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“You’ve endangered your mistress, and you’ve caused us a good loss of funds at the same time. We were extremely fortunate to have escaped without any harm to our persons.”

“I know, Master Jacob, I know.” Betsy wailed even louder. “Thank the Lord we got off when we did.”

“Of course,” Jacob said, unmoved. “But one could hardly expect God to get us out of scrapes we create out of our own foolishness.”

“He was just curious, sir, he was. Asked where we were goin’ and all.”

“And that did not sound the least bit suspicious to you?”

“He was askin’ in a friendly sort of way. Never said he was plannin’ any harm.”

Even Amelia had to groan at that.

Jacob remained wholly unimpressed, “Betsy, you must understand?—”

“I believe her.” Amelia laid a hand on his arm. Jacob turned his face towards her, concern and frustration all over his features. “She was likely deceived by a seasoned charmer.”

“That’s right, Miss Amelia. He was a charmer, he was,” Betsy eagerly agreed.

“That does not give you leave to describe our private business with just anyone, of course.” Amelia turned to the maid herself. “But I understand that you are a victim as much as we are.”

“Right, miss. That’s exactly right, miss.” Betsy started a fresh round of tears, and Amelia felt Jacob soften under her fingers. The maid had been extremely foolish, but one didn’t choose to be born foolish, or remain so most of the time.

“I understand that you did not realize the dangers,” Amelia said quietly .

“No, miss. That’s just it, miss.”

“But even so,” Jacob said, gentler yet not quite forgiving, “you have no right to make up things that are untrue.”

“I never said a word that was untrue, Master Jacob.”

“Not a word? What was all that nonsense about the treasure box then?”

Amelia tensed as Betsy blabbered, “It’s the jewelry box, Master Jacob. That special one Miss Amelia always holds.”

“Jewelry box? I was not aware that there was any jewelry involved in this escapade.”

“So says Miss Amelia, sir, but the box itself is so pretty.”

“A box—” Jacob turned an inquiring eye towards Amelia. She very nearly pulled back altogether. “You have precious jewelry on your person?”

“I—do not,” Amelia said helplessly.

“Then Betsy?—”

“But I do have a jewelry box—my mother’s.” Amelia tried to keep her voice steady. “It is—unique.”

Amelia could almost feel Jacob’s guard rising, the openness between them that had so thoroughly surrounded them at the highwayman’s attack slipping back to the coldness of the last two days. She wanted to weep.

“Jacob, please, I can explain.”

“Betsy, I believe we’ve said enough. Please go send for our supper.” He kept his gaze steady on Amelia.

“Yes, sir, Master Jacob.”

Sniffs and scuffling followed Betsy out the door. The door swung shut. Then it was Amelia’s turn to talk.

It would have been easier if he’d crossed his arms and demanded answers from her like he’d done to Betsy. But long after Betsy had vacated the parlor, Jacob only sat and brooded, then paced and brooded, waiting for Amelia’s resolve to crumble.

A quarter hour later, Amelia relented. “I suppose you have questions.”

Jacob paused by the window, his eyes unseeing as he faced the darkness beyond the crooked panes. “I have.”

“I suppose I owe it to you to answer them.”

It took him several heartbeats to answer. “I would appreciate answers—though I refuse to demand them.”

Tears fell. “Why must you be so very good , Jacob?”

He angled slightly towards her, a smirk on his lips. “I have been accused of many things in that tone over the years—but being ‘good’ has got to be a first.”

His friendliness calmed her, and Amelia ventured a small smile for the first time since the highwaymen had accosted them. She breathed in deeply and set her trembling hands on her lap.

“Roughly twenty years ago, my father, the youngest son of the Earl of Aldbury at the time, joined the Macartney Embassy to China under the leadership of Sir George Leonard Staunton.” She’d known bits and pieces about her history all her life.

This would be the first time she verbally recounted them.

“He was the first baronet, and we are trying to find his son, Sir George Staunton, who became a dear friend of my father during their journey.”

“Ah,” said Jacob.

“Together with craftsmen, statesmen, doctors, artists, and naval officers, they visited China and were even granted the opportunity to meet with Emperor Chien-lung himself.”

“That is a rare occurrence.”

“So I am told—or, at least, have gathered.”

They shared an understanding smile before Amelia sallied on. “The embassy exchanged many gifts with the government they visited, including valuable trinkets and artwork. And while the rest of the delegation returned that year, my father stayed.”

“For your mother.”

“He had fallen in love with a minor princess and married her. I was born the following year in Canton, although my mother didn’t survive long past my birth.”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you.” Amelia sniffed. She swatted at a stray tear and braved on with her story. “My father returned to England, with me, and married a widow soon after.”

Jacob nodded. The story felt complete ending there. She’d always thought it did. Only recently had she realized that a simple summary of her past did nothing to safeguard her future.

“And yet you are here,” he said simply, by way of prompting her.

Amelia sniffed. “And yet I am here.”

“Has your stepmother—treated you ill?”

Amelia’s hands instinctively sought the cool surface of her mother’s jewelry box, but she kept them tethered to her lap for the meantime. “She favored her own children, which is not at all unusual or unexpected—but Papa loved me enough to ease the snub, on most days. ”

Jacob paused again, the weight of his quietness thick around them.

“But then one day, it wasn’t enough any longer,” she said softly, her heart twisting at the memories—of Papa’s resigned sigh at the dinner table, of his humbling revelation that she had no dowry at all, and of the painful realization that even the one man who’d always loved her thought her prospects to be as bleak as Mother did.

Jacob nodded by the window, compassionate and strong. Oh, how dear he’d grown to her!

“Did something happen?” he asked, matching her tone in gentleness.

Amelia drew and released a long, slow breath. “They’d promised me away in marriage—to a man I’d never met.”

He frowned. “They were forcing you to marry?”

“Yes, to some tradesman’s son who was apparently willing to give away a fortune for the sake of some tenuous tie to a nobleman’s family.

I don’t think they even know me by name!

” Amelia scoffed before she sniffed. “For years, my stepmother tolerated me. She likely thought this the culmination of her forbearance—that she can reap the financial benefits of betrothing me to a stranger who might as well be a madman or a wart-covered frog.”

“Not all men are brutes.”

“Perhaps not—but one would not like to be legally bound to someone else for life before knowing if he is or not.”

“No.”

“It is why I need to find Sir George.”

Jacob seemed to snap at the name, as if he’d forgotten the purpose of their quest. Then his frown deepened. “You need the baronet to save you from marriage?”

“Yes.”

“By marrying you?”

“What? No, of course not!” Amelia very nearly laughed. “The man is nearer to my father’s age than mine. But he is the only person I know who might have known my mother—my real mother, who birthed me in China and given me her inheritance.”

Slowly, she slipped her hand into her coat pocket and drew out the porcelain jewelry box. The varnish glistened in the firelight. She opened its hinged top as delicately as she could.

“I do not have much of hers,” she whispered softly, almost reverently, “but Betsy has seen me admiring this every evening. It was my mother’s—a proof of her noble heritage—a reminder that I am not only the Earl of Aldbury’s niece, but the daughter of an oriental princess as well.”

Jacob walked over slowly, his eyes fixed on the painted box she’d lifted towards him. He took it gently from her, observing it with the keen eye of a seasoned merchant. Perhaps not all tradesmen were bad. At least, this one wasn’t.

He seemed to be deep in thought when he returned it.

“Your mother was a princess?” He asked—his voice neither awed nor skeptical. There was an evenness to his voice that Amelia appreciated.

“Yes, although perhaps only Sir George would know the particulars, as he was the one present in court along with my father.”

“That is why you seek him.”

“Yes, so I can know?— ”

“To escape an unwanted arranged marriage,” he continued, looking almost dazed.

Amelia paused, a little puzzled herself. “Yes.”

An almost bitter-sounding laugh escaped him. He shoved his hands in his pocket and strode over to the window once more. “Did you know the name of this man you were supposed to marry?”

“Mother never said—only that he was rich, and I assumed that was all she cared about.”

“Did she say what line of trade?”

“I did not ask.”

“Has your father met him?”

“Perhaps only his man of business. But why would—Jacob,” she tried to meet his eye, “does it matter very much to you whom exactly I’m escaping?

You must know that I do not begrudge the match because it was with a tradesman’s son—at least, I no longer do.

You have shown me a hundred times over that a man’s birth means little in comparison to his character.

But, surely, you are not so backwards as to think that I ought to return to my father’s house just because he thinks I ought to be married off to a stranger? ”

His face twitched, his expression unreadable. It was a far cry from the open-mannered friend she’d grown used to seeing every day.

But then, a moment later, he looked back at her and smiled.

It was a small smile, by most measures, but it sent a wave of relief crashing over her.

“I do not think you must marry a stranger,” he said.

“Thank you. ”

He nodded, that small smile still tugging at his lips. “Thank you—for trusting me.”

Her eyes misted.

Then Jacob stepped even closer. Amelia stood. Gallant as ever, he reached for her hands, which she yielded. “I promise you shall not trust in vain.”

“How can you?—”

“Rest.” He squeezed her hands before letting them go. He pulled a step back, formal yet not entirely withdrawing from her, small smile still in place. “I promise it shall all be better in the morning.”