"You did what?" Pip's voice was filled with horror and its volume was only lowered in deference to everyone else in the house as he stared at Richard.

His 'uncle' stared steadily back. "What else could I do? You weren't going to hand him in - for your own good reasons, I know - but I don't have that luxury, unfortunately. Your headmaster's telephoned Mrs Hamley, and they're going to go around the recruiting stations and see if he's been seen or heard of at any of them. With any luck, he'll be back in Yorkshire before the blood's even dried on his nose."

Pip nodded thoughtfully. "And Mother doesn't have to know what I did?"

Richard shook his head. "She's enough to be worrying about. I don't see any reason to add to her plate. As long as I have your word that you won't be a little idiot again."

"I promise." They shook on it. "Th-thank you, Uncle Richard."


"Pip? Darling, what is it?" Edith frowned at her son over the breakfast table. "You've been flinching like a rabbit every time there's a noise this morning." Anne had already taken Evie and Vicky out for a walk, and Mary hadn't even thought about rising yet, according to Richard.

Pip ducked his head over his porridge bowl and shovelled a heaped spoonful into his mouth, to avoid replying. Above his head, he heard Uncle Richard intervene. "How are the drainage works going, Edith?"

"Oh, fine. Partridge has everything nicely under control." Her voice took on a touch of confused amusement that had been absent over the last few weeks as she added, "A valiant attempt at distraction, Richard dear. Pip?"

But before he could reply, the telephone interrupted. Pip winced. Edith rose from the table.

"Mother - " Pip started.

"Edith - " Richard added, but it was too late.

In frozen horror, they sat and stared at each other as Edith's heels clicked into the hall, and they heard her answer the telephone, hoping against hope that it wasn't the news they'd been waiting for.

"Hello?" Edith's voice rang out. And then, rather surprised: "Oh, Mr Holloway, hello… Very well, thank you… I - I see… Yes, of course." Her voice hardened. "Yes, I'll make sure that Sir Richard is informed. No, of course. Thank you. And you. Goodbye."

When she returned to the breakfast room, her face was very pale and her hands shook. "That was Mr Holloway on the telephone, Richard," she announced, not even glancing Pip's way. "He says that he's spoken to Mrs Hamley about Andrew, and that they've telephoned around all the recruiting stations, but no luck as yet." Her voice grew, if it were possible, even frostier. "Mr Holloway says that it seems the situation is as you feared, and that Andrew has signed up using a false name. He's only so glad that you managed to convince Phillip to do otherwise."

"Mother, I - " Pip began and Edith's eyes turned on him with a flash.

"Don't even think of trying to excuse yourself."

Richard stood, reaching out a consoling hand for his sister-in-law's shoulder. "Edith, I don't think - "

"I'll thank you to go and take care of your own child, Richard, and leave me to deal with mine," Edith replied, not even looking at him.

Pip and Richard exchanged glances and Pip shrugged. "She's right, Uncle Richard."


The temperature in the study had never been lower. Edith sat on one side of the desk, Pip on the other, and that foot or so of space had never felt larger.

"Clearly I've been foolish," Edith murmured. "I thought I could trust you. I thought that when you said you would be here, that you would stay with us - when you promised me - that you meant it."

"You can trust me," Pip protested. "It was a stupid - It wasn't my idea - "

"A coward's excuse," his mother interrupted harshly. "Blaming a boy who isn't even here to defend himself?"

Pip scoffed. "If you knew the things Andrew'd said when I told him I wasn't going, you wouldn't be so keen to take his side."

"I'm not particularly interested. What I am interested in is why you thought it was a good idea in the first place." Her eyes were filled with betrayal, making it hard for Pip to even look her in the face. "What on Earth would your father say if he knew?"

Anger, sudden and hot, flared in Pip at that. "What right has he got to be angry at anything I do?" he snapped. "Did he ask you what you thought about him wanting to go off and play soldiers for four years? Because he certainly didn't ask me."

"So it's fair to go off worrying the rest of us, is it?"

"That isn't what I - " Pip stopped, frustrated. "It'll happen eventually, anyway. Better meet it head on than hide away at home until it comes looking for me."

Mother swallowed, audibly. "Perhaps that's how your Papa felt."

"I don't care!" The words were ripped, aching and raw, from his throat, in much louder accents than he'd planned. "I don't care how he felt about abandoning us!"

At his mother's pained expression, Pip felt his lip curling. "He really did get a good bargain with you, didn't he, Mother? Someone who loved him enough to let him get away with whatever he wanted, who'd take on his house and his estate and his children and handle it all without complaint until he's decided he'd like them back again… God, he really saw you coming."

"Don't you dare - "

"He does put on a good show of being such a mild-mannered, jolly soul, doesn't he? And people always forget how sensible and practical he is, deep down." Somewhere deep inside him, Pip wondered where all these foul words were coming from - and could only watch on in horror, and do nothing whatsoever to stop them. "You must have been an utter dream come true for him."

Edith's face was marble, save the single tear which overspilled her eye and traced down her cheek. "You'll be driven to and from school every morning and afternoon," she bit out, as if she had been deaf all these previous minutes. "Other than that, you won't leave Locksley. You'll do your schoolwork and your duties around the house, you'll eat your meals and you'll go to bed. No fishing, no cricket, no driving, no allowance. You've lost the privilege." She swiped at the tear.

"That's - "

"Be grateful that's the only punishment I'm minded to mete out! If your father didn't have more than enough to contend with already, I'd leave you to his mercies. As it is, for his sake, I shan't worry him any further." For a moment, they stared at each other, both breathing crossly, heavily, and then Edith rose. "And now I'd like to be left alone. I'm sure Mrs Dale or Mrs Cox can find something to occupy you for the rest of the day."


"Pip? Darling, whatever - "

Pip looked up at his grandmother from where he sat on the back step, eyes red. "Granny, I've done the stupidest thing imaginable."

"Victoria," Anne said seriously, "would you take your cousin inside for me, please?"


"Pip told me what happened," Anne offered, seating herself on the other side of the desk, in the seat that only an hour or so before, Pip had occupied.

Edith pursed her lips, turning her head to stare out of the window. "And let me guess - he's asked you to advocate for him. Tell me I'm being unfair or unjust or - or whatever else he's tricked himself and you into believing."

"On the contrary. Do you know, sometimes he reminds me so much of Diana, when she was young? She'd do the most awful, scandalous things - and one could never be angry at her for long, because she'd always own up to it so thoroughly and contritely." Anne sighed. "He's fully aware of how badly he's behaved. Not the first time, though, and it won't be the last."

"It will, if I have anything to do with it." Edith's eyes flashed furiously. "Take his side if you'd like, Anne, but I shan't. And I don't particularly want to discuss it further."

Her mother-in-law came to kiss her cheek. "I'm not taking anyone's side, dearest. I only want you to know… that I understand how difficult motherhood is, and if you ever needed to talk to anyone… oh, darling - "

Because Edith had turned and thrown her arms around her. "He's so angry with Anthony," she whispered. "And, when - if - he ever comes back, I've no idea where we all go from here." She swallowed. "Because, Anne… I - " The words stuck in her throat, but she forced them out.

"Because I can't honestly blame him."


"Hello, Mr Sanderson!" Colin waved cheerily at the old farmer as he hiked up the last bit of the hill to the top-field. "How's the draining work going?"

"Oh, not so bad, lad." Mr Sanderson lifted his flask of tea. "Cuppa? And then come and see what the boys found this morning." They'd settled into a comfortable routine, the two of them, in recent weeks. Sanderson had been widowed, a couple of years ago, and he and his wife had been childless; he'd seemed to appreciate the idea of a young, bright lad about the place occasionally, to talk to and share a cup of tea with, sometimes an ale in the evenings, someone who didn't mind pitching in with the odd bit of heavy work about the farm when it was needed, as much as he could. And Colin… well, it had been a long while since Colin had had a father-figure worthy of the name.

Not that his own Dad could exactly be blamed, of course.

In lieu of travelling any further down that particular lane, Colin accepted the flask and tipped out a cup, intrigued despite the recent maudlin turn in his thoughts. "Something interesting, sir?"

"Well, you might think so. All that reading you do." The old farmer's eyes twinkled deep in his wrinkled face. "Come and have a peek."

Colin looked down into a small trench that had been dug to help with the drainage, frowning until something came into focus at the bottom. "Is that… pottery?"

"Aye, reckon so," Sanderson replied. "Tiles or summat. Could be a floor."

"A floor?" Colin echoed. "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, we've been finding bits and bobs of old pottery across the estate for decades now, certainly since old Sir Phillip's day." He said it as if it were nothing. "My old dad always used to say that folk had been farming here since the Romans."

"The Romans?" Colin dropped to his good knee, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe at the brightly coloured fragment of mosaic. "Good Lord, Mr Sanderson… I should go and tell Lady Strallan. This - this could be important."

Sanderson looked a little disbelieving. "Well, if you'd like to, lad. But ten to one, it's nothing much."

"And do you think, just until we can get it looked at, that we could stop digging here? Can I come up again later and take some photographs?"

Mr Sanderson chuckled. "Don't see why not, lad. If you've nothing better to be on at."

Colin's face shone with joy, as if he'd been offered a whole bag of sweets.