During the hunt, Piper and Lord Skye decided to play a trick on Annabeth and Lieutenant Jackson.
The inmates of Skye Castle gathered in the drawing room prior to supper. Lieutenant Jackson and Dona Reyna were playing whist with the Duke and Duchess. He kept the Duchess enthralled with stories of cruel Barbary pirates who bully foreign ships that sail into their domains by demanding that they pay a tribute to the local pasha in exchange for safe passage. If the ship can, or will, not pay the tribute, then the pirates fire their canons on the foreign ship, take the sailors as hostages, and put them to work building their cities.
Dona Reyna listened with polite indifference as His Grace went on about the appointment of excise men and riding officers. As a Catholic, the Duke of Olympus was unable to sit in parliament but all the M.P.s for the surrounding boroughs were in his pocket and jobs and offices were given out as his pleasure.
Excise men and riding officers patrolled the coast (excise men on sea; riding officers on land) looking for smugglers bringing in contraband from Europe. Piper knew that such measures were only for appearances sake. Most of the excise men and riding officers were easily paid off and all the shopkeepers in the area bought their goods from smugglers. Nearly every citizen of any given seaside town was involved in a smuggling operation to some degree. His Grace down to the poorest farmer or fisherman bought tea and gin that had come into the country illegally. And the problem was getting worse now that England was at war with France and legitimate trade had been interrupted.
Annabeth was pinning together geometric shaped bits of colorful fabric to make a quilt. On the front side, the pieces were arranged as to form a square shape while the pattern on the backside was more circular.

Piper sat with her, darning the pink stockings she had torn during the hunt.

She put down her darning and pulled Lord Skye aside.
"I propose a labor worthy of Hercules," she said. "Making Annabeth and Lieutenant Jackson admit their feelings for one another."
"What would you have me do?" Lord Skye replied.
"It's a pleasant evening. Propose that the gentlemen take a walk in the garden."
Zhang entered the drawing room, carrying a bottle of claret and a loaf of Sally Lunn bread.

"There's Zhang, we can involve him in our scheme."

Lord Skye suggested that since it was a fine evening, Zhang should take a walk with him. Piper enlisted Dona Reyna in their plot. After Lord Skye and Zhang had been gone for about twenty minutes, she asked Lieutenant Jackson where they had gone and sent him to go find them.
"Didn't Miss McLean tell you that Miss Chase was in love with Lieutenant Jackson?" Zhang said when they saw him enter the rose garden.
"Aye," Lord Skye replied. "Isn't it remarkable that she should be smitten with the gentleman when she has given every indication of loathing him?"
"Maybe she is joking?"
"If she is, then she has gone a bit far for a joke. The poor thing seems to be dying of love for him."
"Can it be true?" Lieutenant Jackson said when he overheard the conversation from behind a rosebush.
"You don't say," Zhang continued. "What afflictions does she suffer from?"
"Miss McLean says that she wakes up in the middle of the night and scribbles out letters to him," Lord Skye lead Zhang to a spot where he knew Lieutenant Jackson could hear them. "Then she falls back asleep, crying that she ruined her chances with him due to her own stubbornness and stupidity."
"Do you think he returns her esteem?"
"No, of course not. If he knew that she still loves him after everything that has happened between them, he would only mock her mercilessly."
"Then he is a scoundrel if he can treat such a worthy young lady with scorn."
"She is a worthy young lady: handsome, virtuous, and wise, aside from the fact that she loves Jackson."
They dashed back inside before he could find them.
Are they playing a trick on me? Lieutenant Jackson wondered. No, if they had heard it from Miss McLean then it must be true. If Miss Chase regretted her foolishness as much they said she did, then he could find it in his heart to forgive her. He did not deny that her person was handsome and her mind and character had their virtues. The love of such a lady had choice but to be requited.
Miss Chase appeared on the terrace. By God, she's a beautiful girl, he thought when he beheld her.
"I've been sent to bring you in for supper," she said, her hands on her hips.
"Thank you for taking the trouble to come find me," he replied with a bow.
"If it was any trouble on my part, then I wouldn't have come."
She returned to walk back into the house.
"Then it was a pleasure?"
"Ha! I wouldn't flatter yourself, sir."

His Grace announced over supper that they were to have another guest in a few days, a Miss Calypso Titan of Ogygia Hall in Spanish Town Jamaica. The West Indian heiress had spent the last several months in London where her beauty and fortune earned her universal admiration.
"I'd be on my guard if I were you?" Annabeth said to Piper as they were walking upstairs to their bedrooms.
"What do you mean?" Piper replied.
"You know why His Grace invited Miss Titan to join us?"
Piper shot her a confused look.
"To be wife material for Lord Skye. Dona Reyna was a failure and now it's time to bring in another rich and eligible young lady to try her luck. If Miss Titan is the paragon that has been presented as, then all of us inferior women should be very afraid. But I  never heard of a girl who was rich who wasn't praised for her beauty, though eight out of ten of them look like pigs, parrots, or horses, so it's eight-to-two that Miss Titan is no different."
Annabeth opened the door of her bedroom and blew a kiss to Piper.
"Good night, my love."
"Good night, Annabeth," Piper blew a kiss back.
Once Annabeth had disappeared into her room, Piper summoned Miss Levesque and Dona Reyna from theirs.
"Dona Reyna," she began. "Knock on Miss Chase's door and tell her that Miss Levesque are in the sitting room and we are talking about her. She'll be outraged and curious and listen in on us."
"I'll go and tell her," Dona Reyna replied.
"And Miss Levesque, you and I'll go into the sitting room. Miss Chase's bed chamber has a door which opens out into the sitting room and she'll discreetly open it when she knows that we're talking about her. When the door opens, we'll talk about Lieutenant Jackson and what fine a gentleman he is and how madly in love he is with Miss Chase."
Miss Levesque giggled, grabbed Piper's arm and lead her into the drawing room. They sat down on a sofa and waited for Annabeth to crack open the door.
"There's our little bird, beating at her cage," Piper said when they heard their door hinges creak. "If Annabeth weren't so proud and oblivious, then she would see how much Lieutenant Jackson is still in love with her."
"Really," Miss Levesque replied. "Where did you hear that?"
"From Lord Skye."
"Are you going to tell her?"
"No. Stubborn minx that she is, she still refuses to believe that he was only friends with Miss Dare. Annabeth thinks she's so clever but she can't see what's right in front of her. And what's worse is that she's too proud to admit when she's wrong."
"You're not giving her enough credit. Miss Chase is said to be a clever young lady with a sound judgement. Surely, she wouldn't refuse so worthy a man as Lieutenant Jackson?"
"After Lord Skye, he's the finest gentleman I've ever met."
The door to Annabeth's bedroom slammed shut.

Annabeth threw herself down on her bed and wrapped the light pink floral dressing gown she wore over her chemise, stays, and petticoat closer to her body.

She could not believe what she had just heard. How could two girls who claimed to her friends say such things? That she was proud, stubborn, and willful- all things she admitted to be true.
As she looked up at the canopy of her bed, she recalled a story about Alexander the Great and how, when just a boy, he tamed a wild horse no one thought could be ridden. She always thought her heart was like a wild horse: only a special man could tame it. Perhaps Lieutenant Jackson had been that man all along? 
He still loved her, even after the Miss Dare misunderstanding. If he were to extend a gentle and loving hand, then she would go to him and be his wife, if he would have her.
Annabeth finished undressing and went to bed. She fell asleep wondering if Lieutenant Jackson was pining for her the way she was for him.

Asclepius, the village barber-surgeon, called in the morning to bleed Nico Di Angelo. His broken bone required that he be bled twice a week into it was fully healed.
Nico sat laid down on a sofa in the drawing room. His arm was taken out of its sling and rested inside of a fracture box: a cradle like wooden contraption with leather straps.

Asclepius removed a pewter bleeding bowl and a lancet from his black leather bag.

Nico took one look at the lancet and insisted on being bled by leech. Several leeches were placed on his upper arm, above his splint. He winced when the leeches bit into his flesh.

When the leech had gorged themselves on Nico's blood, Asclepius cleaned and bandaged the wounds.
"There's a brave lad," Lieutenant Jackson said, clapping the boy on the back.
"Perhaps you should be bled as well, Jackson," Lord Skye added. "You're looking pale and feverish."
"His face is as smooth as a baby's," Nico ran the hand of his good arm against Lieutenant Jackson's freshly shaved cheek. "And smells of eau de cologne. What is this: rose water and ambergris?"
Lieutenant Jackson swatted his hand away.
"Is all this for Miss Chase's benefit?"
"Stop being ridiculous! Well, my stomach is as hollow as a drum. I'm going downstairs for breakfast."

Annabeth poured herself a cup of hot chocolate from the tallest and leanest of the three Sheffield plated pots brought to the breakfast table. The shortest and squattest pot was for tea with the one of middling height and width used for coffee.

Piper sat down across from her at the table and bid her good morning.
"How did you sleep last night?" she said.
"I've slept better," Annabeth replied.
"Miss Levesque, doesn't Poor Miss Chase look sick, pale, and green?"
"Like Juliet on her balcony," was Miss Levesque's response.
"What are you talking about, Piper? I'm feeling perfectly well."
"Perhaps she had a hard time sleeping last night because she was mooning about after Lieutenant Jackson?"
Annabeth shot Piper a dirty look and snatched a slice of seed cake Piper's plate.

"There! We've found her out!"
Annabeth took a sip of her hot chocolate.
"You two are the silliest pair of geese I've ever met in my whole life."