"While walking." She looked at the fountain's stone figure again. "It was an important letter."
Hegel had arrived by this point, having located an item of interest with the navigational certainty of a dog who regards most human activities as worth investigating. He sat down at the fountain's edge. He looked at the woman. He looked at Rafferty. He appeared to reach a conclusion of some kind and made no move to share it.
A footman had appeared with a large folded cloth. Oldwin materialized a step behind Rafferty with the professional expression of a man who has managed crises of varying descriptions for two decades and knows when to be useful without comment.
"I am Rafferty Kincaid," Rafferty said. "This is my fountain."
"Adelaide Thornton," she said. "I apologize for your fountain. It was the step. You are being very kind about it."
She accepted the footman's cloth with one hand, still holding the rose with the other. "The rose survived," she added. "That's something."
"It is," Rafferty agreed.
He offered his hand to assist her from the basin. She took it briefly, practically, and stepped out onto the path. She was three or four inches shorter than him, with water running from the hem of her gown, and a composure that was, he thought, either genuine or the most convincing performance of it he had ever encountered. It was genuine—that was the thing. She wasn't performing composure; she was simply not particularly frightened by being embarrassed. He hadn't met anyone like that in some time.
She handed the rose to Oldwin, who accepted it with the expression of a man who has been handed stranger things, and allowed herself to be guided toward the house by a quiet and efficient Lady Vickery. Before she turned to go, she looked back at Rafferty once, briefly, with an expression that might have been amusement or might have been gratitude, and then she was gone.
Hegel continued to sit by the fountain for another three minutes, looking at the path she had taken.
"The drainage," Oldwin said.
"Yes," Rafferty said, and they returned to the culvert.