I broke off, giving him a hard look.
He burst out laughing. “There’s no need to look so accusing, child. Yes, I did my fair share of detective work, as well.”
“I can’t believe Aunt Julia almost killed you once with her experiments with explosives.”
“Once?” His eyes were wide. “Keep reading.”
He urged sandwiches and cakes on me, and I ate heartily, suddenly ravenous after missing luncheon entirely.
“That’s what I want,” I told him.
He had been staring into the fire, wool-gathering, and my voice roused him. He blinked a few times and looked up from the fire. “What, child?”
“I want what Aunt Julia has. I want a purpose. I want work that makes me feel useful. I don’t just want to arrange flowers and bring up babies. Oh, that’s all right for other girls, but it isn’t right for me. I want something different.”
“Perhaps you always have,” he offered mildly.
“I think I have,” I replied slowly. “I’ve always been so different from the others and I never understood why. My half-sisters and -brothers, my schoolmates. Don’t mistake me—I’ve had jolly enough times, and I’ve had friends,” I told him, pulling a face. “I was even head girl one year. But as long as I can remember, I’ve had the oddest sense that it was just so much play-acting, that it wasn’t my real life at all. Does that sound mad?”
“Mad as a March hare,” he said, his lips twitching. He nodded to the mantelpiece, where a painting hung, a family crest. Our family crest. It was a grand-looking affair with plenty of scarlet and gold and a pair of rabbits to hold it up. “Family lore maintains the old saying about March hares is down to us, that it isn’t about rabbits at all. It refers to our eccentricity, the wildness in our blood. And the saying is a tribute to the fact that we do as we dare. As do you,” he finished mildly.
I started. “What do you mean by that?”
A wry smile played over his lips. “I know more of your exploits than you think, child.”
“Exploits! I haven’t done anything so very interesting,” I protested.
He gave me a sceptical look. “Poppy, give me some credit. I mayn’t have been a very devoted father, but neither have I been a disinterested one. Every school you’ve been to, every holiday you’ve taken, I’ve had reports.”
“What sort of reports?” I demanded.
“The sort any father would want. I had little opportunity to ascertain your character myself, so I made my own inquiries. I learnt you were healthy and being brought up quite properly, if dully. Araminta has proven herself a thoroughly unimaginative but unobjectionable mother. At first, I thought it best, given the sort of family we come from. I thought a chance at normality might be the best thing for you. But the more I came to discover of you, the more I came to believe you were one of us. They do say that blood will always tell, Poppy.”
I gave him a look of grudging admiration. “I’m torn. I don’t know whether to be outraged that you spied upon me or flattered that you cared enough to do it.”
His smile was wistful. “I always cared, child. I cared enough to give you a chance at an ordinary life. And if you think that wasn’t a sacrifice of my own heart’s blood, then you’re not half as clever as I think you are.”
His eyes were oddly bright and I looked away for a moment. I looked back when he had cleared his throat and recovered himself. “I’m surprised you found me clever from my school reports. The mistresses were far more eloquent on the subject of my behaviour.”
“No, your marks were frightful except in languages. Looking solely at those I might have been forgiven for thinking you were slightly backwards. It was those reports of your behaviour that intrigued me, particularly the modest acts of theft and arson.”
“But those were necessary!” I protested. “I broke into the science master’s room to free the rabbits he’d bought for dissection. And the fire was only a very small one. I knew if the music mistress saw her desk on fire, she’d reveal where she’d hidden the money they accused the kitchen maid of stealing.”
He clucked his tongue. “Impetuous. Instinctive. Audacious. These are March traits, child. We’ve been living by them for the past six hundred years. There have been epic poems written about our oddities, and more than one king of England has had cause to be grateful for them. And now you are one of us.”
I gave a little shiver as if a goose had walked over my grave. “Rather a lot to live up to.”
He shrugged. “I should think you would find that consoling. You have an ancestor who eloped with her footman, another who rode his horse into Parliament, a great-grandmother who used to dance with a scooped-out pumpkin on her head because she found it cool and refreshing. And those are the ones I can talk about in polite company,” he added with a twinkle. “Don’t be put off by your legacy, Poppy. Embrace it. Follow your own star, wherever it leads, child.”
“Follow my own star,” I said slowly. “Yes, I think I will.”
The only question was, where?
* * *
The next day I had my answer. I had gone to the pantry to try yet again to help George with the washing up, determinedly cheerful in the face of his resistance.
“You will come to like me,” I promised him.
“I have my doubts,” he replied shortly. I put out a hand to wipe a glass, and he flicked the glass cloth sharply at my fingers. “Leave that be.”
“I could read to you while you work,” I offered. I picked up the book he had stashed on a shelf in the pantry—Northanger Abbey.
I sighed. “It’s not Austen’s best, you know.”
He snatched the book from my hand. “It’s Austen and that’s good enough for me.”
He replaced the book lovingly on the shelf, and I took it down again. “Very well. I apologise. But why do you like it so much? Don’t you find Catherine Morland appallingly naïve?”
“It seems to be a common failing in young ladies,” he said, giving me a dark look.
I burst out laughing. “Oh, George. You do say the nicest things.” I flipped to where he had carefully marked his place. He had almost reached the end of the first chapter. I cleared my throat and read aloud. “‘But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.’”
I looked up, giving George a thoughtful look. “Do you suppose that’s true, George? Do you think when a young lady is supposed to be a heroine, her hero will appear?”
“Certainly,” he said, polishing an invisible spot from one of the glasses. “If Miss Austen says it, it must be true. But not all young ladies are meant to be heroines,” he added pointedly.
“That’s very hurtful, George,” I told him. I turned back
