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Back Voyage of the Sparrowhawk Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Cover
  2. PROLOGUE
  3. PROLOGUE
  4. PART I
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. PART II
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. PART III
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. PART IV
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. PART V
  43. Chapter Thirty-Five
  44. Chapter Thirty-Six
  45. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  46. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  47. EPILOGUE

“Out of those clothes now, young lady, while I build up the fire,” she said briskly. “I’ve brought you hot water for a good wash, then his lordship says you’re to go straight to bed. No supper, his lordship says. Well, no fear, I say. I’ve no time to look after a sick child, not while I run this place single-handed because he’s too mean to pay for staff. And sick is exactly what you’ll be if you don’t get warm and fed. Come on, Lots, chop chop. Clean up, and I’ll go and fetch the food. Ow! Ow! What are you doing, you mad child?”

Lotti had flung her arms round Sally’s waist. Just for a moment, the maid’s face softened as she hugged her back. Sally had witnessed the slap at the station, and comforted Lotti afterward, and then written a strong letter to her fiancé telling him what a shame it was that Hubert Netherbury had been too old to go to the war and die there.

“Don’t you worry, Lots,” she said. “Life’ll work out. It always does in the end.”

An hour later, scrubbed clean and full of boiled eggs, toast, and prunes and custard, lying in bed with a fire in the grate and a hot brick at her feet, Lotti was feeling better.

Of course she was right to have come home! The way the little dog had run into her arms in the woods, the feel of his warm body wriggling against hers as she hugged him! With the brief exception of Queen Victoria the cat, who was now dead, Moune, who was gone, and Sally, who would soon be leaving, Lotti hadn’t hugged anyone since her parents died.

How good it had felt to hug Federico. How completely, absolutely right.

And Federico wasn’t the only thing that had felt right today. Lotti thought of the Sparrowhawk, of sitting with Ben and Elsie and Federico, watching the evening light. It was so simple, but it was all she wanted. To feel peaceful and wanted. With friends.

To belong.

Life always worked out, Sally had said. Well, Sally was often right, but sometimes life needed help. What Lotti must do now was not get sent back to school, which meant behaving absolutely and completely impeccably before her uncle and aunt. She could do that! From now on, she would be a model of Usefulness. She wouldn’t give her uncle and aunt the slightest reason to be displeased and soon—when the moment was right—she would explain about Federico in a way that meant she could keep him …

Meanwhile, tomorrow afternoon, careful not to be seen, she and Federico would return to the Sparrowhawk …

On the Sparrowhawk Ben, like Lotti, was in bed. Unlike Lotti he was hungry.