door to a resounding close.
‘It was too obtuse,’ Alkmene said out loud in the empty room. She felt again like she had felt when in school, where the girls had all been well-bred but none had the extensive vocabulary – full of outdated words – that Alkmene had, being raised by her widowed father with his love of ancient textbooks and botany volumes from ages of old. The girls had laughed at her and avoided her.
This situation was just like it. The people downstairs had studied her like she had come from another era. Jake had said she knew nothing about being undercover.
And of course he was right. She knew nothing about that. She had thrown herself into this adventure with her usual careless idea it might be fun and she’d cross each bridge as she came to it. But the atmosphere in this village was hostile and not just because Jake and she were from the city: strangers, outsiders.
No, these people all remembered a past, something that had happened to one of them, one of whom they had been protective, because she had been one of their own. How would she have felt if somebody she had known for all of her life had died ruined, because of a man who had cared more for his reputation than for her life and that of her unborn child?
Letting the hot water sit on the table unused, Alkmene stood in front of the window and stared out over the darkening moors, watching how the golden sunshine changed to orange and blood red, how the skies became purple, then a deep velvet, full of stars. It would be a clear night, with a half moon giving its cold silver light.
Suddenly there was the slamming of a door below, raucous voices calling out.
Alkmene pushed her forehead against the windowpane to look straight down on the scene in front of the inn.
Men came out, carrying a form in their arms.
A struggling form.
Someone called something she could not make out. Then the carried form was dropped into the horse trough that Jake had mentioned earlier. The men jeered a few moments, then turned and went to the inn again, laughing and slapping each other on the shoulder.
The form in the trough sat up, wiping water from his eyes.
The light from the lanterns by the inn’s door illuminated his profile and his tall build as he rose and stood in the trough, dripping.
Alkmene suppressed a giggle. Turning away from the window, she grabbed the rough towel that the woman had put beside the basin with her hot water and rushed downstairs.
Nobody paid attention to her as she walked to the door and went outside.
Jake had clambered out of the trough and stood on the square’s cobbles, water seeping from his clothes.
Alkmene handed him the towel. ‘I suppose they weren’t eager to talk?’
Jake cast her a look, then accepted the towel and rubbed his face and hair. He sighed. ‘Oh, one of them was, but the others didn’t like it.’
His breath was laced with alcohol, not beer, but strong liquor. Apparently he had felt obliged to drink to induce confidentiality in his drinking buddies.
Alkmene tilted her head. ‘What happened exactly?’
Jake lowered his voice. ‘One man in there seems to know a whole lot about what happened back then. He began to tell me about it, but the innkeeper’s wife was not happy that he did. She kept prodding her husband with her elbow. Then he talked to a few men, they came over and dragged me out for this soaking. I think it is just a first warning. I am sure that if I were to go back in there and try again, they would add some bruises and a black eye to the account.’
Alkmene nodded. ‘I think this was enough for tonight. We have to see what we can do in the morning. Do you know the name of this man who was talkative?’
Jake nodded. ‘Wallace Thomson.’
‘Then we will go see Wallace Thomson in the morning. Come on.’ She plucked at his wet sleeve. ‘You have to get in there now and change your clothes before you catch a cold.’
Jake huffed as he rubbed the towel over his neck. ‘I have been through worse for a story.’
‘I hope this is more to you than just a story.’
She looked at his chiselled features, the strange contorted shadows cast by the lanterns outside the inn. He held her gaze, his dark eyes deep with some emotion she could not quite identify.
Then he pushed the towel into her hands and walked ahead of her, head held high, back into the inn.
The next morning as Alkmene bustled down the stairs, she found the large room empty and just one table laid out with plates and cutlery.
‘Good morning,’ she called out to the hostess who came from the kitchen with a jug of milk, pretending not to feel the coldness extended towards her. She walked to the fireplace and admired the painting over it, asking who had made it.
The woman seemed to thaw a little, even taking a moment to stand up straight and study the painting with a pensive expression. ‘My father. He was a fine painter.’
‘He was, indeed,’ Alkmene said. ‘If there are any more of his works, looking like this one, I would like to buy one before I go back to London. My father is a botanist, you know…’
At the woman’s blank look she added hurriedly, ‘He studies plants, and moorland is one of his favourite sort of environment to study. I think he would very much like a painting like this one to hang on his study wall.’
She ambled to the table and peered into the jug of milk. ‘Fresh, I suppose? We don’t have that in the city. I have often wished to live in the countryside for a while and enjoy the fresh food. I suppose your eggs are also of your own chickens?’
The woman affirmed it with a nod. ‘I have a few scrambled for you if you will take them. I knocked on the door of your companion when I did on yours, but he is not showing.’
Alkmene smiled. ‘I think he drank too much last night and is still recovering. Men. You never know how they will behave.’
The woman scurried off, and Alkmene took her seat at the table. Shuffling her cutlery around, she wished Jake would show up so they could talk about small stuff and she would not feel so completely out of place. She tried to focus on the tasks for the day, the first of which was locating Wallace Thomson. She knew better than to ask her hostess where he lived, as the woman had obviously given her all last night to keep the talkative Thomson from revealing too much to the outsiders.
Just as the woman carried a bowl with scrambled eggs to the table, the door of the inn opened, and Jake strode in.
He wore a tweed jacket with elbow patches over a shirt without a tie. Around his neck were field glasses. He waved at her from the door and called out, ‘I saw a peregrine falcon. It will become a bright day. How about a stroll on the moor right after breakfast? I am sure we will see many more species.’
‘And I can look for the rare moss Father wanted to know about,’ Alkmene added right away. ‘Splendid idea.’ She gestured to the empty chair opposite to her. ‘Sit down and enjoy this fresh offering.’
Jake put the field glasses down on the table and sat, leaning
