May came in with rain and a village fair.
“The ribbons,” Mabel said, nearly vibrating. “And the cakes. And the hog. And the man who dresses as a tree. He is very convincing. Agnes thought he *was* a tree last year.”
“I did not,” Agnes protested. “I only hugged him by mistake.”
“He is very huggable,” Mabel said.
“You will not,” Martha said firmly, “be hugging any strange men dressed as trees this year.”
“Yes, Miss Harrow,” the girls chorused.
“You may, however,” she added, “dance round the Maypole. Provided you do not trip the vicar’s wife.”
“That was one time,” Mabel muttered.
“It was memorable,” Miriam said.
“She shrieked like a kettle,” Agnes added.
Martha hid a smile.
The Broken Oaks May Day fair was a modest affair. Stalls selling ribbons and gingerbread. A pig on a spit. Barrel organs. Children racing. Men testing each other’s strength at swinging a hammer to ring a bell. Young women pretending not to watch them.
The girls had been talking of little else for a week. Even Miriam, who affected disdain for such rustic amusements, had asked, with careful casualness, whether there would be books on any of the stalls.
“There is always Mr. Crewe’s stand,” Richard had said. “He brings second-hand volumes and attempts to sell me my own old school texts.”
“You should buy them,” Mabel had said. “Then we will have more to throw.”
“You cannot throw Euclid,” Martha had protested. “He did nothing to deserve it.”
Now, on the morning of the fair, the house was unusually animated.
Pritchard had surrendered—reluctantly—to the notion of a holiday. Cook had baked extra pies, some to be taken to the green, some to be left for those servants who preferred to avoid such jollity.
Mrs. Harrow insisted on being propped in the carriage.
“I will sit and cough at the Maypole,” she said. “It will do me good.”
“It will do the Maypole no good,” Martha muttered. But she did not refuse. The doctor, consulted, shrugged and said, “If she wishes to go, let her. Spirits matter.”
Richard oversaw the loading of the carriage with the air of a man preparing for battle.
“Blankets,” he muttered. “For your mother. Shawls for Agnes. Hats. There will be sun between bouts of rain; it is determined to catch us unawares. Mabel, if you dunk yourself in the ducking pond, I will sell your shoes.”
“You would not,” Mabel said, horrified.
“I would,” he said. “To buy new ones I do not mind being ruined.”
Martha adjusted her own bonnet, feeling strangely… expectant.
It would be their first public outing as a whole odd assembly: marquess, governess, children, widow. After Ashcombe, after letters, after midnights in chapels, the idea of simply walking to the village green felt almost… radical.
“Miss Harrow,” Richard said, as they set off—he and Mrs. Harrow in the carriage, the girls and Martha walking ahead. “You will… keep near.”
“Near?” she echoed.
“Yes,” he said. “To them. To me. To—” He made a vague, encompassing gesture. “It will be busy. And people will… look.”
“They always do,” she said. “You are very tall.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Promise me,” he said, lower, “that if any fool attempts to corner you with talk of Ashcombe, you will send him to me.”
“Or her,” she corrected.
“Or her,” he agreed.
“I will,” she said. “Provided you promise not to punch any of them.”
“I am a marquess,” he said. “I do not punch. I… skewer with words.”
“Then skewer lightly,” she said. “We must live with these people.”
He smiled, reluctantly.
“Go,” he said. “Before they drag you into the sack race.”
She went.
***
The village green was already thronged when they arrived.
Children shrieked, chasing one another between stalls. Dogs barked. A fiddler sawing at a jig near the ale tent provided an enthusiastic, if not entirely in-tune, soundtrack.
The Maypole rose at the center, ribbons streaming from its crown. The vicar’s wife, stern in straw, organized a group of girls into rough lines.
Mabel’s eyes lit like lanterns.
“Ribbons,” she breathed.
“Yes,” Martha said. “First, hats off. You will not strangle yourselves.”
She helped Agnes untie her bonnet. Miriam, with the air of someone condescending to perform as an example, removed hers and hung it neatly on a peg near the ale tent.
“Do not lose it,” Martha said. “Your father will be insufferable if he must buy another.”
Miriam made a face.
Richard, with Mrs. Harrow at his side, approached more slowly, nodding to tenants, exchanging a word here, a clap on the shoulder there.
“They are surprised,” Mrs. Harrow murmured.
“At what?” he asked.
“To see you,” she said. “Without sighing.”
He glanced down at her.
“I sigh internally,” he said.
“Better than not at all,” she replied.
Martha, watching from a distance, noted the ease with which he moved among them. It was not the careless charm of Ashcombe. It was quieter, more solid. A hand on a gate here, a question about a cow there. The sort of connection that came not from parties but from the daily business of land.
“You are thinking political thoughts,” a voice beside her observed.
She started.
Mr. Sewell, the curate, smiled apologetically.
“Forgive me,” he said. “You had the particular frown my wife wears when she writes to her sisters about parish affairs.”
“I was thinking,” Martha admitted, “that men like my employer are at their best when not in Parliament.”
Sewell chuckled. “Parliament rarely deserves its best men.”
“Or its best women,” she said. “If it would ever allow them.”
He sobered.
“You are… a force, Miss Harrow,” he said.
“I am a nuisance,” she corrected. “Ask Mrs. Pritchard.”
“Pritchard considers nuisance a virtue,” he said. “It keeps her limber.”
She smiled.
He hesitated.
“There has been… talk,” he said, lowering his voice.
“There is *always* talk,” she replied. “Specify.”
“Of Lord Ashcombe’s visit,” he said. “Of Elizabeth. Of your… speech.”
“I did not shout,” she said. “That should count for something.”
“It does,” he said. “Some call you impertinent. Others… brave. I…” He swallowed. “I think you were… necessary.”
She blinked.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He inclined his head, then was called away to adjudicate a dispute over the weight of a goose.
“Miss Harrow!” Mabel cried. “Come! You must see the man dressed as a tree. He is *very* leafy.”
“I am coming,” Martha said. “Do not hug him.”
“I will only poke,” Mabel promised.
Martha followed, skirt brushing the grass, bonnet strings tickling her throat.
The day unfolded.
She watched the girls dance round the Maypole, ribbons weaving in dizzying patterns. Agnes managed a full circuit before her breath shortened; Martha caught her and eased her to a bench.
“You are a very fine may-sprite,” she said. “Delicate. Slightly wheezy.”
Agnes giggled, then coughed.
Mabel entered the sack race, tripped spectacularly twice, then managed to win anyway by sheer determination and a tendency to barrel into obstacles rather than around them.
Miriam did, indeed, find Mr. Crewe’s bookstall and spent a blissful half-hour sorting through mouldy volumes. Martha, at a small distance, saw her reach for a battered copy of *Paradise Lost* and intervene.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Why?” Miriam demanded.
“You already think too much about rebellion,” Martha said. “You do not need Satan’s rhetoric as well.”
“You read it,” Miriam accused.
“Yes,” Martha said. “Look what it did to me.”
Miriam considered. “Then I will wait,” she said. “Until I have you to argue with about it.”
“You will always have me to argue with,” Martha replied.
She did not let herself dwell on the possible falseness of that assurance.
At some point, she found herself by the ducking pond, watching a trio of boys toss pebbles and dare each other to step closer to the slimy edge.
“Do not fall in,” she called. “There are worse things than water in there. Ideas, for instance.”
They gaped at her, then scampered off.
“Miss Harrow,” Richard said, coming up beside her. “You are frightening the youth of Hertfordshire.”
“Only those in danger of drowning,” she said. “Metaphorically or otherwise.”
He smiled.
He looked… lighter. The lines around his eyes were still there, but softened. There was colour in his cheeks from the walk, from the air, from something else she did not name.
“How is your mother?” he asked.
“Scolding the jam,” she said. “It is not to her liking.”
“She is well enough to scold jam,” he said. “That is… encouraging.”
“Yes,” she said. “Though she tires more quickly.”
He sobered.
“We will send her home to Bath,” he said. “With Thomas. When she is ready. Not before.”
“She will not go until she decides she is done lecturing you,” Martha said. “That may take another decade.”
He laughed.
“God help us,” he said.
They fell into step, strolling along the edge of the green.
Children raced past. Old men leaned on sticks and commented on the state of the harvest. Young couples stole glances at each other over strings of bunting.
“Do you remember,” she asked, “coming here as a boy?”
“Yes,” he said. “My father would bring us. My mother would insist on proper hats. We would escape them within minutes.”
“Did you dance?” she asked.
“Once,” he said. “With a girl whose name I have forgotten. I stepped on her foot. She cried. My mother sighed.”
“You have improved,” she said.
“So you say,” he replied.
They walked in companionable silence for a few paces.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the peace shattered.
A shout. A splash. A sharp cry.
They spun as one.
At the ducking pond, where she had scolded the boys earlier, there was chaos.
One of the planks at the edge, slick with moss, had given way under the weight of a small, eager body.
Agnes’s cap bobbed on the murky surface.
Her pale hand flailed once, fingers grasping nothing, then vanished beneath.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Then Martha moved.
Her boots pounded the grass as she ran, skirts hitched, hair dragging pins in her wake.
She reached the bank just as Agnes’s head broke the surface again, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wild with panic.
Without thinking, without pausing, Martha plunged.
The water was colder than she expected, shocking her lungs, stealing her breath. It stank—algae, mud, old rot. Her skirts billowed, dragging, tangling around her legs.
She kicked, fought upward.
Her hand closed around something small and flailing—an arm, a sleeve. She tightened her grip.
“I have you,” she gasped, not sure if Agnes could hear.
Someone shouted her name.
Hands—strong, sure—closed around her other arm, pulling, hauling.
She broke the surface, choking.
Agnes clung to her, coughing, sobbing.
“Let go,” a voice commanded. “I have her. Let go, Martha.”
It was Richard.
He had gone in after her, boots and all.
She forced her fingers to unclench.
He seized Agnes, tucking her under one arm awkwardly, and with the other heaved Martha toward the bank.
Pritchard, Sewell, two of the tenant boys—hands reached, grabbed, dragged.
They tumbled onto the grass in a heap of wet, shivering limbs.
Agnes coughed, sputtered, then wailed.
“Breathing,” Martha gasped. “She is… breathing.”
Richard rolled to his knees, cradling his youngest to his chest.
“You—” he choked, looking at Martha, water streaming from his hair, his coat, his face. “You idiot.”
She spat pond water, hair plastered to her cheeks.
“You’re welcome,” she rasped.
He let out a half-hysterical laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
Agnes clung to him, small arms around his neck, coughing into his shoulder.
“You will not swim in duck ponds again,” he said hoarsely.
“N-n-no,” she sobbed.
Villagers crowded, murmuring.
“Give them space,” Pritchard barked, surprising everyone. “Go stare at the pig. Or your own children. Shoo.”
They shooed.
“Blankets,” Martha croaked. “Warm. Dry.”
“Already on their way,” Pritchard said. “Do you think I am new?”
Within minutes, Agnes was wrapped in two blankets and hustled toward the carriage, Mrs. Harrow fussing despite her own pallor.
Martha stood, or attempted to. Her legs wobbled. She grabbed at the nearest steady thing.
It was, unhelpfully, Richard.
His hand closed around her elbow instinctively.
“You are soaked,” he said.
“So are you,” she retorted.
“You did not have to—” he began.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“You could have waited,” he said, voice rising. “For me. For anyone. You could have—”
“Watched her drown?” she snapped. “No.”
His jaw clenched.
“I would have—” he began.
“You were too far,” she said bluntly. “I was there. I moved. That is all.”
He stared at her, eyes burning.
“You terrify me,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” she said, teeth chattering now that the shock was fading. “Join the club.”
He made a strangled sound.
“Come,” Pritchard said briskly. “Both of you. Before you catch your deaths and leave me with these children unparented *and* untutored. I refuse.”
“Miss Harrow will ride in the carriage,” Richard said at once.
“No,” Martha said. “Agnes—”
“Agnes will not be crowded,” he said. “You will get out of those wet clothes before you fall in a faint and I am forced to carry you through the village.”
“You would not,” she said weakly.
“I would,” he said. “Pritchard. Bully her.”
“For once, I agree with him,” Pritchard said. “Up. In. Now.”
Martha, too cold to argue effectively, obeyed.
***
Back at the Hall, chaos.
Servants rushed, fires were stoked, dry linen fetched.
Martha’s own room, when she reached it, looked as if a gale had passed through. Her gown clung to her like a second, sodden skin. Her stays felt like iron bands.
She peeled herself out of them with difficulty, teeth still chattering. Her fingers fumbled the laces.
A knock.
“No,” she snapped. “I am naked.”
The door remained shut.
“Good,” Pritchard’s voice said calmly. “That is the point. I have brought hot water. And this.”
Something slid under the door.
A dry shift. Her spare gown.
“And this,” Pritchard added.
Another slide. A familiar-looking box.
The gloves.
Martha stared.
“How—” she began.
“You left them on your table,” Pritchard said. “Men with sense and women with eyes know what they mean. Dry off. Dress. Then go and see Agnes before he wears a groove in her floor.”
Footsteps retreated.
Martha exhaled.
She dried herself briskly, ignoring the bruised feeling in her limbs, pulled on the shift, the gown.
Her hands, still trembling, hovered over the gloves.
She hesitated.
Then, slowly, she lifted them, slid her fingers into the softened leather.
They fit.
Too well.
She flexed her hands.
“Dangerous,” she muttered to the empty room.
Then she went to the nursery.
***
Agnes lay in bed, damp hair curling around her temples, bundled in blankets. Her cheeks were pale but not fever-flushed; her eyes were enormous.
Richard sat on the edge of the bed, one hand on the coverlet, as if ready to snatch her up at the first sign of a cough.
He looked up as Martha entered.
His eyes widened—just for a moment—at the sight of the gloves.
“You are mad,” he said softly.
“Possibly,” she replied. “How is she?”
“Indignant,” he said. “But… sound. The doctor has been. He said she took in more pond than is ideal but less than disastrous.”
“I did not drink it,” Agnes protested weakly. “It tasted of… old boots.”
“You know too much about the taste of old boots,” Martha said.
Agnes’s gaze slid to Martha’s sleeves.
“You were… in too,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Martha said. “I had never wanted to be a duck before. It was… educational.”
Agnes’s lip trembled.
“I am sorry,” she burst out. “I did not mean to fall. I only wanted to see the frogs. They hop. I like them. And then the plank—and then—I could not—” Her breath hitched.
“Hush,” Martha said, moving quickly to the other side of the bed. She sat, leaned in. “We will scold the plank. Not you.”
“It was my fault,” Agnes insisted, tears spilling. “I was… stupid.”
“No,” Richard said, voice unexpectedly rough. “You were… curious. That is not a sin. It is only… inconvenient. Sometimes dangerous. But it is not a crime.”
She stared at him.
“You are… not cross?” she whispered.
“I am… terrified,” he said honestly. “And grateful. And… furious with that pond. But not with you.”
“And with me,” Martha added.
He shot her a look.
“Yes,” he said. “And with Miss Harrow, who thinks herself made of iron.”
Agnes sniffed.
“She is not,” she murmured. “She is made of… paper. And fire.”
Martha blinked.
“That is… poetic,” she said.
“It is accurate,” Richard murmured.
Their eyes met across the small, rumpled body in the bed.
Heat bloomed low in Martha’s belly.
She looked away first.
“I will sit,” she said, adjusting the blankets. “You will both dry. And warm. And rest.”
“You will both,” Richard corrected, “change out of wet clothes *promptly* if you ever pull such a stunt again.”
“Define stunt,” Martha said.
“Throwing oneself into a pond,” he said.
She inclined her head.
“Very well,” she said. “Next time, I will consider the river.”
He groaned.
Agnes giggled, then coughed.
“Breathe,” Martha commanded gently. “Slow. In. Out. Good. Again.”
Richard watched them—her competent hands, Agnes’s small ones, the curve of Martha’s wrist where the glove ended.
He caught himself staring and forced his gaze upward.
“Thank you,” he said abruptly.
Martha looked up.
“For what?” she asked.
“For going in,” he said. “For… not waiting. For being… faster than my fear.”
She swallowed.
“You would have done the same,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But you did. And that—” He broke off. “You saved her. Again.”
“It is becoming a habit,” she said lightly.
“Break it,” he said. “I cannot bear many more.”
His voice roughened on the last word.
Agnes’s eyes fluttered.
“Sleep,” Martha murmured. “Or I shall assign you Latin in your dreams.”
Agnes made a face, then sighed, drifting.
They sat in silence, each on a side of the bed.
After a while, Richard spoke, very low.
“Your hands,” he said. “The gloves.”
She flexed her fingers.
“Pritchard insisted,” she said. “She believes in… symbolism.”
He exhaled, something like relief and something like alarm mingling.
“They suit you,” he said.
“They were made for you,” she replied.
“Perhaps,” he said, “they were always meant for you.”
Her heart thudded.
“Do not,” she whispered. “Not here. Not now.”
He pressed his lips together.
“Very well,” he said.
They kept their watch—silent, stubborn, soaked in unspoken things.
Outside, the rain began again, soft on the newly green leaves.
Inside, the house, patched and rattled and filled with the echoes of shouts and splashes and laughter, held.
***