The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter by Lawana Blackwell Page A

both faces. “Forgive me. It’s just unsettling to feel like you’re being watched every time you set foot outside.”
    “We understand, dear,” Iris told her.
    “We felt that same way when Jake Pitt used to watch us from the Larkspur ’s window,” Jewel added.
    Mrs. Kingston was opening her mouth to say that surely the sisters didn’t still believe in that ghost story when a new idea shoved all thought of the old knife sharpener from her mind. Without glancing back down the lane, she leaned closer to the cushion on Iris’s lap and pretended to examine the lace. “I wonder if you ladies might do me a favor,” she whispered while trying to keep her lips immobile.
    “What is it, dear?”
    “MY GOODNESS! YOU SHOULD BE SPINNING LACE FOR THE QUEEN!” Mrs. Kingston exclaimed, then whispered, “Don’t look to your left, but I’m convinced someone has been following me.”
    The sisters exchanged glances, and for once both sets of fingers slowed their spinning. “What does he look like?” Jewel whispered.
    “I don’t even know who he is. Or if it’s even a ‘he,’ ” she said in a low voice. “I FEEL SO FOOLISH NOW, THINKING THAT SOMEONE WAS FOLLOWING ME. ONE WOULD THINK I WAS LOSING MY MIND. WELL, IT’S BEEN GOOD CHATTING WITH YOU, BUT I MUST RESUME MY WALK.”
    “But aren’t you finished walking, dear?” asked Iris.
    “He’ll stop following me if he thinks I’m finished,” Mrs. Kingston hissed through a gap in her lips. “Would you mind paying notice if anyone of a suspicious nature comes down the lane shortly?”
    Jewel’s eyes grew alive with excitement. “Spy on him, you mean?”
    “Yes. Only act natural, so he doesn’t suspect anything. I’ll come back later.” With a farewell wave she turned right at the crossroads instead of her usual left and made her way down Market Lane. She resumed her usual brisk pace, pausing occasionally to exchange greetings with customers leaving the greengrocer’s and to admire the geraniums in the window boxes of the Bow and Fiddle .
    Finally she decided she should go back home, lest her follower find it suspicious that today’s walk was longer than usual. When she came upon Mr. Trumble sweeping the stoop of his general shop, post office, and bank, she stopped and announced in a voice clear and loud, “I suppose I should buy some peppermints, Mr. Trumble, since I’m finished with my walk and am now on my way back to the Larkspur .”
    She waited an hour before slipping out to visit the Worthy sisters. Both faces lit up as she drew closer.
    “Remy Starks,” Iris said in a conspiratorial whisper, as if Mrs. Kingston’s follower still lurked nearby.
    “He come strollin’ past soon after ye left, pretty as ye please with his hands in his pockets,” Jewel added.
    “Remy Starks?” Mrs. Kingston shook her head. “But who is he?”
    “The squire’s boot boy,” Iris replied. “Odd little man, I hate to say.”

Chapter 8
     
    Though the use of torture had long been outlawed in Great Britain, to the convicts of London’s Newgate Prison the treadmill was almost as debilitating as the rack had been to their predecessors. It only took longer for the treadmill to wear a man down, both physically and mentally. The nasty device consisted of a wide iron cylinder made to revolve by marching around the steps fixed to it. Wooden panels separated each man from sight of his neighbor, and to his front was only another panel to stare at for six hours at a time. Fill the convict’s day with the most useless activity imaginable, and he will be too weary and disheartened to cause trouble was the philosophy behind the treadmill’s invention.
    For ten years now, thirty-one-year-old Seth Langford had marched those steps daily. To keep himself sane, he mentally recited the Scriptures the Wesleyans taught in Sunday chapel. And toward the end of every six-hour session, he would tally anew the “miles.” One step of the treadmill represented one linear foot, and taken at