Page 39 of What Cannot Be Said

?Brother and sister sat side by side on a cream brocade–covered settee in the drawing room, with a gaunt middle-aged woman whom Sebastian took to be their governess quietly watching in the background from a straight-backed chair. The woman was pale from her recent illness, but her features were firmly set in the lines of one determined to do her duty. Arabella held her hands quietly folded together in her lap, her gaze focused unseeingly on one of the windows overlooking the street. But Percy squirmed restlessly, one stocking sagging down to his ankle, his nankeens smudged with what looked like grass stains at the knees, the collar of his frilled shirt awry. He leapt to his feet when his father and Sebastian entered the room.

“Lord Devlin! Did Papa tell you what happened?” said the boy, his cheeks flushed with excitement and his eyes bright.

“Percy,” hissed the governess, leaning forward. “Apologize to his lordship, make your bow, sit down, and be patient.”

The boy flashed his father and Sebastian a rueful grin, bowed, and plopped down on the settee again. “I beg your pardon. But... did he?”

“He told me, yes,” said Sebastian, settling in a nearby chair. “But I’d like to hear it in more detail from you. I understand you make a habit of walking in the park every morning before breakfast?”

“Yes,” said Arabella with her head turned in such a way that her grimace was hidden from her governess. “Miss Oakley calls it our ‘daily constitutional,’ and the world would need to end before we’d be allowed to miss it. So since she wasn’t well this morning we went with Cassy.”

“Where were you in the park when this man approached you?”

“By the spinney,” said Percy, jumping in before his sister had a chance to answer. “I’d run ahead a bit—Cassy was dawdling so!—and then, just as I reached the grove, this fellow leaps out from behind a bush and grabs me!”

“What did he look like?”

“He was huge!” said Percy.

“He was not huge,” said Arabella, frowning at him.

“Yes, he was!”

“No, he was not. He wasn’t even as tall as Lord Devlin.”

“Well, but almost,” insisted Percy. “You know he was tall.”

“Could you see his face?” said Sebastian.

“Not really,” said Arabella. “He had a kerchief tied across his nose, like this—” She cupped a hand across her nose and mouth so that only her eyes showed.

“Did you get the impression he was young? Old? In between?”

“Young,” said Percy, bouncing up and down on the settee’s plump cushion. “And very strong.”

This time Arabella nodded in agreement.

“How was he dressed?”

Brother and sister looked at each other. “Well...” said Arabella. “Definitely not in the first start of fashion.”

“But not dressed rough, either,” added Percy. “Sorta like Mr.Thompson.”

“Mr.Thompson?” said Sebastian.

“My solicitor,” supplied Salinger.

“Ah. Could you see his hair color?”

Percy nodded. “It was real dark. And so was his skin.”

The children’s father had been standing before the empty hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. But at that he took a quick step forward. This detail was obviously news to him.

“You mean he was browned by the sun?” said Sebastian.

“Maaaybeee,” said Arabella, drawing out the word. “But not exactly.” She hesitated, then said in a rush, “He reminded me of Malcolm’s fencing master.”

“Malcolm?” said Sebastian.

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