“But …” He took a deep breath. “Listen to me, Kat,” he said. “If you’re making this up just to bring me back—”
“If I am,” I said, “then you can go ahead and shoot me with this pistol, and then we’ll find out for sure if it’s loaded.”
He began to laugh. “I sincerely hope it isn’t,” he said, “because you’ve been holding it all wrong for the past five minutes. With the way you live, you really do need someone to teach you how to point a pistol properly before you get much older.”
“That’s up to you,” I said. “So? What’s your decision?”
Frederick Carlyle shook his head. “Come,” he said. “Get in the carriage, and you can tell me everything that happened after I left, and how you managed to defeat Sir Neville and probably bluff your way into a fortune or even a knighthood or kingship, too, in some scandalously rapscallion manner I can’t even begin to imagine. It can be my bedtime story on the way back to Grantham Abbey.” He reached up and banged the roof of the carriage. “Turn around!” he called to the driver, and he gestured me inside.
I rode back to Grantham Abbey in the moonlight, while the wind ruffled my hair and blew the cloak out around me, and the pistol bumped satisfyingly against my side, promising more adventures yet to come.
I was twelve years of age when I cut my hair short, became a highwayman, and captured husbands for both of my sisters.
I could hardly wait to find out what would happen next.
Acknowledgments
Thanks so much to my brothers, Ben and Dave Burgis, for being my first readers, ever since we were little kids with a secret writing group. Every day I feel lucky to be your sister.
I owe my husband, Patrick Samphire, so many thanks that I couldn’t fit them all onto one page. From cheerleading my work to giving me the best critiques to handling all the housework and taking on extra child care so that I could write … You are the best, and I am so very lucky to be your wife. You’re not just my husband, you’re my very best friend and favorite writer in the world.
I owe so much to Barry Goldblatt, officially known as The Best Agent In The World™. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and support for Kat and for me. They have made all the difference. I also owe enormous thanks to my wonderful and perceptive editor, Namrata Tripathi. Thank you so much for believing in Kat and in me! I have been very lucky to be able to work with you. I’m also truly grateful to Lindsay Schlegel, for her efficiency and generosity, and to Valerie Shea and Jeannie Ng, my copyeditors, for doing such beautiful work.
Thanks so much to all the generous people who read and critiqued various drafts of this book: Patrick Samphire, Lisa Mantchev, Sarah Prineas, Jenn Reese, Justina Robson, Ben Burgis, David Burgis, Richard Burgis, Jenna Waterford, Tiffany Trent, Samantha Ling, and Karen Healey. Lisa, thank you so much for our literary tea party, with its exchange of red-ribbon-wrapped manuscripts. Without it, I might never have had the courage to write that very first draft that had been calling to me for so long. And Jenn and Justina, thank you both so much for showing such total enthusiasm and commitment to Kat, above and beyond the call of friendship! There were so many times when I was feeling discouraged and you two saved me.