intensely observed, and the whole room gave her a sad
and queasy sensation in her tummy.
“Tenderhearted, eh? Pity,” Lord Fredrick said.
“Hunting is a marvelous pastime. Communing with
nature and all that! Although it can be dangerous. In
my own family there have been some—unfortunate
accidents.” He jerked his head behind him in the direc-
tion of the portraits. “They met gruesome ends, all
of ’em. Positively gruesome! All killed while hunting.
Except for my father, Edward—although his end was
most gruesome of all, in its way. Never even found the
body. Anyway, that’s how I caught ’em—the children,
I mean. It was on a hunting expedition, right here on
the grounds of Ashton Place. You can see for yourself;
the Ashton Woods are very large indeed. I’ve hunted
in that forest my whole life, and still, there are corners
I’ve never seen.”
He paused to chew the end of his cigar. “It was ten
days ago. I was out stalking with a pair of my favorite
hounds and Old Timothy, the coachman—you’ve met
him, I take it? He’s a trusted family servant and knows
how to keep quiet in the trees. I often take him out
with me, to carry water for the dogs and so forth.”
“I have met him,” she replied. “He picked me up at
the station.”
Lord Fredrick nodded and went on with his tale.
“We’d ventured deep into the woods, deeper than
usual, until we wandered into a clearing and star-
tled some birds into the air. I’d gotten off a shot at a
good-sized something or other, maybe a pheasant. Old
Timothy was certain I’d hit it, but neither of us saw
where it fell, so we set the dogs loose to find it. Instead,
they flushed those three ragamuffins out of the under-
brush, naked as the day they were born and yapping
and howling like a litter of wolf cubs.” Lord Fredrick
took a deep puff on his cigar. “If Old Timothy hadn’t
seen what they were in time to stop me, I might have
gotten off a shot or two.”
“A ‘shot or two’—you mean, at the children?” The
queasy feeling in Penelope’s tummy was growing
worse, and she wished she had something safe and
familiar to hold: her poetry book, perhaps, or the small
pillow cross-stitched with one of Agatha Swanburne’s
sayings—“Complaining Doesn’t Butter the Biscuit”—
that her school friend Cecily had made in sewing class
and given her for a birthday present two years before.
“I can’t see for toffee at distances, I’m afraid,” Lord
Fredrick confessed, although he did not sound the
least bit apologetic. “I can read the newspaper as well
as the next man, if I hold it close, but more than twelve
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