“Where in Heaven’s name is the baronet?” Snively asked.
“He walked out just a minute ago.” Remembering his earlier unease, Nev gestured to a footman. “Go find your master. Tell him it’s urgent.”
Ten excruciating minutes later, made worse by Snively’s unbroken moralizing on the rebellious nature of the English peasant, the butler entered the room. “Sir Jasper is not in the house, my lord. Nor in the stables or any of the outbuildings. Shall I send to the home farm?”
“Send everywhere. Do it quickly.” Nev did not know that he trusted Sir Jasper to deal with the crisis, but they must have a magistrate to read the Riot Act. Or the sheriff, but he was miles away, nearly to Bury St. Edmonds. Perhaps the people would simply disperse. Or perhaps they will hang Sir Jasper to the nearest tree.
“Very good, my lord.” The butler bowed his way out.
Nev looked down and met Penelope’s fearful, resigned eyes. She knew what he was about to say. “I’ve got to go talk to them.”
She opened her mouth as if she were going to protest, then shut it tightly and nodded, once.
“Stay by Thirkell. He’ll protect you if things get ugly.”
She gave a little sobbing laugh. “Who’ll protect you?”
Nev felt a rush of anger. He took his arm from around her. “What do you care? You’d be a deal freer as a widow than a separated wife.”
Now she drew in a sharp, shocked breath.
He looked at her white face, and out of all the ruin of his life today, this was the only thing that mattered. He took a quick step away from her before he could do something stupid and selfish, like beg her to stay. “I’m going to see if I can reason with them,” he said loudly. “All of you stay here. I doubt they will try to hurt you, but you will be safer together.”
“I will go with you,” Mr. Snively said. “Perhaps I can bring them to a sense of their insolence, their hubris if I may say so-”
“You may say nothing of the kind. I consider your hypocritical moralizing partly responsible for this disaster. You will stay here or by God, I will see you broken.”
The vicar fell back, muttering to himself in a shocked undertone.
Several of the other men offered to come with him, but he didn’t know any of them. He didn’t know what they would do. “In a direct contest of strength, five of us will have no better chance than one,” he said. “If it comes to that, we’re already lost. Stay here and protect the women.”
“Let me come with you at least,” Thirkell said. “I know I’m useless, but I’d have your back.”
“I had rather have you than anyone,” Nev told him. Anyone but Percy. And Percy was gone. “But I need you here. Don’t let anything happen to Penelope or my mother.”
Thirkell drew himself up. “Never.” He was going to say more, but Lady Bedlow threw herself on Nev, sobbing.
“Don’t go. Barricade the doors, and when those wretched folk get here we’ll shoot them all. Don’t go, Nate! What will I do if something happens to you? I can’t lose two of my children at once!”
He put her away from him gently. “You haven’t lost Louisa. She’ll be back in a few days. And I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Come, Lady Bedlow.” Penelope’s face was still bloodless, but her voice was steady. “Come and sit by me. You heard Nev. He’ll be back soon.”
To Nev’s surprise, Lady Bedlow allowed Penelope to put her arm around her and lead her to a chair. Penelope looked back at him, once. “You had better be,” she said. “I care.”
Nev had not ridden as far as he would have liked-a mile, give or take-when he saw them ahead of him on the path, a crowd of laborers and their wives. He thought there were more than Mr. Snively had estimated, perhaps forty in all. As the vicar had said, some were drunk. Some held pitchforks and other potentially deadly farming tools, some held-Nev’s heart sank-guns. More poachers, he supposed. When he drew closer, he recognized many of the faces: the Baileys, Aaron Smith, the families of some other of the poachers, more of his laborers. Helen Spratt was there, holding an old fowling piece. He thought for a moment of staying in the saddle, but he did not know how a display of aristocratic authority might strike them at the moment. He dismounted and walked toward them, leading Sir Jasper’s horse.
The group stopped, clustering together. Whispers and murmurs blended together so that he could not hear what they were saying, except for his name. When Nev was ten feet away, Aaron came forward to meet him. “My lord,” he said derisively. “Get out of our way.”
“Where are you going?”
“We’re going to talk to that buggering son-of-a-bitch Sir Jasper and tell him to free our folk.”
“Sir Jasper isn’t at the house. No one can find him. You’d better talk to me.”
Aaron’s brows drew together. “You aren’t a magistrate. You can’t release Josie.”
“You should be glad Sir Jasper isn’t at home. You know that once he reads the Riot Act, you have twenty minutes to disperse before he can take you all by force.”
Aaron sneered. “No doubt he’d try to run us down and kill us like they did those poor folk at Manchester,” he said, loud enough that the assembled mob could hear him. “Let him try. We’re not going to stand like sods and take it the way they did.” There were cheers, and a couple of men raised their guns.
The horse stamped and snorted nervously behind him. Nev quashed a tremor of fear and raised his voice. “This is madness. You cannot do this. For the love of God, go home.”
“We can’t do this?” Aaron asked. “Why? Because we’re the dirt under your feet and we must be good little children? Because Mr. Snively says God says we can’t? Because you’re used to us taking orders and now you’re scared?”
“No,” Nev said, though he was scared. He heard the Oxbridge cadences of his voice project over the crowd and wondered how he sounded to them. “You can’t do this because it will not work. What do you think will happen to you if you kill a baronet and justice of the peace? Do you think the Crown will simply let you walk away? They’ll make you an example to all the countryside, and the poachers too. They’ll hang you and send your children to the workhouse.” He lowered his voice. “Help me stop this, Aaron. Do you think Agnes will be pleased to see you hang by her daughter’s side? I see she had better sense than to come out here.”
Aaron flushed. “I don’t know where Aggie is. And I don’t think she gives a damn whether I’m hanged. But I’m not about to let her little girl die without a fight.”
“Even if Sir Jasper did release Josie and the men,” Nev told the crowd, “he would only retake them all next day, when he could get troops to back him.”
“We know,” Aaron said. “We know you gentry’s word can’t be trusted. It happened to Downham in ’16. We’d be gone before he could come after us.”
Nev looked at them. Some had been here since before he was born. “Really? You’re all going to pick up and leave your homes, every one of you? No, most of you will stay, and then you’ll be arrested and you’ll turn on one another. Don’t you remember why your men are in jail to begin with?”
There was suddenly a ring of empty space around the Baileys. Mr. Bailey’s face flushed. An uncertain mutter rose up among the men.
Nev began to hope he might be successful. “Go home. Go home peacefully before anyone else sees you. I promise I will do everything in my power to save your friends. I am already hiring the best lawyers I can find-”
“Hang lawyers!” someone yelled, and the mood of the mob shifted to violence. “Lawyers are lying, thieving buggers! Free the men now!”