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silver. The carbine magazine held thirteen shells and the rifle held fifteen. The loading port was cleverly placed so that shells could be loaded nearly as fast as they could be shot. Wolfe had taken one look at the gift, lifted out the repeating rifle, and run his hands over it like a man touching a lover.
    It’s almost worth getting married to a useless aristocrat to own such a fine rifle.
    Almost, but not quite.
    The memory of Wolfe’s sardonic words made Jessica sigh as she set aside the case and turned to an empty trunk. The top tray came free after a struggle, leaving the rest of the trunk empty. At first she tried to work as Betsy had, putting in each piece as though it were a bit of a very fragile puzzle.
    Quickly, Jessica realized that she would still bepacking come sundown if she continued working with one item at a time. Besides, none of the items fit together anyway.
    She began dumping armload after armload of things into the trunks. By the time she cleaned the wardrobe of shoes and purses and coats, she had filled three trunks with heaps of leather and boxes and cloth. Frowning, she tried to remember if there had been that many trunks full of accessories when Betsy had unpacked.
    “I’m sure I had no more than a single trunk, and perhaps part of another that was filled with such things.”
    With a sound of exasperation, Jessica heaped more things into two of the already full trunks. When she went to shut them, she found that the trunk lids were stubborn and ill-fitting. The contents were stiff and oddly shaped. No matter how she pushed with her hands, the lids wouldn’t close enough to fasten the hasp.
    Finally, she crawled up on each lid in turn and bounced up and down to settle the contents. Only then could she force the top of the trunk to meet the bottom. The instant she climbed down to fasten the hasp, the lid popped up once more. In the end, she had to stay on the lid and struggle upside-down to close the hasps and fit the padlocks. Twice she almost locked the end of her hip-length braid in with the other contents.
    “The trunks never behaved this badly for Betsy,” Jessica muttered.
    After packing two more trunks, she opened the gold watch that was pinned to her dress, read the time, and frowned. Wolfe would be back at any moment. She wanted to prove she wasn’t a useless aristocrat by being packed and ready to go.
    “Soonest begun, soonest ended,” Jessica told herself bracingly, and blew stray wisps of hair away from her flushed face.
    She piled the rest of the day dresses on top of the others and began shoving cloth down into the trunk, leaning hard on the resilient material, trying to crush everything down to the size of the trunk. Just before she jumped onto the lid in order to force it shut, she remembered the ballgown and the riding clothes. She looked at the trunk she had been jamming clothes into, then at the single remaining trunk she hadn’t yet opened. The trunk beneath her hands was definitely larger.
    “Oh, blazes,” Jessica muttered. “The gown will have to go in this trunk.”
    The ballgown felt as smooth and weightless as moonlight, but it had yard after yard of material. No matter how she rolled, stuffed, bunched, and punched the dress, she couldn’t get it to stay within the confines of the trunk.
    Wearily, Jessica straightened. The sound of a rag picker crying his wares on the street lured her to the window. When she looked out, she saw a tall, familiar shape striding down the street toward the hotel.
    Jessica rushed to the trunk, frantically smashed the ballgown down, slammed the lid and leaned her weight on it. At first the lid hung up, but it finally managed to swallow all that it had been fed. She fumbled hasp and lock into position, and slammed the padlock shut.
    “One left.”
    As Jessica straightened and turned toward the remaining trunk, she was hauled up short by a yank on her braid. She glanced over her shoulder. The last third of her hair vanished into the