horse?”
The old man shook his head slowly. “Some duke sent round a servant days ago. Hired every stall from here to the river, and every bed in every tavern or inn. As big as it is, the manor house can’t house all the guests or their stock.” The old man looked Adam over, assessing his clothing and his horse.
Adam nodded. “Must be quite a celebration.”
“Aye, the bride insists that the wedding service and dinner must be open to all. Friends, neighbors, aristocrats, and cottagers alike. My daughters have already made their way there.”
The detail didn’t surprise Adam. His little leveler (as he’d often teased her) always insisted one’s character mattered more than distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth. As the son of a clergyman, he should agree, but he’d seen too much, particularly as a secret agent of the Home Office, to believe it. No, he knew from bitter experience that life tended to value rank, wealth, and power over ability.
“Then I’m lucky to be a guest.” Adam patted the horse’s neck.
“I don’t think so.” The old man looked Adam up and down. “The duke’s servant warned us of men like you. No carriage, no invitation, willing to walk to gain the grounds. I’m to send word, if one of you shows up.”
“Men like me?” The skin rose on the back of Adam’s neck, but he resisted the impulse to look over his shoulder. What did the old man know? Who did he think Adam was?
“Newspapermen.” The old man crossed his arms over his chest.
Adam laughed out loud and pulled the tattered wedding invitation out of his boot. He’d tried to throw it away. Once or twice it had even landed in the waste bin, but he’d always dug it out. He couldn’t let a piece of Em’s handwriting go. He handed it to the old man. “As you can see, I am one of Lord Colin’s guests.”
“Or you stole an invitation from someone who was.” The old man studied the name on the front. Then he turned the invitation over and traced the engraved lettering with his forefinger. “Since the wars ended, there’s no telling about young men like you. My wife will decide.”
The old man left Adam in the cold yard.
Adam wondered if the man were illiterate and what his wife might say about the invitation. Would she notice the name lettered across the front in Lady Emmeline’s most public, most ornate hand? Would she wonder if the name on the front was his? He’d had so many names—Adam Montclair, the name his parents had given him; Adam Locksley, the revolutionary, hung for his sins; and today A. Fairwether. The last perhaps was most apt of all.
Lord Colin, to preserve the secrecy of their division, had assigned his colleagues names taken from a dusty novel in his brother’s library. And he’d used those names on the guest list and invitations. Colin had been especially pleased with A. Fairwether, finding it a clever play on Montclair: fair weather, clear mountain. But Adam’s conscience had silently added “friend” to “fair weather,” transforming his invitation into a silent indictment.
The old man returned after a few minutes, holding out the invitation. “Lady Emmeline sends us a nice basket of food for our holidays and birthdays, so we know her hand. You can put your horse in the second stall. But that’ll be four pence.”
“Didn’t you say the duke hired all the stalls for his guests?”
“Aye, your horse may shelter in the second stall. But it’s four pence for me to brush him down and watch the barn so no one steals him.”
Adam laughed, appreciating the old man’s ingenuity. He tossed the man a half crown instead. “I won’t be staying after the ceremony.”
The old man bit the coin and, finding it good, smiled wide. “You Adam?”
“What?” Adam looked around the yard, suddenly wary.
“Your name.” The old man, not illiterate after all, gestured at the invitation. “A. Fairwether. We had a son once named Adam.”
Adam stared at the old man’s face, trying to transform his features into those of a younger man. Had he known the son when he’d walked these hills before?
“He died in the wars.” The old man nodded to a rock structure at the edge of the yard. “We built that sheepfold together, but he never came back.”
“We lost many good men in the wars.” Adam felt his shoulders loosen. If he’d known the son, it wasn’t from his work in the region. “I’m proud to share his name.”
The old man nodded, the glint of tears in his eyes. “Follow the ridge until you see the chapel’s steeple, then take the market road down to the river. From there, you can curve around to the front chapel yard. Or you could take the straight path, but it leads through the family cemetery.”
How appropriate it would be for him to arrive through the cemetery. A dead man come to haunt the wedding. The thought almost amused him.
“But stay out of the forest. The only men you’ll find there are up to no good.”
“Highwaymen?” Adam prompted, unable to resist.
The man grimaced. “Stay to the path. If you get lost, tell people you left your horse with Michael.”
Adam shook Michael’s hand, then in long strides ascended the hill he’d walked a dozen times with Em.
Attending the wedding carried risks. Since he’d been so foolhardy as to embark without a plan, he needed to think for a moment about what might happen when he arrived.
Lord Colin wouldn’t be surprised to see him. He had in fact almost begged Adam to attend: “How can I marry without the man who helped me survive the wars by my side?” Colin knew Adam better than almost any man alive, so it would take only one misplaced glance for Colin to suspect some history between his fiancée and his best friend. And it wouldn’t do for Colin to wonder why or how well.
Colin didn’t know Adam knew Emmeline. Emmeline didn’t know Adam knew Colin.
While he could anticipate Colin’s response to his presence, Lady Emmeline was the wild card in his not-plan. She believed him—or, rather Adam Locksley—to be a criminal, a rabble-rousing dissenter intent on overthrowing the government. She likely thought him dead. The newspapers had been well paid to report Locksley’s trial, verdict, and execution. If that were the case, her engagement to Lord Colin felt like less of a betrayal.
The problem of attending, then, rested with Em. If she saw him, what would she do? Would she ignore him? Or would she swoon to see her lover come back from the dead? No, more likely she’d point one of her dratted pistols at his brain, declare him a fugitive, and march him to the nearest magistrate. Or, she might catch his gaze with those perceptive dark eyes, then give him the cut direct. He’d prefer the swoon or the pistols: either one meant she’d once felt something for him. He’d believed she had, but, as he’d expected, class and rank ended up mattering to her as much as to anyone else.
His old hurt, fed by the whiskey and lack of sleep, breathed back to life as a quick anger. Adam shook his head, wishing he’d never taken the assignment that had led him to the neighboring cottagers . . . and Emmeline.
Adam crested the hill on the edge of the Hartley property. He paused, giving his breath time to catch up with his anger. The winter landscape was barren, the tree branches stark lines against a clouded sky. Em would tell him it was beautiful, the sleep of spring. Suddenly he could see her again, her face turned upward to catch a snowflake on her tongue. He pushed the memory away. He needed his anger. Without it, he had only despair and recrimination.
But the landscape was filled with her. The rocks where they sat, quietly watching a rabbit eat its dinner—the animal had eyed them suspiciously, but not suspiciously enough to hop away. The tree where she’d insisted he return a fledgling robin to its nest, or she would do it herself. The fox hole where Em had stood defiantly, gun in hand, protecting the exhausted animal from neighbors’ dogs. “My land, my fox,” she’d insisted to