by now, her and Jason and John are in the field, trying to give off the look of a normal day, but they’re all watching the lane, wondering and fretting about me. They won’t dare come round the Grand House, in case Old Missus and Seddie got suspicions after last night. If Missus sends her houseman out poking around, he won’t see one thing out of normal at our place. Tati’s too smart for that.
I hate that they’ll worry, but there’s no help for it. You can’t trust nobody at Goswood Grove these days. Can’t send a message by anyone.
I catch my breath and rub Grandmama’s three blue beads on that leather cord round my neck, and I pray for luck. Then I turn from the home way, steering the mare toward the old garden. Branches bow down from the oaks, bramble vines tying them together like corset laces. They needle and grab at my hat as the old horse and me push on through the clutter. A deerfly pesters Ginger’s ears, and she shakes her head and snorts, and jingles the harness.
“Sssshhh, there,” I whisper. “Hush up, now.”
She tosses her forelocks, rattling the carriage when I pull up just before the old bridge.
Nobody there. Not a sign.
“Missy Lavinia?” I whisper low and scratchy-like, hoping I sound like John, not quite man yet, but getting close. I lean over, try to see off the side of the bridge. “Anybody down there?”
What if Old Missus caught her making ready to sneak away?
A branch snaps and the mare turns her head, perks toward the trees. We listen, but there’s not another sound except what’s usual. Live oaks shiver, and birds talk, and squirrels argue in the branches. A woodpecker hammers after grub worms. Ginger fusses at that deerfly, and I get down to shoo it off her ears and quieten her.
Missy Lavinia’s almost on me before I hear her coming.
“Boy!” she says, and I jump out of my hide and back in. A whole string of bad memories clamor in my head. Happiest day of my life was when I left the Grand House to live with Tati, and I didn’t have to nursemaid Missy anymore. That girl would pinch, hit, swat me with whatever she could get her hands on soon’s she was big enough. Seem like she knew early on that it made her mama proud.
I duck my head down hard under the hat. I’ll know in a minute if this plan of mine’s workable. Missy Lavinia ain’t stupid. But we ain’t been close up to each other in a long time, either.
“Why haven’t you brought me the chaise?” Her voice has the high shriek that sounds like her mama, but she don’t look like her mama. Young Missy is stouter and rounder, even than I remember. Taller, too, almost tall as me. “I asked for the cabriolet, so as to drive myself. Why have you come with the calèche? When I get my hands on that yard boy…and where is Percy? Why hasn’t he seen to this himself?”
I don’t think it’s best to say, Percy’s been hiring out to keep hisself in food enough since Missus cut back his pay. So, instead, I tell her, “Cabriolet’s broke, ain’t been fixed. Nobody down to the stable, so I got the carriage up and come to drive it.”
She’s enough put out about the idea that she hauls herself into the carriage on her own without waiting for help. That’s best, since I’m trying to keep away.
“We will proceed down the field levee lane, not past the Grand House,” she snaps, settling herself into the seat. “Mother is abed. I’ll not have her disturbed by our passage.” She’s trying to sound sharp and bossy like her mama, but even now that she’s sixteen and in ladies’ skirts, she still sounds like a girl playing at being big.
“Yes’m.”
I climb up and chuck the old mare, and make a tight circle round the caved-in reflecting pond. The calèche’s big wheels bounce over loose cobblestones and ivy gone wild. Once the way is clear, I hurry the mare on. She’s still got a good trot, even