Dioynes had flown the coop before. This was the unanimous view of everyone in the Hullbrook household, delivered with the solemnity of those who'd been proven right repeatedly, and took no joy in it. The first time in August, he'd wandered three gardens south, and wreaked havoc in Mrs. Alcott's vegetable patch, returning at dusk with the serene air of someone who'd simply been out on an errand. The second time in early September, he'd somehow reached the Wiltshire Road and held up the mail coach for eleven minutes. An incident personally witnessed by a young footman dispatched to the village and recounted to the household with the meticulous detail of a witness determined to be believed.
No one had even considered a net after the July net incident, which had ended rather poorly for the net. The third escape, the one that truly matters, occurred on a Thursday morning in October. The weather had settled into that distinct cool clarity particular to Wiltshire autumns. The kitchen garden smelled of damp earth and rosemary, and Felicity Bramwell stepped out at eight with her cousin's umbrella, ostensibly to gather herbs. The umbrella was for the light rain that had ceased six minutes prior.
The herbs were, in hindsight, quite beside the point. Felicity immediately spotted the empty pen. She'd been visiting Hullbrook House for two weeks and had already learned to check the pen, much like one learns to check a door someone keeps leaving unlocked. The gate was open, not forced, not broken, simply open, in the manner of a gate thoroughly considered by a creature with both patience and strong opinions about its desired location. She stood in the kitchen garden, taking stock.
The herb garden was peaceful, fragrant, and utterly duck-free. The meadow beyond the low stone wall to the south was quiet, save for the usual birds. Beyond the meadow ran the stream that marked the boundary between Constance Hullbrook's modest property and the grounds of Alifford Court, the estate of Ambrose Sinclair, Duke of Alifford, who was, as Constance had mentioned three times in two weeks, with increasing emphasis, a man of exceedingly private habits, a well-known aversion to uninvited guests, and a particular coldness that Constance described not as cruelty, but as the careful absence of warmth which was somehow worse. Felicity weighed her options. She could return to the house and inform Constance.
Constance would worry efficiently but not usefully. She could send for the kitchen boy who had on two previous occasions proven incompatible with Dioynes. She could simply wait at the gate and hope. She climbed over the wall. This wasn't strictly speaking trespassing.