She reached out for the creamiest pastry on the plate, twin to the one Eleanor had just eaten, and bit into it. Eleanor slid a napkin toward her.
"Your brother is fortunate to have you," she said. Poor little boy. What a tragedy to have lost his mother soon after his birth. And what a tragedy for this little girl, who was trying to take her mother's place and appeared to be too intelligent for her own good. She would need some very patient and understanding teachers if all that was good and bright in her was not to be stifled at school in the name of discipline and making a lady of her, indistinguishable from all her peers. Not all voluble children were intelligent, of course, but Eleanor would wager a great deal that this one was. The child's next question confirmed her in this belief.
"Do you think children ought to be allowed to be who they are?" she asked after sucking cream from her fingers. "Or ought they to be brought up and educated to fit in, to be what their parents expect of them and what other grown-ups expect of them? Is that what life is all about, Mrs. Thompson? Learning to fit in?"
Oh, dear. What a very profound question, and how difficult it was to answer. But Eleanor never brushed aside girls' questions, profound or silly. She tried always to give them due consideration.
"Allowing people to be who they are sounds like a very wonderful idea," she said. "But carried to an extreme, would it perhaps lead to anarchy? If wild children were permitted to become wild young persons and then wild adults, would society work? For we have to live in society whether we wish to or not. We have to share our world with other people. If we all did whatever we wished to do, we would almost inevitably clash with other people intent upon doing what they wished to do, and quarrels and fights and even wars would result as they all too often do anyway. On the other hand, mindless conformity is not a desirable thing either. The answer to your question ought to be a simple one, but it is not. I have lived a great deal longer than you, and I am still not at all sure how much freedom and how much conformity create the perfect balance in our lives. The answer lies, I suspect, somewhere between the two extremes. I have not answered you very satisfactorily, have I? And it is Miss Thompson."
She wondered if the child had understood a word of what she had said. But Georgette's eyes, fixed upon Eleanor, were alight with approval as she reached absently for a piece of fruit cake, broke off a corner, and put it into her mouth.
"No one else—no one—has ever even tried to answer me when I ask that question," she said after swallowing. "Everyone tells me not to be silly, that children are not real persons until they have been shaped into the people their birth and station in life have determined for them. Admittedly, I have not asked Papa, though. I shall think about your answer. I may decide that I do not agree, but I love that you have spoken to me as though I were twenty instead of ten going on eleven. Or as though I were thirty or forty. It is sometimes very tiresome to be a child, Miss Thompson. Can you remember that far back? Did you find it tiresome?"
"Having to go to bed when the evening was only half over?" Eleanor said, pulling a face.
"Having to eat the cabbage someone else has put on your plate when you hate and despise cabbage?" the child said.
"Having an adult remind you every single morning to wash behind your ears when there is nothing wrong with your memory?" Eleanor said.
"Having to be silent in company until you are spoken to," Georgette said, "even when you are bursting to say something?"
"Having to count aloud the number of brush strokes you give your hair each night?" Eleanor said.
"Being told which books you can read and which are beyond your understanding?" Georgette said.
They both dissolved into laughter.
"I do believe the worst of the storm has passed over," Eleanor said, turning her glance to the window as Georgette ate a jam tart, "though the rain is still coming down hard."
"Perhaps Robbie has fallen asleep by now," the child said. "I had better go up before you have to suggest it to me again. That would be lowering. Oh, dear, have I really been eating your cakes? I did not mean to. I was not thinking."
"I wanted only one myself," Eleanor assured her. "It would have been a pity for all the rest to go back to the kitchen. Apparently the innkeeper's wife baked them especially for all the travelers she guessed would be stranded here by the storm. I am very glad you joined me, Georgette. You have been interesting company."
"So have you," the child said. "But now I really must—"
"Georgette!" a pained and reproachful male voice said from behind Eleanor's shoulder, making her jump again. "Here you are, you wretched child, bothering a fellow guest, as I might have expected."
Chapter 2
* * *
Michael Benning, Earl of Staunton, sighed aloud as the second installment of the thunderstorm passed over and the rain lashing his window eased in intensity. He had given in to a selfish impulse and shut himself into his room for some peace and quiet. He had stretched out on his bed and set one forearm over his eyes while his valet pottered about quietly, cleaning off the splashes of mud his boots had acquired during the dash from the carriage to the inn and spreading his coat over a chair to dry. Michael had neither slept nor relaxed fully. It was not the storm that was to blame, however. It was his conscience.
Robert was abnormally fearful of storms among other things and had clung and whimpered throughout their ordeal in the carriage, refusing to be consoled or be passed to his nurse's arms. Had he fallen asleep in his bed in the next room despite the return of the storm? Was Georgette occupying herself quietly enough not to disturb her brother and not to drive the nurse to distraction? His daughter had uttered those ominous words—this is stupid! —a few hours ago in the carriage after closing her book and tossing it aside before gazing out at the scenery and commenting upon every cow and barn and church spire. She was the one who had first spotted the clouds moving up from the west.
It would have been more charitable to have taken at least one of his children himself. He could have cuddled Robert beside him on the bed here. Or he could have brought Georgette in here and played some word or card games with her or even taken her downstairs for some tea. A conscience was a damnable thing. Mrs. Harris was hired, after all, to look after the children. But no doubt she was as weary as any of them from the long journey—this was the third day—especially after the last hour of it.
He sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands over his face. He had better go and check on the children. Perhaps Robert was sleeping after all. Perhaps Georgette by some miracle was too. Perhaps even Mrs. Harris was. Dream on, he told himself as he pulled on his freshly polished boots and his valet helped him into a dry coat.
Robert was indeed asleep, curled up in a ball on his bed, one flushed cheek visible, his blond hair hopelessly tousled, the covers drawn up to his ears despite the stuffiness of the room. Of his daughter there was no sign.
"Georgette?" he whispered, his eyebrows raised.
"She went to sit with you," Mrs. Harris whispered back, looking suddenly alarmed.
"Did she indeed?" he said. "But she did not arrive. Why am I not surprised? One thing is certain, at least. She would not have ventured out of doors."
And it was not a large inn. She might be watching the cook prepare dinner and asking a million questions. She might be grilling any groom who was unfortunate enough to be indoors about his duties. She might be exploring the attics or the cellars and finding bats or mice or people to question. He went to find her.
She was down in the dining room, talking with a lone lady who was having her tea there—the same lady who had arrived at the inn just after them, if he was not mistaken.
"You have been interesting company," she was saying, demonstrating a great deal of kindness and forbearance since her words suggested that his daughter had been with her for some time.
"So have you," Georgette replied and caused her father to close his eyes for a moment, appalled by he
r presumption.
The rain sounded louder down here, perhaps because there were more windows.
"Georgette!" he said, approaching the table with long strides. "Here you are, you wretched child, bothering a fellow guest, as I might have expected."
She looked up at him, guilt written all over her face. The lady turned her head too. She had been wrapped inside a gray cloak when he saw her earlier, with the hood over her head. She was clad now in a stylish blue dress. Her fair hair was simply and neatly worn. She had a pleasing, good-humored face with fine, intelligent-looking gray eyes. Her hands, lightly clasped on the edge of the table, were slender and ringless. She was, he guessed, about his own age, which was forty. He remembered that she had a low, pleasant speaking voice.
"You must be Mr. Benning," she said. "I do apologize for keeping your daughter here and causing you worry. She has been kind enough to bear me company through the return of the storm. Being stranded unexpectedly is a tedious business, is it not, though it is to be hoped we are not doomed to be stranded as long as Robinson Crusoe was on his island."
That was the book Georgette had tossed aside earlier and declared to be stupid. She must have told the lady about it—and no doubt about everything else that occupied every last corner of her crowded mind.
"It is kind of you to be so gracious, ma'am," he said before turning his eyes back upon his daughter, who was smiling brightly in the hope, no doubt, of averting any wrath he might still be feeling. "You were fortunate, Georgette, not to be snatched by some villainous cutthroat and borne off across his horse's back, never to be heard from again."
"Oh, Papa," she said, "what villain would be out in this weather? I have been making the acquaintance of Miss Thompson, and I have been eating her cakes, though I did not intend to and did not even realize I was doing it until I noticed the sweetness in my mouth. I thought you would be cross if you discovered that I had invited myself to tea, whereas you would not be quite so annoyed at my merely holding a friendly conversation with a fellow guest who was alone and in need of company to keep her mind off the thunder."
She smiled even more brightly.
He set a hand on her shoulder. "You certainly will not want any more tea, then," he said. "Probably you will not even need any dinner this evening. Perhaps I will have it served just to Robert and Mrs. Harris and myself."
"You would not do that, Papa," she said, her tone wheedling. "I am sorry to have worried you, but Nurse was looking exasperated because Robbie was taking a while to go to sleep and I wanted to sit on his bed to soothe him but I was fidgeting instead, and then I was fidgeting on my own bed because I had nothing to do. I decided to go to your room, but then I remembered that you were nursing your bad temper, mainly on account of Robbie's having been terrified and my having asked you a stream of questions about thunder and lightning and why they do not usually happen together even though they are really the same thing. So I decided to be considerate and leave you alone and came down here instead."
It was appalling to think of what she was revealing to Miss Thompson—you were nursing your bad temper. Out of the mouths of babes…
"You have my thanks," he said dryly. "But now you may go back up to reassure Mrs. Harris, whom I left a few minutes ago in a state of alarm. Tiptoe and whisper, however. Robert is asleep."
She went.
"Miss Thompson," he said, "I do apologize, both for my intrusion and for your having had to put up with my daughter when I expect you were looking forward to a relaxed and quiet tea. She is…difficult. And precious," he hastened to add, though he could hear exasperation in his voice.
"Oh, very precious, I think," she said, her eyes twinkling at him and revealing rather attractive fine laugh lines at their outer corners. "And, yes, difficult, I can imagine, to the people who are responsible for her upbringing. I found her a delight."
"It is remarkably decent of you to say so," he said. "Had you been expecting to reach your destination today?"
""I had," she said, looking ruefully toward the windows. "It is not going to happen, however, and my hope is now fixed upon tomorrow. One day's delay is tedious. Another would be severely annoying."
"And a great deal more delay, as was the case for Robinson Crusoe," he said, "would be plain stupid—in my daughter's opinion, anyway."
She laughed. "I must confess," she said, "that it was never my favorite book."
"Or mine, though it is utter heresy to say so of an acknowledged classic." He laughed with her. "But I believe it was my saying so that persuaded Georgette to choose it as one of her traveling books."
"That is perfectly understandable," she said. "You are on a long journey?"
"We have been on the road for three days," he said. "This was to have been the last. But someone important—I cannot for the life of me remember who—once said that the only thing we can confidently expect of life is the unexpected. I have lived long enough to know that he was quite right. Or perhaps it was a she. It is foolish of us ever to expect that life will proceed according to our plans and expectations. Miss Thompson, I realize that I have bespoken the only private parlor this inn boasts. I suspect the dining room will be filled later. My children will be eating their dinner early. I would prefer to dine later especially if I can prevail upon you to join me. Perhaps it is impertinent of me to ask when we are strangers, but the circumstances are unusual."
She hesitated visibly. It was not at all the thing, of course, for a single lady to dine alone with a single gentleman. But the circumstances were indeed beyond the ordinary, and he could almost see her weighing that fact against the alternative, which was to dine alone in a small and potentially crowded dining room.
"After having tea with your daughter," she said at last, "I do believe I would find it quite flat to dine alone, Mr. Benning. Thank you. I will join you. At what time?"
"Eight o' clock?" he suggested. "The children will be ready for bed by then."
"Eight o' clock it will be," she said.
He bowed and returned upstairs. He must take Georgette to his room and do something with her for a while—play chess, perhaps. He had a traveling set in his bag, and she was getting good enough at it that he was beginning to enjoy their games. He had never simply allowed her to win. She would know and would scold him. But in the foreseeable future she might win without any help at all.
I found her a delight, Miss Thompson had said, and she had seemed to mean it. He had not come across many adults who shared her opinion, though a number of people were polite and pretended to be charmed by her. Miss Everly was one such person. She smiled whenever she encountered his daughter, and called her a sweet child—an inappropriate description if ever there was one. Through part of the London Season that had recently ended he had considered Miss Everly as a possible candidate for his second wife, though he had never taken the step of actually courting her. It was her mother who had suggested a boarding school for the child she always referred to as dear Georgette.
He opened the door of the children's room quietly. Robert was still asleep. Georgette was perched on the side of his bed, patting his back through the bedcovers. Michael was always touched by the tender devotion with which she treated the sibling who was as different from herself as it was possible to be. His guess was that she was trying to make up for the fact that Robert had no mother. Though she did not either, did she?
* * * * *
She would have quite an adventure to recount to her mother and sisters when she arrived at Lindsey Hall, Eleanor thought as she changed into her gray silk with the white lace collar and sat for Alma to brush out her hair and coil it into a more elegant knot than usual high at the back of her head. She would not after all arrive tomorrow all grumbles about the storm and the tedious night she had been forced to spend on the road. Instead she would make much of describing her tea with the large platter of dainties worthy of the finest pastry cook and Georgette Benning for company. And she would make a riveting story of her invitation to dine tête-à-tête with the child
's handsome and charming papa in his private parlor.
She hesitated before reaching into her bag for the velvet box that held her brooch, which Alma proceeded to pin between the lapels of her collar. It was her one valuable piece of jewelry, a cluster of pearls given her by Christine and Wulfric for her birthday two years ago. She did have another precious piece, but only she ever saw the diamond betrothal ring she had worn on a chain about her neck ever since she had removed it from her finger after Gregory's death at the Battle of Talavera—oh, a long time ago when she was young and full of dreams of endless love and happily-ever-after.
She hoped the brooch was not too elaborate for the occasion, though the thought amused her. Even if she had rings and bracelets and earrings to match, she would still look the prim, middle-aged spinster schoolteacher she was. The invitation to dine was merely the courtesy of a gentleman who wished to repay her for entertaining his daughter this afternoon. Or perhaps he felt that dining with her really was preferable to dining alone or eating early with his children. Whatever the reason, she was thankful to him. The inn was indeed full and the dining room would be crowded. She would be self-conscious sitting alone at a table there. She had never before stayed on her own at an inn.
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