It wouldn’t do, Lotti thought, to barge in with Federico. She must choose her moment, and also think of a story that didn’t involve actual stealing. Lotti viewed her kidnap of Federico more as liberation than theft, but Uncle Hubert and Aunt Vera probably wouldn’t see it that way …

“I’m going to have to hide you for a bit,” she told Federico. “But where?”

Federico licked her hand.

They cleared the brow of the hill and Barton Lacey came into view, a square honey-colored house nestled in gardens and trees. As Lotti and Federico began their descent toward it, a light flickered at the eastern perimeter gate. Lotti’s heart leaped.

She knew what that light was—Zachy, out smoking his evening pipe!

Zachy, whose crowbar she had stolen … Zachy, who used to scold her for picking fruit before it was ripe but always saved her the best strawberries, who let her trot after him with her own little trowel to dig in bedding plants, who had adored Mama and known Lotti since she was a baby …

Zachy, who lived in a cottage right on the edge of the Barton grounds, where her uncle and aunt never went … who actively disliked the Netherburys—Zachy would help!

Lotti, with Federico at her heels, raced down the hill toward the light.

Zachy was a darling, just as she had told Ben. His ancient face, white-whiskered and wrinkled like a walnut, had broken into a grin at the sight of Lotti and Federico, and he and the little dog had taken to each other at once. Lotti left Federico nestled in a crate in front of the fire in Zachy’s cottage, with the old gardener preparing him bread and milk.

“I just have to explain about him to Uncle and Aunt,” she had told Zachy, who had grunted like he was saying good luck with that. But now it was very nearly seven o’clock and Sally, the only indoor servant left at Barton since the war, would be dishing up Lotti’s supper.

The rain predicted by Elsie began to fall as she came out of Zachy’s cottage. By the time she had run through the grounds—the kitchen garden and the orchard, the beech alley where Papa had taught her to ride, the glade where Mama had loved to read, the stream, the bridge, the elegant main lawn—she was drenched. Quiet as a mouse, she slipped into the scullery. Perhaps, if she could just tiptoe along the servants’ corridor then up to her room to change her clothes and brush her hair before stealing back down to the kitchen … Like Zachy, Sally was fond of Lotti and disliked her employers. She only stayed at Barton because she was saving up to buy a pub with her fiancé near her home in Kent, now that he was home from the war. Sally would cover for her …

“Charlotte?”