Their driver opened the door, and Mister Field clambered down and held up a hand to her. It was very regal, even if he didn't wear an eyepatch. Stiff after hours of sitting, she tottered when her feet struck the road and dusted off her skirts. "Just there, please," she said to their stout, rumpled coachman, and pointed to an alcove beside the public house where two chickens in a wicker carrier and three lumpy duffels stood waiting to be claimed.
He moved for her trunk, but Mister Field threw up an arm and blocked the driver's progress. "Have you lost your mind?" he asked her, aghast.
"I didn't mean for him to set it on top of the hens," she said, tsking. "He can slide it just so beside them."
Mister Field exhaled in the way Grandfather had now and then, like a teapot with too little water inside. He stepped in and put his lips close to her ear, and for a moment he smelled exactly the way she had imagined Craigh McTavish would, all incense and forest and good soap. Well, not the good soap because Baron McTavish was a wild highlander who of course bathed in the bracing chill of a Scottish waterfall, but all the rest…Amelia nodded to herself. All the rest matched up.
"Miss Blake?" snapped Mister Field, and Amelia realized she had been miles away up in the highlands and didn't appreciate his intrusion.
"What!"
"I was hinting that perhaps leaving a small treasury on the stoop is an ill-conceived plan."
Amelia clucked and poked a finger at her chest, now cradled by their red-faced, grunting driver. "Mister Field, the stencil." She waved a hand over broad block letters inked on one plank and a skull on another, both in thick black paint: LABORATORY EQUIPMENT. "No one will give it a second thought. They haven't yet; your money is quite safe." She beamed her reassurance.
Mister Field took off his shiny beaver top hat and wiped his brow. He looked a shade of green she associated with ill sailors.
Amelia pursed her lips and folded her hands, rocking back and forth on her boots.
Mister Field cleared his throat, and some of the flush cooled from his face. When he replaced his hat, she took it as a hopeful sign that he was feeling recovered.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"No," he muttered, looking sick all over again.
"Well," she asked, encouraging him in a fashion she'd learned from Grandfather, "has that ever stopped you from anything before?"
"An astounding number of times, in fact."
"Oh." Some of the wind left her sails. "Well, does it help to remember what a great kindness you're doing me?"