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In Pennyroyal Green, he stopped at home long enough for the servants to ecstatically fuss over him and to learn that his parents planned to return from visiting his sister in time for the assembly tomorrow.

Then he washed his sweaty, dusty body and changed into clean clothing, this time his own. All of it fit him too loosely, too.

He was distantly aware that he was perilously exhausted. Nerves, dread, coffee, and a fierce sense of purpose kept him artificially alert.

He glanced at himself in a hallway mirror as he left the house, and nearly recoiled from his reflection, just as Neeley had in White’s. His eyes were burning like an avenging prophet’s.

When he finally plunged into that fount of Pennyroyal Green gossip, Smithfield Curtis Tobacconists, the familiar pungent scent of the shop nearly made him sway on his feet.

The proprietors were standing together at the counter. Their heads lifted in unison at the jangle of the bell.

Then their face lit with delight.

“Good God, look who’s walked in! Well, it’s damned splendid to see you, young Mr. Eversea!” Smithfield thrust out his hand for Jacob to shake. “Had to pinch meself, I did. Ain’t ye the spit of yer father now, fine figure of a man he is, too.”

“I’m proud that you think so, Smitty, but since when have you needed to flatter me to get me to buy my favorite blend?” Jacob shook their hands.

They all chuckled good-naturedly.

“Rumors have been colorful, sir, about your whereabouts. We was all a bit worried, we was, when your ship did not come in on schedule.” Mr. Curtis twinkled at him.

“Saw sea monsters implicated in my demise in the betting books at White’s,” Jacob told them.

They all laughed companionably again.

Jacob slid a few pence over to Smithfield, who pushed over Jacob’s packet of tobacco.

“My bet would have been on pirates, them bastards,” Curtis volunteered.

“Oh, there were pirates, all right,” Jacob told him. “But I’m an Eversea. We’re harder to kill than cockroaches.” He winked. “And it doesn’t ever pay to double-cross us.”

This assertion caused a poignant little lull.

“So, what are your plans now that you’re back in Sussex, Mr. Eversea?” Mr. Smithfield asked pleasantly.

Jacob paused. “I thought I would call on the Sylvaine family today.”

He did not imagine the slightly too-long pause that followed. Or how the features of the men opposite him suddenly tensed.

“Maybe you’ll want to stop by the churchyard on your way,” Mr. Curtis suggested. “You might see one of them.”

The swat Smithfield gave Curtis’s elbow was very subtle. Just a tap with the backs of his fingers.

But Jacob noticed.

The three men regarded each other for another few seconds of fraught silence.

Curtis cleared his throat. “The town committee has been cleaning up the churchyard, and it looks right nice. Thought you might like to see it. That’s all.”

“Thank you,” Jacob said evenly. “I think I will stop by to have a look. Good day to you, gentleman.”

For the week leading up to the assembly, the squeak of the churchyard gate had heralded Isaiah’s arrival at half past two.

This arrangement was tacit. In the hour they were alone in the churchyard, Isaiah and Isolde cleaned only one or two stone markers.

But their conversation skipped like a stone over a brook from topic to topic, sometimes sinking unexpectedly deeply for a time, often circling back effortlessly to a previously mentioned detail.

They traveled back over Isaiah’s secret path when it was time to leave. Every day they walked a little more slowly; every day they stopped, for an all too brief time, to count the new blooms on the wayward roses. As of today, there were five.

At the little wooden footbridge, Isaiah learned that Isolde’s middle name was Emily. He told her that he had two middle names, Joseph and Arthur, like the famous king.

What a coincidence, she exclaimed, as they approached the path to the rose garden. She and her sister sometimes performed scenes from Arthurian tales or Shakespeare plays on the steps of their folly.

When he told her that his favorite line from Shakespeare was “I would not wish any companion in the world but you,” he was unutterably grateful he’d read The Tempest . Because he felt like a magician when her cheeks flushed and her eyes went soft and dazzled.

But when she went quiet he felt raw and off-balance yet again. He didn’t recognize the ardent, unguarded person he was with her. But he felt safe to risk feeling foolish for the first time in his life.

“ The Tempest is one of my favorites of his plays, but lately I find the idea of storms at sea distressing,” she confided, finally, hesitantly.

And thusly Jacob Eversea returned to the conversation, if Isaiah was not mistaken.

With him came the familiar conflicting surge of emotions: fury at Eversea for being the cause of Isolde’s suffering. A pang at the sweetness of her loyalty to Jacob.

Heart-twisting jealousy.

A certainty that he, Isaiah, could care for her better.

Which mattered not, because this interlude would end with Fanchette’s arrival, which could very well be in a few hours.

The paradox was this: In these moments with Isolde, he understood he was happy.

But surely happiness in general was illicit, meant to be ephemeral?

Perhaps happiness was inebriation, if daily life was sobriety?

Because why else would people he greatly esteemed be gravely hurt or disappointed, if not biblically wrathful (his father), if they ever learned the source of his happiness was the daughter of a mere former schoolmaster?

And yet he doubted feckless Eversea saw it that way.

His nights were a torment of stunned joy, heated fantasizing, guilt and dread. He slept little. He knew he ought to tell Isolde about Fanchette, but the words lodged in his throat. A selfish desire to leave these moments with her untainted by reality overcame his honor and good sense.

By the day of the picnic and assembly, Isaiah was absorbed and edgy.

Isolde had told him the previous day that she would be arriving earlier than usual at the churchyard, in order to finish her work and get to the picnic at the Redmond’s house on time.

It was the last day she would be cleaning headstones.

They both knew he would be there, too.

They didn’t see Reverend Holroyd, or anyone else for that matter, when they both arrived at the churchyard at eleven o’clock that morning. And surely this was serendipity?

A peculiar breathless tension beset both of them. Neither spoke as they cleared a marker, the final one, for a Thomas Miles Pryne who had departed the earthly plane in 1683.

Finally, Isolde cleared her throat. “I’m looking forward to the picnic today. I like your sister. She's very nice.”

“Is she?” he replied absently.

He looked up to find Isolde’s eyes dancing with laughter. In honor of the picnic, she was wearing a dress in Indian cotton printed in little blue flowers, the precise shade of her eyes. Over this was her apron.

“Don't you think she’s nice, Mr. Redmond?”

“Mmm. One generally uses more specific words for our relations, don't we? Do you go about thinking of your brother as 'nice'?”

“Ah, I see what you mean. I suppose not. He's beastly and heroic in the right proportions. Tolerable company if one is desperate.”

All of those words thrummed with affection.

The only trouble Isaiah had with George Sylvaine was that he was Jacob Eversea’s bosom friend.

“I wonder if my sister would similarly describe me. Neither one of us was allowed to be beastly for very long, however tempted we were. Beastliness often involves a rumpus of some sort, and my father could not ever tolerate that.”

“It toughens you up, having a beastly sibling,” she remarked complacently. “Even a pleasantly beastly one. And I imagine a father who won't tolerate a rumpus toughens one up, too.”

He went still. She’d said it so lightly that it somewhat defanged one of the central truths of his existence: He’d indeed required toughening in order not to incur the scorn of his father. In order to bear the scorn.

Perhaps therein lay its blessing? Its purpose?

“I do worry about Diana sometimes.” He hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

But Isolde’s eyes were sympathetic. “What do you worry about?”

He hesitated. “She is clever and…she thinks about everything a good deal. And women who think too much often suffer for it, I fear.”

“You’re likely right. But perhaps everyone who thinks too much suffers.”

He gave a short, rueful laugh. “Yes. Forgive me. It’s just that I’m all too aware that…”

“Men dictate the paths that women are allowed to tread. Men are free to do what they please, for the most part. And women simply are not.”

This emerged a little heatedly.

An issue close to the bone for her, of a certainty. He thought about Jacob Eversea merrily sailing on a ship somewhere. Was Isolde Sylvaine’s regard such a superfluous blessing in Eversea’s life that he’d simply taken it, and her, for granted?

“Not without consequence,” he agreed shortly. “And Miss Sylvaine, not all men are free to do what they please. And even when they are, some consider everyone else before they do it.”

It was merely truth, another one that might hurt her or diminish Eversea in her eyes. And to what end?

What did he hope to gain? Or to win?

The sudden silence hummed with tense undercurrents.

“It’s very good of you to be concerned about your sister, Mr. Redmond,” she finally said quietly.

“I’m not good.” He said it gruffly. “But I am loyal. I’m not certain it’s the same.”

Isolde studied him, puzzled, sympathetic, searching, her dark brows drawn together.

“I often wonder if the way other people see us is more charitable than the way we see ourselves. It's not a weakness to care. It's a vulnerability, perhaps, not a weakness. You needn't allow it to be, anyway.”