"Good morning, Mr. Bates," she said, standing, drying her hands and arms and pulling the crocheted shawl from her waist to wrap around her shoulders.

...

"How did you know it was me?" he asked as he dismounted Pharaoh, who immediatly busied himself with a patch of miner's lettuce growing from the riverbank. John held tight to his smile, trying to keep from loosing it, but as usual the joy he felt upon seeing her distracted him. His heart beat loudly in his chest. He was looking forward to what he had planned.

"Who else would be riding back here?" She rolled her eyes. Her own smile crept across her face, despite several attempts to still it. "Trying to catch me unawares so as to eavesdrop again?"

He felt the heat rise in his neck and cheeks anew as he fought for words. He could not mistake the playfulness of her tone, the enthusiasm behind her smile, but his flustered conscience humbled him.

"I'm only teasing Mr. Bates. Besides I should like to think I haven't any secrets I'd wish to keep from you, even if that isn't entirely true."

"Still, a gentleman doesn't linger quietly and listen as I did." He looked at her from under the brim of his hat.

"Good thing you happen to be a gentleman's gentleman and not a proper gentlemen. There is a bit of leeway there, I'd wager. And I am only teasing. I haven't anything much to hide; what you see is what you get. Well, see or overhear." She grinned brightly and swayed from side to side.

"Have you many?" he asked, immediately cursing himself further.

"Many?" Golden eyebrows raised in question.

"Secrets." He said the word and cringed at himself for nosing into her private affairs.

"Oh Lord!" She laughed to herself. "A whore has a hundred and one secrets for each of her tricks. So I suppose that gives me well over a hundred thousand. I'm ever so good at secret keeping." Her smile was radiant. Playful. "But I haven't any that I wouldn't tell you if you really wanted to know. And none that I mind a friend over-hearing if they are being carelessly blathered out by the great San Lorenzo river." She motioned grandiosely at the glorified boulder-strewn creek to which she referred, then looked at him and lowered her voice. "Not a friend such as you."

The way she said it. He swallowed and held her gaze; believed that she didn't hold his eavesdropping on Wednesday against him, but wondered desperately how to respond. He had been turning both his behavior and what he heard over again and again in his mind. He was slightly ashamed of himself but the knowledge made him feel bold. She fancied him. She more than fancied him, and he had been bursting from it since he had found out.

He had been riding Pharaoh along the San Lorenzo's western bank, discovering multiple paths to the rough trail from behind most of the wooden businesses that flanked it. He came upon them while they were giggling and splashing about. He heard them and held back at a reasonable distance, but their words carried, even if he couldn't see them. It had been Annie and the young one that wasn't yet comfortable in her own skin. The timid girl with the mousy, brown hair. A tangle of blackberry brambles blocked his view. They grew tall and wide over a fallen tree, big as a house and all white-blossomed and green-berried.

A gentleman would have announced his presence or walked away. It's just that he recognized the melodic sound of her laughter. When he had heard it his ears had perked up. He hadn't been just exploring the edge of the San Lorenzo and he knew it. He had been hoping to find her. To again speak with her in confidence.

At the sound of her voice, John Bates had dismounted and led Pharaoh along the pebbled beach to a place where the bank of the river had collapsed into a pile of sandy soil, sprouted all over with a fresh crop of dewy grass. He offered the bay gelding a chance to lip at it while he tried to listen as subtly as he could.

"Arch your back a bit more," Annie had instructed evenly, as though she were teaching someone to sew or cook. His shame had been immediate. He shouldn't be listening. Still he hadn't wanted to interrupt them; couldn't bear to interrupt them, for she seemed like she was having a proper bit of fun, despite her frustration with the younger woman. She sounded for all the world like an older sister, dolling out wisdoms and proprieties. They were of an illicit sort, but proprieties nonetheless.

"No, that's hunching, not arching. No. Daph, love, you're doing it four kinds of wrong. Watch. Like this. See? You need to push your tits out and tilt your chin down a bit so that you're looking up at him."

"How is this?" Daphne asked hopefully.

"Your tits are fine, but you are giving yourself a horrible double chin holding your head like that. Try to lengthen you neck."

"Like this?"

"No, not exactly." He hadn't realized a snort could sound delicate, but hers certainly did. "Daph, we are gonna have to come up with another plan. You really are no good at this. You are lucky that a goodly number of men are fond of a sweet farmer's daughter type."

He could picture her with her hands on her hips, appraising the younger girl with a tilted head. She spoke truthfully but her words were kindly meant. Daphne pulled him from his imaginings.

"Annie can I ask you something?"

"You can try, Daph."

"Do you like him? Really, I mean. Are you sweet on him?" The girl's voice was reedy and as timid as she was.

He held his breath, felt something open and drop uncomfortably within himself and heard her heavy sigh. "I can't see how any of that should concern you."

Daphne was asking about him. He had known it was a bit cocky to assume she had no other ... his first thought was the word beaus, but that was immediately substituted with interests. They had no understanding. In that moment though, despite how she evaded the question, he could feel the two of them imagining his face.

"It don't concern me," Daphne stated somewhat sheepishly. "I just seen't how you talk to him. And after, how you smile when you think there ain't no one looking. I like him. He's nice. I passed him on the street once and he tipped his hat, like I were a proper girl. Made me feel near ten feet tall."

He had smiled despite himself then. Remembered the moment the teen girl had spoken of with a new fondness. He had been walking Pharaoh about town that day on errands for His Lordship, as the man's liquor supply had been running low and he was in need of some ointment for his arthritis. She had looked like a rabbit; wide-eyed and fearful. All he had done was touch his hat and nod at her and she had visibly straightened and puffed up. She had offered him a clumsy curtsy in return and scurried on, not looking back. He remembered smiling to himself at the time, wishing her well, hoping her life wasn't too wretched. She seemed a good, but lost soul. So very many were.

"God help me if I'm obvious enough for you to notice." Annie's tone was brassy and humorous but he heard the genuine worry hidden in it and wanted to ask her why.

"I notice plenty," the girl had insisted.

"Sure you do, Daphne."

"I do!"

Then their discussion broke down into a series of shrieks and splashes. Full throated, squealing laughter filled the air.

He wasn't watching, but he wanted to be. He wanted to see her laughing; her smile wide, her hair wet. He wanted to see her joyful. The splashing slowed and stopped, the giggling subsided.

Alright," Annie said finally. "Now quit distracting me and pretend I'm that jack from last night. Show me how you were flirting on him. Because let me tell you, after the way I saw him looking at you when he came in you must have been doing something wrong if you chased him to Rosie."

He had listened with a fond smile as Annie continued to matter-of-factly walk Daphne through the ins and outs of seductive poses and come-hither postures.

"Come on," Annie said, when the lesson continued to go nowhere. "We should probably get back - you drink your tea yet?"

"Not yet, I can't bear it first thing in the morning. But really Annie, are you sweet on him?"

John was surprised that the girl hadn't let the topic drop. Daphne had found a bone to gnaw on and seemed entirely distracted by it. It seemed Annie was surprised too, for her words were spoken sharply and in a rush. "That's the first thing you gotta get through your addled brain. It doesn't matter if you're sweet on someone or not. We don't get to be sweet on any man. It isn't in the cards for us as do the whoring, Daph."

"You are sweet on him then, aren't you?" she chirped after they had practiced for a few more minutes.

"Oh, for Christ's sake. Yes! I'm sweet on him! And if you breathe a word of that to anyone, I'll hide Vi's flask and tell her you did it. Now quit pestering me."

"Oh no, don't do that! Please! I wouldn't tell anyone!" The girl's voice rose, panicked. To the degree that Annie immediately hushed her and apologized.

"I wasn't serious, Daph. Calm down. I wouldn't say anything of the sort. Just let's not be talking about it, or him, is all. It isn't right that I should be sweet on him; I haven't the right to meddle with a good, upstanding man like him. Nor do I want to cause any trouble for him with his boss. Don't worry. Go, go on up love. You still need to drink your tea and I want a few more minutes peace before I join you."

The girl sighed dramatically. "It tastes so terrible, though."

"Well, you best learn to like it. You ever miscarried?"

"No."

"You don't want to. Most places won't give you a choice, they'll make sure you lose it, one way or t'other, which is even worse. Go on up and drink it and be grateful."

His stomach sank as he realized with awful clarity that she was speaking from experience. He wondered just how many other horrors she hid behind her smile. He could hear that smile as she continued on, "As for the jacks, just try not to force it so. You do all right when you relax into yourself."

"If you say so." Daphne said as she moved up the bank sounding decidedly doubtful.

Pharaoh had snorted then and given him away; he had had to reveal himself. To his horror, when he stepped around the blackberry brambles she had been nearly nude, clad in only a very damp, very sheer chemise and bloomers. Yet she had welcomed him with unabashed warmth, entirely unashamed of her body. He was left dealing with his own shame, silently willing his body into submission as it immediately betrayed his baser urges.

"I'm sorry Anna," he stuttered, stumbling over his words, not knowing where to look or how to feel about her state of undress. "I didn't mean to interrupt your private time. I'll come back later when you..."

"Please, Mr. Bates!" she had interrupted, waving her hands as if to stave off his embarrassment. "You needn't avert your eyes. It's nothing everyone 'round these parts haven't seen less than half a hundred times." Her voice took a slightly more private tone when she continued, "Stay, would you? I apologize if I've offended your sensibilities. I can put on my corset if you'd rather and go borrow a shawl besides, but I'm afraid everything else is still drying.

She waited to hear his response. Made no move to get the constrictive undergarment from where it hung nearby.

"Are you more at ease without it?" he asked, feeling awkward and abashed for interrupting her morning, not wanting her to be uncomfortable because of his intrusion.

She shrugged. "A bit."

"Then you should forgo it while you can," he stated evenly. He hoped he didn't look too pained when he continued, "Perhaps you could go suss out that shawl?"

"Yes." She gave a quick nod. "I'll be back down shortly, Mr. Bates. Oh! And your book. I've been meaning to return it. We all of us enjoyed a new story so!"

With that she had clambered up the river bank and disappeared into the Garden - if the sound of the door opening and closing was any indication. A few minutes later Anna returned gripping the brown paper wrapped book in the same hand that held a dark blue shawl tightly closed about her shoulders. "To preserve your honor, Mr. Bates," she had teased gently. She tossed him an oven-warm scone, leaving him no choice but to catch it and then watched him expectantly until he began eating it. He was momentarily distracted by the morsel, delicious as it was. It wasn't dry like he was used to, but moist and cut through with bits of canned peaches.

"I'm sorry," Anna explained, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders. "I just finished washing clothes with Daphne and wasn't expecting you."

"It was rude of me," he said after he swallowed another bite of scone. "To come unannounced and uninvited like this."

"You are never uninvited, Mr. Bates; I always welcome your presence. Though for your sake I probably shouldn't."

He didn't know how to respond to her when she said things like that. He wished she wouldn't. "I thought we could work on your dress. Like we talked about. "

"What, now?"

"It doesn't have to be now, I can come back."

"No, I have the dress down here actually. It's a bit damp still is all," she said. As an afterthought she handed him the brown paper package. "Here. It was lovely of you to lend it to me," she said with a smile. "I hope it isn't too much trouble, but I wrote down the words I'm not familiar with on the paper. Perhaps you could look it over for me and educate me a bit?" She shrugged sheepishly as she walked over to a low boulder and pulled the dress from where it lay round the other side in the sun. "I haven't a dictionary."

"Of course," he intoned, delighted to be able to help. She brought the dress over and they settled easily into discussing what could and could not be salvaged. Some stains he thought he could remove, others he wasn't so sure. But he enjoyed the wide easiness of her smile as they spoke. She had draped it over a small-leafed huckleberry bush (He had had no idea, but she had tilted her head toward it and intoned "huckleberry" when she had lain the dress over it. She liked knowing the proper names for things, he'd noticed.) and they stood side by side considering it together. The front panel had so many tears and stains, they decided it was more work than it was worth. He point out where the seams could be ripped and reworked to replace the panel entirely.

"A solid fabric the color of the flowers should look comely. I can salvage some of the original material for piping and embellishing. Or we could cut strips of it and alternate the printed calico with a sold color. It would require less new fabric to do it that way and it would look unique. You think about what you would like. In the meantime, let me show you how to work on this seam here and the other at the side of the bodice. When we go to town next Sunday you could pick out some fabric," he stated enthusiastically. It pleased him inordinately that in this small thing he could be of help to her.

It surprised him when she frowned and stiffened a bit next to him. "Couldn't you just select something suitable for me when you go to town for the Earl? I trust your judgement."

"Well of course, but it would be best for you to come with me to see what suits you." He searched her face; her eyes had gone distant. She seemed shuttered and closed off all of the sudden.

"I couldn't." She clasped her hands, held them tightly and rubbed the heel of one hand with the thumb of the other. When he tried to catch her eye, she looked away.

"Why ever not?" he had asked, confused at her sudden change in demeanor.

After a bit more prodding, she finally admitted that the shop-girls would likely be rude to her. She glanced into the bushes and then off into the treetops. "It's not new, how people treat me, but it still isn't pleasant. I shouldn't like to make a scene. Nor would I wish for you to bear witness to such nonsense; you might be tempted to do something foolishly gallant to protect your notion of my honor."

He hadn't known what to say to that, but he could feel anger lick through his gut like wood catching flame at the thought of anyone mistreating Anna. He frowned deeply.

She looked at him then like she was measuring her words. "Thank you for this; for teaching me. And thank you for last Sunday. For listening to me. For being kind. There is so much of my life I don't speak of, sometimes it's as if it never happened, and sometimes that's how I like it. But talking about it gives it meaning, gives it breath. And knowing you know, somehow it makes me feel less alone in the world, if that makes any sense at all."

It took him a moment to summon up the words to respond. "More than you know," he murmured and winced at the emotional sounding roughness he heard.

She picked at the dress. "I feel like I owe you an explanation, for why I couldn't kiss you."

"You don't owe me anything," he interrupted, mildly horrified at the turn in the conversation.

She looked at him doubtfully. "We are of differing opinion on this. But I want to try to explain."

He couldn't deny her and raised his eyebrows for her to continue.

"Vi lets us make our own rules. About what we want done to us. What we will do. We set our own limits. Rosie and Delphi, for example, like it up the bum. I don't." She blushed and looked away. From the heat in his own face he assumed he was a brighter shade of crimson than she. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"I apologize Mr. Bates, but the nature of my life is vulgar. So much so, I sometimes forget what does and does not belong in everyday conversation, but I promise I do have a point to my words. The other place; there were no rules for tricks to abide. It ... Well... Not having say makes you appreciate what say you have when you have it... I'm not making any sense." She sighed heavily.

"It is good you have some choice in the matter," he said feeling inadequate and foolish, then horrified when the depth of what she was saying hit him. At the other place the tricks used her however they wanted; without restriction. The bile rose in his throat. He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, struggled to keep his expression neutral. He had never wanted to hurt another person as much as he wanted to hurt the man, the men, that had done that to her.

"Since I've been here, at the Garden, I went back to not kissing on the mouth. It was a rule I had when I first came to Santa Cruz with Alice; when I was working in the shadows of the alleys and wharves. Everything else was — is — bad enough. It helps me keep a distance. To keep that piece of myself to myself."

He was deeply and suddenly ashamed to have taken advantage of the moments after she had poured out the story of her life. His stomach twisted about. "I'll not ask it of you again. I'm sorry."

She chuffed and lightly swatted his arm. "Don't be daft. Did you not hear me when I said I'd been wanting to kiss you all day? I haven't longed to kiss anyone since I was fourteen and thought myself in love with the neighbor boy. It's unnerving to want it." She touched his sleeve, held onto it with her thumb and forefinger, turned so that she faced him, though she wouldn't quite meet his eyes. "To want you, Mr. Bates." She looked at him then and smiled sheepishly. "I shouldn't, but pretending I don't feels like a lie and I like that there is honesty between us."

"Do you?" He wasn't sure exactly what he was asking.

She looked at the ground. "I wish I could say I don't but I do."

"But you won't kiss me," he murmured.

"No." She frowned.

"Why not?"

"I'm ... afraid," she whispered.

"Of...?"

"Of kissing you proper and having to walk back in there and sell myself - repeatedly - whether I want it or not." She worked her jaw a bit after she finished talking as though she needed to chew on her words. He didn't like how lost she looked; how alone she seemed. It was so easy to push the visceral realities of her life into the shadows. At least it was for him. She had to live with it, every hour of the day. He bit his tongue. Hard enough that he tasted blood.

"What do you want?" he spoke finally, quietly, with such depth of feeling it embarrassed him a bit. He tried to ask her so many other questions with his tone, with his eyes. To admit to sins for which he'd never atone, to convey how deeply he wasn't worthy of her and how much he wanted her anyway.

She looked at him, held his gaze; answering him silently. To his disbelief he watched desire flow from her, unguarded. The space they shared charged like the atmosphere during an electrical storm. Her fingertips were cold on his cheek. He found himself in a confused, floating state of disbelief, hope, and answering desire.

"I'm a crippled old man," he finally stated, with defeated honesty. "But I ... I would do right by you..." He felt his words like a shiver. The intent behind them made his stomach drop and his breath quicken.

"Of course you would. I... I know you would." She frowned. "You may not be a young man, Mr. Bates, but you are no old man. As for the rest of it, you seem perfectly capable to me. It isn't that." She opened her hand and rested her palm between them on his chest kept her eyes trained there.

"What is it then?" he asked in a whisper. He brushed a few bothersome strands of hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. Still, she would not meet his eye.

"You'd be better served to concern yourself with if I could do right by you. Because, I couldn't. No matter what I did or how hard I persevered."

He wasn't quite sure exactly when she had leaned into him or when he had begun to circle her shoulders with his arms, but he did, and he found her hands had crept up his ribs and now spread wide and flat against his back. He wouldn't challenge her notion just yet, for she had already 'done right' by him over and again. Instead he basked in the warmth of her small body and the sun and swayed gently, enjoying the companionable silence that settled between the two of them.

"You let me worry about all of that," he finally murmured into her hair, laying first one then two kisses on the crown of her head. "Why don't we stick to sewing lessons on this beautiful morning and leave the rest for now."

She nodded. She searched his eyes for a moment, seemed disbelieving of the love he hoped she saw there. "Sewing lessons," she said finally.

And true to his word, he left it all alone and spent the next while showing her different techniques and helping to guide her choice of stitches.

When he rode out from behind the Garden he turned the horse towards Mrs. Ballard's family homestead. His ankle was getting bad enough to make mounting the horses shockingly painful without using a rock or pasture rail or dropping the stirrup as low as he could and re-buckling it to the proper height once he was astride. He had no trust for most of the medical profession, but the so-called witch woman was a different story entirely. And it would make Anna smile when he told her.

Sewing had been as safe a reason to pay her another visit as any, respectable and purposeful; though in truth he only wanted to be near her, to hear her voice, have a chance or two to joke with her and hear her laughter. He had been delighted by the light in her eyes when he offered to show her a few different stitches on Wednesday and was now charmed by her reaction when he asked how her dress was progressing. Her eyebrows shot up and her smile was immediate. She told him of the spot along the side of the bodice she had picked out and reworked over the last few days. The lilt in her voice rolled brightly. "I think you'll be pleased with my work. I'm getting much better."

He smiled. "I'm not surprised. You have a good eye and a steady hand. I was impressed with you the other morning; I only ever had to show you a stitch once, and after only two or three tries, you were able to match it."

"You are a natural teacher," she said brightly. "My mother was not. Though I've wished time and again that I'd paid closer mind to her instructions when I was a girl. She herself liked to sew and always made my clothes for me. I whinged about my lessons enough that she finally gave in and stopped making me practice."

"Well, you have her talent for it, now that you aren't fighting it," he said jovially. He grinned at her, lost himself for a long moment in the blue of her eyes. She made no move to look away. He wasn't expecting the sweet jolt that ran the length of his spine when she rested her palm over his heart, or how it radiated out to encompass his entire person when she rose up on her toes to kiss him. It wasn't anything more that the lightest touch of her lips to his. He might have thought he'd imagined it if not for the carnal, raw sound of her breath mingling with his. She kissed him again, (he loosed a strangled noise when she did) caught his lower lip between her own and touched it with the tip of her tongue. As though it was the most normal thing in the world to render them both trembling and feverish with the slightest of touches. As though it didn't cleave the length of his soul open to feel her so intimately. He pulled away to look at her, wide-eyed and confused.

"I thought ... you said ...," he began stupidly, unable to form a cogent sentence.

"I know what I said." She trailed her fingertips across the clean-shaven roughness of his cheek and looked at him with such longing he felt himself begin to harden. He began to step away from her, embarrassed by his reaction, but she raised herself up on her toes and threaded soft, strong fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. She sought his mouth again in a way that left him with no doubts about her feelings on the matter. He forgot to breathe; was aware only of the honeyed carnality of her touch, her lips on his, the press of her small breasts against him, the graceful curve of her back. He lost himself in her for the moments that she was in his arms, gasped raggedly when she finally ended the kiss and pressed her cheek to his chest. He couldn't stop the fool grin from spreading over his face or fail to notice the pink blush that flushed Anna's fair shoulders. They stood together, listening to the black-crested mountain jays' harsh arguments with one another as they boldly flapped from boulder to branch. Up the mountainside the thunder of a dynamite blast echoed resoundingly, silencing the jays' raucous chorus. John made a humming sound into Anna's hair.

"So do I compare favorably to the neighbor boy?" he asked with a cheeky smile when he could speak again.

"I never said I kissed him," she said quietly, grown suddenly serious, sounding almost shy. "Only that I wanted to. I've never had a proper first kiss," she continued in a small voice. "Not one I wanted, anyway."

He tightened his arms around her as comprehension slowly filtered through the loud rushing of blood in his ears. Tipping her chin with his finger so that he looked her in the eye, he couldn't for the life of him find the words to express himself. Instead, he leaned down and kissed her again - as tenderly and reverently as he could - in an attempt to convey what wouldn't let itself be said. He felt her smile against his lips.

"You have now," his whisper was rough; he did not want to let her go.

"I suppose I have, at that," she murmured, still smiling.

He remembered the purpose of his visit suddenly and cleared his throat with newfound nervousness.

"Would you join me for a ride on Isis and Pharaoh?" he asked her after a few moments.

She stepped away from him and scowled. He would never tell her so, but even her scowl was charming.

"Just because I kissed you doesn't mean ... We can't walk out together, Mr. Bates. I'll not have the whole of the camp see or hear about us together any more than they already have. You have a reputation to maintain."

"It is just a bit of a ride. You can't tell me you wouldn't enjoy it." He found himself smiling awkwardly; growing concerned that she genuinely would not accompany him on the excursion he had worked rather diligently to arrange.

"Of course I would enjoy it," she countered. "I wonder though, what would your Duke have to say about this? I doubt he'd like the idea of a lady of the night soiling his saddle. Besides, Vi's in a right mood this week."

"He knows about you, Anna," he blurted, choosing to. "We don't have to hide. I've already secured his permission."

"His permission? Permission to do what exactly?" In her words he heard a hardness he hadn't before. She was suddenly stretched tight, like the skin of a drumhead.

He was afraid to tell her the full extent of what he and the Earl of Grantham had discussed, that in addition to permitting her to ride Isis, the peer had given his word that Bates' respectful association with and wooing of the woman would not cost him his place.

"Permission for you to handle and ride his horses."

"Is that so? And what exactly did you tell him to obtain such permission?" He felt a little like an overgrown mouse caught between the paws of a cat. It would seem her mood was strange and changeable this morning.

John Bates smiled uncomfortably. He had an instinctive need to touch her, to remind her that he meant well, that he wasn't like the others, that anything he had done, he had done out of respect for her and desire to do right by her. Instead he ducked his head and awkwardly pressed his cheek to hers to whisper, "You are a singularly remarkable woman, Anna May Smith, and we both know I don't deserve to be trapped by my words." He caught up her small hand in his own and kissed it gently; her skin was soft, though he could feel smooth, hard callouses on her palm. He could feel her body singing with tension.

He began to straighten, chastising himself for being blunt and overly familiar, but she reached out and held his hand. She took a step back into him, slipped her arms around his trunk and held tightly to him. Taking several long breaths before she spoke, she turned her face to his throat, her body sinking into their embrace. "I'm sorry. It's been a trying night and you're right, you don't deserve any maltreatment on account of my own moodiness."

"Let me improve your mood. Come riding with me, Anna."

He felt her sigh against his throat.

"To what end Mr. Bates?" she asked quietly.

"Just come with me. Mrs. Ballard - Miss Minnie - she wanted me to give you this... It includes a note for Vi to explain and justify your absence."

He offered her the note, pulled it from his pocket where it nestled with two others. One to his mother. One addressed vaguely, with only given names and hope. Both were rather heavy compared to Mrs. Ballard's envelope.

He knew what the letter said. Mrs. Ballard had spoken the words out loud on Wednesday when she had written them for him:

"Morning Dearheart,

I need you to come up today. I've asked Mr. Bates to bring you as he owes me a favor for looking at his knee and ankle and I'm hoping to be finished with you before Vi wakes up. (It is Friday after all, you should have until well after noon.)

If you don't want to be seen riding with Mr. Bates, I'm sure he is clever enough to arrange an agreeable meeting place and a discreet path.

Hurry along now, love.

-Minnerva J. Ballard

Post Script: I've enclosed a note telling Vi to piss off if she wakes up and finds you gone. Well, not exactly that, but it explains and should keep her quiet and mostly happy."

It was a misdirection; not a proper falsehood. He knew he couldn't mislead her even that much.

"She really doesn't need you for anything," he said as she began reading. "She has an order ready for the Garden she will have you deliver, to lend the outing a bit of authenticity. She just wanted to make sure you accepted my offer."

"That woman and her meddling," Annie stated, rolling her eyes. "I know she means well, but some days... Did she put you up to this nonsense?"

"No. The horses were my notion. I thought after how you were with Isis that you might enjoy some more time with her." He dropped his head. "And I wanted to while away some more time with you." He regarded her and smiled. "You'll be pleased; Mrs. Ballard saw to my leg on Wednesday afternoon, after our sewing lesson. She began asking on you and ... "

Annie laughed and shook her head. "Let me guess; shortly thereafter she had wheedled your intentions out of you?"

He didn't say anything, he didn't need to.

"After that she wouldn't accept payment and instead concocted a plan?"

"When I told her my idea, she suggested that Friday and Sunday mornings where usually the times you had the most leeway. So here we are."

"Well, at the very least you went to see her for your leg." She looked mildly exasperated, but not angry. "She has a gift that woman. In healing, not necessarily plotting. What did she say about your leg? I beg your pardon. That isn't any of my concern."

He touched her hand, looked at her sidelong. "I'd like it to be your concern." She shivered and laced her fingers tightly through his. "She believes that much of the pain is due to tightness in ligaments and tendons that occurred when the original break was healing. She has given me her advice regarding the task of loosening it. Now I must be diligent in enacting her instructions. She has also prescribed me a foul tasting tea that takes the edge off. And has re-supplied me with the rub you so kindly gave me, as well as another liniment of her own concoction. I feel a difference, just in a day and a half. It's no cure, but I am hopeful that it will help."

"I'm ever so pleased." Her smile was genuine. "That is good news."

She smirked and shook her head. "Well Mr. Bates, I suppose I stand no chance if the two of you are in cahoots. I have no wish to cause talk and speculation, even if your Duke is fool enough to allow me use of his horse."

He watched her expression shift and could tell she was giving in to the temptation of a ride on horseback. He felt his ears flush with anticipation. She sighed, relenting.

"Where do you propose we meet?" she finally asked.

"There is a deer trail behind the Queen of Hearts that would lead us in the right direction. Care to meet me there in a quarter of an hour?" he asked shyly.

She cocked her head. The grin that finally emerged on her face shone brightly. "All right then," she relented. "Let me just go make myself presentable. Half an hour. Behind the Queen of Hearts it is."