,” he said quietly, “refuse help simply because you are used to doing without it.”
She flinched. The words, gentle as they were, landed like a blow.
“I…” She exhaled. “Very well.”
“The day after tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, you rest. And we make arrangements. Trask will coordinate with Graham. Eliza will ensure Mother does not suspect anything more than what we tell her. You will write to your father, telling him what you intend. Mrs. Pike will prepare herself to host an earl, which will make her bake more pies than necessary. Thomas will complain, which will mean he is alive.”
Clara almost laughed.
“You have thought this through,” she said.
“I am good at plans,” he said. “Execution is trickier. That is why I need stubborn surveyors.”
She folded Mrs. Pike’s letter carefully.
“Then we go,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
Eliza bounced on her toes.
“Can I come?” she asked.
“No,” Rowan and Clara said simultaneously.
Eliza pouted.
“Someone must stay to keep you from punching Carston if he pops out of a hedge,” Clara added. “Eliza is best suited for that.”
Eliza brightened. “True,” she said. “I do an excellent distraction.”
Judith shook her head, smiling.
“I shall write to Margaret Pike,” she said. “Let her know to expect a Terrington invasion. She will either faint or start scrubbing things that were already clean.”
“She will bake,” Clara said. “That is how she copes.”
“Then we must be there to eat it,” Rowan said. “It would be rude not to.”
Trask snorted.
“You two,” he said, shaking his head. “You make disasters sound like picnics.”
“Disasters are better with food,” Judith said.
***
The next day passed in a flurry of preparation.
Clara wrote to her father, explaining the situation.
*Thomas has broken his leg,* she wrote. *I go to see him. Do not scold; you know I would fret until I had looked with my own eyes. Lord Terrington comes as well, which means Mrs. Pike will be both delighted and horrified. I will not let him eat all her pies.*
She did not mention that the thought of spending long hours in a carriage with Rowan both thrilled and terrified her.
Geoffrey’s reply came by Fenn’s boy, who had sprinted up from the village as if chased.
*You are to go,* Geoffrey had dictated. *Thomas is a fool but our fool. Take Terrington’s offer. Let him see how we live outside his hedges. Do not, under any circumstances, let him pay for Mrs. Pike’s pies; she will never forgive him. Kiss the boy on my behalf. (Thomas, not Terrington. Unless the latter does something extraordinary.)*
Clara laughed out loud at that last line.
“Your father remains…himself,” she told Rowan when she showed him.
“Thank God,” he said.
Mrs. Graham packed food for the road with more grumbling than affection.
“You’ll catch your death,” she muttered, shoving wrapped parcels into Clara’s hands. “Roads are no place in this weather. But you’ll go anyway, so at least you’ll not go hungry.”
“Thank you,” Clara said. “We will not be long.”
“You be as long as you need,” Graham said gruffly. “House won’t fall down without you. Much as it might like to, for spite.”
Eliza cornered Clara in the passage.
“Take care,” she said. “Thomas may be a weed but he’s our weed.”
“I know,” Clara said. “We’ll bring him tales to water him.”
Judith embraced her briefly, surprising them both.
“Tell Margaret I still owe her for that jam she sent me ten years ago,” Judith said. “She’ll know what I mean.”
Clara nodded, bemused.
Lady Agnes, when informed that her son meant to inspect tenant cottages in person, sniffed.
“You indulge them too much,” she said. “It will give them ideas.”
“Good,” Judith said under her breath.
Rowan kissed his mother’s hand, endured her lecture on the risks of damp floors, and escaped.
***
They set out at dawn.
The air was soft, the sky a pale wash of gray-blue. Birds chattered in the hedges. The road, still damp from recent rains, smelled of earth and distance.
Rowan had chosen the lighter Moorborne carriage, as promised, with a sure-footed pair of horses. Giles drove, competent and quiet, his eyes on the ruts and dips ahead.
Clara sat opposite Rowan inside, her small satchel at her feet, her new compass in her pocket.
For a time, they did not speak.
The rhythmic jolt of the wheels, the sway, the creak of leather—these were familiar to Clara. She had grown up in carts and on narrow benches.
It felt…different, in this carriage.
She became acutely aware of the slight intimacy of the space. His knees were not far from hers. When the carriage hit a rut, their shoulders brushed.
Finally, he cleared his throat.
“Tell me about Thomas,” he said.
She smiled, a little wistfully.
“Thomas has been my co-conspirator since I was ten,” she said. “He drove my father to estates, then me when I was old enough to hold the other end of the chain.”
“He speaks of you with…admiration,” Rowan said. “And fear.”
“Fear?” she repeated, amused.
“He once told Giles that you could turn a man to stone with a look,” Rowan said.
“I reserve that for lords who underpay,” she said. “Thomas has nothing to fear.”
“What was he like as a boy?” Rowan asked.
“Freckled,” she said. “And forever late. He used to make up elaborate stories for why—dragon attacks, runaway pigs, ghosts in the lane. My father pretended to scold him and always gave him an extra slice of bread.”
“And you?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“I used to…arrange stones,” she said. “On the side of the road. Into patterns. Lines. I’d watch coaches pass and imagine the wheels following them. My mother said it was unseemly. My father said it was promising.”
Rowan smiled faintly.
“Your mother,” he said softly. “Tell me of her.”
Clara stiffened.
“I…do not know much,” she said.
“You have not spoken of her,” he said. “In all your letters.”
“There was little to say,” she said flatly.
He waited.
“She left when I was eight,” Clara said abruptly. “She went with a man who promised her town. Lights. Music. Baths. He had none of those, as it turned out. Or he did, for a time, then lost them at cards.”
Rowan flinched.
“She wrote twice,” Clara went on. “Once to say she was sorry. Once to say she was not. Then nothing.”
“I am sorry,” Rowan said quietly.
“Do not be,” she said. “My father and I…muddled through. He gave me lines. I gave him questions. We made maps instead of…memories of her.”
He watched her, something like pain in his eyes.
“My mother,” he said slowly, “stayed. Physically. But there were years when she was…gone. In other ways.”
Clara looked at him, surprised. “Lady Agnes?”
“Yes,” he said. “When my father was at his worst—drunk, gambling, charming rooms while he bled us dry—she retreated into rules. Into lists. Into…control. It was her way of not watching him drown.”
“And you?” she asked softly.
“I tried to pull him up,” he said. “I failed. Then he died, and I was left with the mess and a mother who believed any deviation from order would send us back into that chaos.”
Clara’s chest ached.
“You cleaned,” she said. “In ink.”
“Yes,” he said.
They fell silent.
The carriage rolled on.
After a time, she said, “Our parents have given us…different fears.”
“Yes,” he said. “And similar ones.”
“Abandonment,” she said.
“Loss,” he said.
“Chaos,” she finished.
“Love,” he said, almost inaudible.
She looked out the window.
“Hedges,” she said lightly, after a moment. “At least they rarely leave.”
“They die,” he said. “If neglected. Or if men meddle too much. Or if disease creeps in.”
She shot him a look.
“You always have to ruin a comfort with fact,” she said.
He smiled faintly.
“Apologies,” he said. “I will endeavor to be more romantic.”
“Please do not,” she said dryly. “It would not suit you.”
They shared a small, real laugh.
The road curved.
Giles slowed, navigating a particularly deep rut.
“We’re near the Redhill turnoff,” Giles called back. “Hold on. The bad patch is up ahead.”
Clara’s hands clenched on the seat.
She peered out.
The road narrowed, flanked by ditches that had clearly overflowed recently. Wheel tracks scarred the mud. A broken fence post leaned at an awkward angle.
“There,” Rowan said quietly, nodding to a scrape on the bank. “Where the coach overturned, most likely.”
Clara swallowed.
The ghost of a carriage lay there in her mind’s eye: wheels splintered, horses flailing, passengers screaming.
“Thomas,” she murmured.
Giles guided their own carriage carefully around the scar, wheels tilting, then righting.
When they had passed, Rowan exhaled slowly.
“We will see him,” he said. “Soon.”
She nodded, throat too tight to speak.
***
Margaret Pike’s cottage sat at the edge of Redhill, hunched against a copse of hawthorns like a hen under a thorn bush.
Smoke curled from its chimney. The small front garden, usually neat, was wild: bean poles askew, cabbages half-eaten by something.
Clara’s heart clenched at the sight.
Giles pulled up in front and hopped down to hold the horses.
Rowan stepped out first, then turned, offering his hand.
She took it, letting him steady her as she descended.
Her boots hit the packed dirt.
The cottage door flew open.
“Clara!” Margaret Pike cried, bustling out, apron damp, hair escaping its pins. “Oh, thank God. Oh, you’re here. He’s been fretting like a hen with one chick. Oh—” She stopped short, seeing Rowan for the first time. Her eyes widened. “Lord…Terrington.”
Rowan inclined his head. “Mrs. Pike,” he said. “Thank you for writing.”
She dropped a curtsey so deep Clara feared she’d topple.
“I didn’t expect—didn’t mean—oh, my lord,” Margaret stammered. “You didn’t have to—”
“I did,” he said simply. “Thomas has been Moorborne’s legs for years. It is past time we used our own.”
Her eyes filled.
“Come in,” she said hastily, wiping her hands on her apron. “It’s a mess. Don’t look. Or look and pretend it’s not. Oh, mind the step; the floorboard’s loose. Thomas keeps saying he’ll fix it, the liar.”
She babbled, leading them inside.
The cottage was small—smaller even than Harrow’s. Two rooms: a main room with hearth and table, and a tiny bedchamber beyond, curtained off.
Clara smelled broth, soap, and the unmistakable tang of sweat and medicine.
“Thomas!” Margaret called. “You’ve got visitors. Important ones. Don’t swear.”
A familiar, hoarse voice from the bedchamber muttered, “I never swear in front of company.”
Clara’s throat closed.
“Go,” Margaret said, shooing her toward the curtain. “He’ll forgive me later for letting you see him like this.”
Clara pushed the curtain aside.
Thomas lay on the narrow bed, propped up on flattened pillows. His hair was lank, his face paler than she’d ever seen it under the freckles. His left leg was encased in a splint from thigh to ankle, elevated on a rolled blanket.
His eyes, when they landed on her, went wide.
“Clara,” he said, breathless.
“You idiot,” she said.
He laughed, then hissed as the motion jarred his leg.
“Don’t make me laugh,” he groaned. “It hurts all the way to my backside.”
She went to him, perching carefully on the edge of the bed.
“You had to stand behind the kicking end of a horse,” she said. “Of course you did.”
“It was either that or let Mrs. Wetherby get her bonnet trampled,” he said. “She’d have killed me worse than the horse.”
Her eyes burned.
“You wrote,” he said. “You came. Gods, I’m—” His gaze shifted past her shoulder. “Oh, hell.”
“Language,” Margaret barked from the other room.
Rowan stepped into the small space.
Thomas blanched. “My lord,” he said, struggling to sit straighter.
“Do not move,” Rowan said quickly. “Selwyn would flay me if I let you jostle that leg.”
“You spoke to Selwyn?” Thomas asked, stunned.
Rowan half-smiled. “He was…persuaded,” he said. “By Judith. She is more frightening than any broken bone.”
Thomas snorted, then winced.
“How bad?” Clara asked softly.
Thomas made a face. “Hurts like the devil,” he said. “Doctor says bone’s splintered. Says I’ll be in bed six weeks, then hobbling another six. Says if I don’t keep weight off, he’ll break the other one for balance.”
Clara winced.
“You live to exaggerate,” she said.
He sobered. “He did say I’d walk again,” he added. “Eventually. If I’m careful. Which I never am. So Mam’s taken to hitting me with the spoon every time I twitch.”
“Good,” Rowan said. “She is right.”
Thomas blinked.
“You came all the way from Moorborne,” he said, still disbelieving. “For…me?”
“For my own peace of mind,” Rowan said. “And Miss Harrow’s. And for your mother’s kitchen.”
Thomas huffed a surprised laugh.
“I’m not worth that,” he said.
“You are,” Clara said fiercely.
He looked at her, eyes filling.
“I was…afraid,” he admitted. “Lying here. That the world would go on. The hedges would be measured. The maps drawn. And I’d be…stuck. Useless. Forgotten.”
“You idiot,” she said again, but gently. “We can’t forget you. Who else would deliver our letters three days late with stories about goats?”
He smiled weakly.
“We will find a way,” Rowan said. “To keep you…in the line. For now, you will recover. You will rest. You will let your mother scold. Later, when you can sit a saddle again, we will see what work you might take that does not require you to stand behind kicking horses.”
Thomas’s eyes widened. “Work?” he echoed.
“Yes,” Rowan said. “You are not…discarded. Men are harder to replace than wheels.”
Clara’s throat ached.
He was doing it again, she realized: choosing a different kind of courage. Using his power not to pluck but to shore.
Thomas licked his lips.
“I don’t…know…what to say,” he mumbled.
“Say you’ll do as you’re told,” Margaret called from the hearth.
“Do as you’re told,” Thomas repeated promptly.
Rowan smiled.
“Good,” he said. “That will be a first.”
They all laughed.
The tension in the cramped room eased.
***
They stayed an hour.
Margaret fussed over them, bringing tea and biscuits and insisting that Rowan sit in the “good chair” which wobbled alarmingly.
Judith’s message—passed through Clara—made her laugh until she cried.
“That jam,” she said. “Lord, we were young. Tell Lady Merrow I still have the jar. Somewhere. Can’t bring myself to throw it, even though it’s hard enough to use as a doorstop.”
Rowan and Margaret spoke quietly at the table about money—rent, doctors, winter. He offered, she refused, he insisted, she compromised.
Clara listened, impressed by the delicacy of his pushing and the stubborn grace of her resistance.
In the bedchamber, Thomas and Clara talked of more trivial things.
Of Meg’s triumphs. Of Mrs. Pritchard’s theatrics. Of the way Giles had nearly dropped the chain when Elliott’s wheel slipped.
“I wish I could have seen his face,” Thomas said wistfully.
“Meg will reenact it for you when you’re up,” Clara promised.
He sobered.
“You and…Lord Terrington,” he said cautiously. “You’re….”
She raised a brow.
“Working,” she said. “Together.”
He studied her.
“I may be thick,” he said, “but I’m not blind. Or deaf. The villagers talk, Clara. They see you walking fields with him. Dancing. Standing in barns. They say—”
She stiffened. “What do they say?”
“That you’re…bold,” he said. “Stubborn. That you have him wrapped round your chain. That he’d marry you if his mother didn’t keep his neck on a rope.”
Her heart lurched.
She laughed, harshly.
“Villagers love a story,” she said. “It keeps their own lives from feeling so…narrow.”
“And what do *you* say?” Thomas asked quietly.
She hesitated.
“I say…nothing,” she said. “It is safer.”
“For who?” he pressed. “You? Him?”
“For everyone,” she said.
He frowned.
“Do you…want…?” he began.
She cut him off.
“I want my father’s heart to keep beating,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “I want Meg to learn the maps. I want you to walk again. I want Moorborne to keep its hedges. I want Carston to choke on his own greed. What I…feel…about…other things…is irrelevant.”
Thomas stared at her, then sighed.
“You’re lying,” he said.
She flinched.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But it is a lie I can live with. For now.”
His gaze softened.
“Be careful,” he said. “Not just of horses and wheels. Of…roads.”
“I have a compass,” she replied.
He glanced toward the other room, where Rowan’s low voice mingled with Margaret’s clatter.
“A compass can still point to a place you can’t reach,” he said.
She swallowed.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
***
On the road back to Moorborne, the carriage felt even smaller.
Rowan was quiet for a long time.
At last, he said, “You were hard on him.”
“Thomas?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “When he asked about…us.”
“I had to be,” she said. “If I let…hope…run wild in his head, he will plant it in others’. And then—and then—”
“And then,” he finished quietly, “the world will start expecting things neither of us can yet give.”
“Yes,” she said.
He leaned his head back against the seat, eyes closing briefly.
“I do not know whether to be grateful or resentful,” he murmured.
“Of what?” she asked.
“Of your sense,” he said. “It keeps me from…jumping. And from dragging you with me.”
She looked at him.
“I am resentful of yours as well,” she admitted.
He opened his eyes, surprised.
“Are you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “If you were…less good, I could hate you. It would be easier.”
He laughed, startled and pained.
“I see,” he said. “I shall endeavor to be more wicked, for your convenience.”
“Please don’t,” she said.
He sobered.
“I will not…renounce what I feel,” he said slowly. “Even if I must…bridle it. That would be dishonest. To myself. To you. To…” He half-smiled. “To Meg, who would never let me hear the end of it.”
She smiled faintly.
“I do not ask you to renounce it,” she said. “I ask only that you…do nothing irrevocable while everything else is still so…movable.”
He nodded.
“Agreed,” he said.
They sat in silence, the road rolling under them, hedges blurring past.
At one point, the carriage lurched more violently than before. Clara pitched forward.
Instinctively, he reached out, catching her.
For a second, she was against his chest, his arms around her, his breath warm near her ear.
Heat flared.
She jerked back as if burned.
“Sorry,” he said roughly. “Habit.”
“Field reflexes,” she said, voice unsteady. “I…understand.”
He watched her a moment longer, then looked away.
The rest of the journey passed with more caution.
They spoke of safer things: of Meg’s progress, of Judith’s latest skirmish with Agnes, of the new magistrate and what he might mean.
When Moorborne’s gray walls came into view, Clara felt a complicated mix of relief and regret.
They had left Thomas with comfort, promises, a bag of pies, and the knowledge that he was not forgotten.
They were returning to hedges and duty.
Their hearts, she thought grimly, would have to fend for themselves.
***