With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table. “Very useful indeed.”
“They’ll never know what hit them.” With his boot heel, Colin tamped a divot over the first powder charge.
“Nothing’s going to hit them,” Bram said. “We’re not using shells.”
The last thing they needed was shrapnel zinging about. The charges he prepared were mere blanks—black powder wrapped in paper, for a bit of noise and a spray of dirt.
“You’re certain the horses won’t bolt?” Colin asked, unspooling a length of slow-burning fuse.
“These are cavalry-trained beasts. Impervious to explosions. The sheep, on the other hand . . .”
“Will scatter like flies.” Colin flashed a reckless grin.
“I suppose.”
Bram knew bombing the sheep was reckless, impulsive, and inherently rather stupid, like all his cousin’s boyhood ideas. Surely there were better, more efficient solutions to a sheep barricade that didn’t involve black powder.
But time was wasting, and Bram was impatient to be moving on, in more ways than one. Eight months ago, a lead ball had ripped through his right knee and torn his life apart. He’d spent months confined to a sickbed, another several weeks clanking and groaning his way down corridors like a ghost dragging chains. Some days during his convalescence, Bram had felt certain he would explode.
And now he was so close—just a mile or so—from Summerfield and Sir Lewis Finch. Just a mile from finally regaining his command. He bloody well wouldn’t be thwarted by a flock of gluttonous sheep, whose guts were likely to burst if they weren’t scared off that corn.
A good, clean blast was just what they all needed right about now.
“That’ll do,” Thorne called, embedding the last charge at the top of the rise. As he pushed his way back through the sheep, he added, “All’s clear down the lane. I could see a fair distance.”
“There is a village nearby, isn’t there?” Colin asked. “God, tell me there’s a village.”
“There’s a village,” Bram answered, packing away the unused powder. “Saw it on the map. Somesuch Bay, or Whatsit Harbor . . . Can’t exactly recall.”
“I don’t care what it’s called,” Colin said. “So long as there’s a tavern and a bit of society. God, I hate the country.”
Thorne said, “I saw the village. Just over that rise.”
“It didn’t look charming, did it?” Colin raised a brow as he reached for the tinderbox. “I should hate for it to be charming. Give me a dank, seedy, vice-ridden pustule of a village any day. Wholesome living makes my skin crawl.”
The corporal gave him a stony look. “I wouldn’t know about charming, my lord.”
“Yes. I can see that,” Colin muttered. He struck a flint and lit the fuse. “Fair enough.”
“Miss Finch, what a charming village.” Diana Highwood clasped her hands together.
“We think so.” Smiling modestly, Susanna led her guests onto the village green. “Here we have the church, St. Ursula’s—a prized example of medieval architecture. Of course, the green itself is lovely.” She refrained from pointing out the grass oval they used for cricket and lawn bowls, and quickly swiveled Mrs. Highwood away, lest she spy the pair of stockinged legs dangling from one of the trees.
“Look up there.” She pointed out a jumble of stone arches and turrets decorating the rocky bluff. “Those are the ruins of Rycliff Castle. They make an excellent place to paint and sketch.”
“Oh, how perfectly romantic.” Charlotte sighed.
“It looks damp,” Mrs. Highwood pronounced.
“Not at all. In a month’s time, the castle will be the site of our midsummer fair. Families come from ten parishes, some from as far away as Eastbourne. We ladies dress in medieval attire, and my father puts on a display for the local children. He collects ancient suits of armor, you see. Among other things.”
“What a delightful notion,” Diana said.
“It’s the highlight of our summer.”
Minerva peered hard at the bluffs. “What’s the composition of those cliffs? Are they sandstone or chalk?”
“Er . . . sandstone, I think.” Susanna directed their attention to a red-shuttered façade across the lane. Wide window boxes spilled over with blossoms, and a gilt-lettered sign swung noiselessly in the breeze. “And there’s the tea shop. Mr. Fosbury, the proprietor, makes cakes and sweets to rival any London confectionery’s.”
“Cakes?” Mrs. Highwood’s mouth pursed in an unpleasant manner. “I do hope you aren’t indulging in an excess of sweets.”
“Oh no,” Susanna lied. “Hardly ever.”
“Diana has been strictly forbidden to indulge. And that one”—she pointed out Minerva—“is tending toward stoutness, I fear.”
At her mother’s slight, Minerva turned her gaze to her feet, as if she were intently studying the pebbles beneath them. Or as if she were begging the ground to swallow her whole.
“Minerva,” her mother snapped. “Posture.”
Susanna put an arm about the young woman, shoring her up. “We have the sunniest weather in all England, did I mention that? The post comes through two times a week. Can I interest you all in a tour of the shops?”
“Shops? I only see one.”
“Well, yes. There is only one. But it’s all we have need of, you see. Bright’s All Things shop has everything a young lady could wish to buy.”
Mrs. Highwood surveyed the street. “Where is the doctor? Diana must have a doctor nearby at all times, to bleed her when she has her attacks.”
Susanna winced. No wonder Diana’s health never fully returned. Such a useless, horrific practice, bleeding. A “remedy” more likely to drain life than preserve it, and one Susanna had barely survived herself. Out of habit, she adjusted her long, elbow-length gloves. Their seams chafed against the well-healed scars beneath.
“There is a surgeon next town over,” she said. A surgeon she wouldn’t allow near cattle, much less a young lady. “Here in the village, we have a very capable apothecary.” She hoped the woman would not ask for specifics there.
“What about men?” Mrs. Highwood asked.
“Men?” Susanna echoed. “What about them?”
“With so many unwed ladies in residence, are you not overrun with fortune hunters? Bath was teeming with them, all of them after my Diana’s dowry. As if she would marry some smooth-talking third son.”
“Definitely not, Mrs. Highwood.” On this point, Susanna need not fudge. “There are no debt-ridden rakes or ambitious officers here. In fact, there are very few men in Spindle Cove at all. Aside from my father, only tradesmen and servants.”
“I just don’t know.” Mrs. Highwood sighed, looking about the village once again. “It’s all rather common, isn’t it? My cousin, Lady Agatha, told me of a new spa in Kent. Mineral baths, purging treatments. Her Ladyship swears by their mercury cure.”
Susanna’s stomach lurched. If Diana Highwood landed in a spa like that, it might truly be the end of her. “Please, Mrs. Highwood. One cannot underestimate the healthful benefits of simple sea air and sunshine.”
Charlotte tugged her gaze from the ruined castle long enough to plead, “Do let’s stay, Mama. I want to take part in the midsummer fair.”
“I believe I feel better already,” Diana said, breathing deep.
Susanna left Minerva’s side and approached the anxious matriarch. Mrs. Highwood might be a misguided, overwrought sort of woman, but she obviously loved her daughters and had their best interests at heart. She only needed a bit of reassurance that she was doing the right thing.
Well, Susanna could give her that reassurance truthfully. All three of the Highwood sisters needed this place. Diana needed a reprieve from quack medical treatments. Minerva needed a chance to pursue her own interests without censure. Young Charlotte just needed a place to be a girl, to stretch her growing legs and imagination.
And Susanna needed the Highwoods, for reasons she couldn’t easily explain. She had no way to go back in time and undo the misfortunes of her own youth. But she could help to spare other young ladies the same friendless misery, and that was the next best thing.
“Trust me, Mrs. Highwood,” she said, taking the woman’s hand. “Spindle Cove is the perfect place for your daughters’ summer holiday. I promise you, they will be healthy, happy, and perfectly safe.”
Boom. A distant blast punched the air. Susanna’s ribs shivered with the force of it.
Mrs. Highwood clutched her bonnet with a gloved hand. “My word. Was that an explosion?”
Drat, drat, drat. And this had all been going so well.
“Miss Finch, you just claimed this place was safe.”
“Oh, it is.” Susanna gave them her most calming, reassuring smile. “It is. No doubt that’s just a ship in the Channel, sounding its signal cannon.”
She knew very well there was no ship. That blast could only be her father’s doing. In his day, Sir Lewis Finch had been a celebrated innovator of firearms and artillery. His contributions to the British army had earned him acclaim, influence, and a sizable fortune. But after those incidents with the experimental cannon, he’d promised Susanna he would give up conducting field tests.
He’d promised.
As they moved forward into the lane, a strange, low rumble gathered in the air.
“What is that noise?” Diana asked.
Susanna feigned innocence. “What noise?”
“That noise,” Mrs. Highwood said.
The rumble grew more forceful with each second. The paving stones vibrated beneath her heeled slippers. Mrs. Highwood squeezed her eyes shut and emitted a low, mournful whimper.
“Oh, that noise,” Susanna said lightly, herding the Highwoods across the lane. If she could only get them indoors . . . “That noise is nothing to be concerned about. We hear it all the time here. A fluke of the weather.”
“It cannot be thunder,” Minerva said.
“No. No, it’s not thunder. It’s . . . an atmospheric phenomenon, brought on by intermittent gusts of . . .”
“Sheep!” Charlotte cried, pointing down the lane.
A flock of deranged, woolly beasts stormed through the ancient stone arch and poured into the village, funneling down the lane and bearing down on them.
“Oh yes,” Susanna muttered. “Precisely so. Intermittent gusts of sheep.”
She hurried her guests across the lane, and they huddled in the All Things shop’s doorway while the panicked sheep passed. The chorus of agitated bleats grated against her eardrums.
If her father had hurt himself, she was going to kill him.
“There’s no cause for alarm,” Susanna said over the din. “Rural life does have its peculiar charms. Miss Highwood, is your breathing quite all right?”
Diana nodded. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Then won’t you please excuse me?”
Without waiting for an answer, Susanna lifted her hem and made a mad dash down the lane, weaving around the few lingering sheep as she made her way straight out of the village. It didn’t take but a matter of seconds. This was, after all, a very small village.
Rather than take the longer, winding lane around the hill, she climbed it. As she neared the top, the breeze delivered to her a few lingering wisps of smoke and scattered tufts of wool. Despite these ominous signs, she crested the hill to find a scene that did not resemble one of her father’s artillery tests. Down at the bottom of the lane, two carts were stalled in the road. When she squinted, she could make out figures milling around the stopped conveyances. Tall, male figures. No short, stout, balding gentlemen among them.