Jessica treated the rambling old house as she would have a ship, and the overfed, underworked bondsmen and women as her crew. Ceilings and floors were washed, as well as everything in between. She set Nicholas to hauling barrels out of the cellar so she could take inventory of supplies as well as send the ratcatcher in to do his work. John Pitman boarded himself inside his office, Marianna decided to visit the sick people of Warbrooke, while Sayer had himself carried to the common room where he could help Jessica bellow orders. Everyone said he’d never looked happier. Alexander disappeared right after breakfast and by sundown he still hadn’t returned. By then most of the men of Warbrooke were telling themselves they were glad they’d not won Jessica’s hand. There was much sympathy for poor Alexander who was run from his own house so soon after their marriage. “If she’d spent a night with me, she wouldn’t have so much energy this mornin’,” was what one man after another said.
