“What are you thinking, Mama?”

“What did you say?” I looked up at Bree, blinking, and her mouth curled up.

“I said,” she repeated patiently, “what are you thinking? You have that look.”

“Which look is that?” I asked warily. It was an article of faith amongst the members of my family that I couldn’t keep secrets; that everything I thought was visible on my face. They weren’t entirely right, but they weren’t completely wrong, either. What never occurred to them was just how transparent they were to me.

Brianna tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowed as she examined my face. I smiled pleasantly, putting out a hand to intercept Mandy as she trotted past me, three medicine bottles in hand.

“You can’t take Grannie’s bottles outside, sweetheart,” I said, removing them deftly from her chubby grasp. “Grannie needs them to put medicine in.”

“But I’m gonna catch leeches wif Jemmy and Aidan and Germain!”

“You couldn’t get even one leech into a bottle that size,” I said, standing up and placing the bottles on a shelf out of reach. I scanned the next shelf down and found a slightly chipped pottery bowl with a lid.

“Here, take this.” I wrapped a small linen towel around the bowl and tucked it into the pocket of her pinafore. “Be sure to put in a little mud—a little mud, all right? No more than a pinch—and some of the waterweed you find the leeches in. That will keep them happy.”

I watched her trot out the door, black curls bouncing, then braced myself and turned back to Bree.

“Well, if you must know, I was thinking how much I should tell you.”

She laughed, though with sympathy.

“That’s the look, all right. You always look like a heron staring into the water when you have something you can’t quite decide whether to tell somebody.”

“A heron?”

“Beady-eyed and intent,” she explained. “A contemplative killer. I’ll draw you doing it one of these days, so you can see.”

“Contemplative … I’ll take your word for it. I don’t think you’ve ever met Denzell Hunter, have you?”

She shook her head. “No. Ian mentioned him once or twice, I think—a Quaker doctor? Isn’t he Rachel’s brother?”

“That’s him. To keep it to the essentials for the moment, he’s a wonderful doctor, a good friend of mine, and besides being Rachel’s brother, he’s married to the daughter of the Duke of Pardloe—who happens to be Lord John Grey’s elder brother.”

“Lord John?” Her face, already glowing with light, broke into a brilliant smile. “My favorite person—outside the family. Have you heard from him? How is he?”

“Fine, to the best of my knowledge. I saw him briefly in Savannah a few months ago—the British army is still there, so it’s likely he is, too.” I’d thought out what to say, in hopes of avoiding anything awkward, but a script is not a conversation. “I was thinking that you might write to him.”