‘Aye, all’s prepared and ready. All I need to do is to pour the hot water on the tea. Sandwiches are made, fruit cake and plain scones with strawberry jam waiting to be set out and the boy brought up a good lump of ice, so the cream and the butter are cooling nicely. I’ll take my apron off and come out the front.’ Her accent might be pure local Dorset, but none of their customers ever had any problem understanding it. If fate had decreed that Dot had been born somewhere other than a fisherman’s cottage, then she would have made even more of herself than she had already.
‘This is also a tea shop?’ Mr Dunton enquired as Sara took a basket and began to walk around the shop, selecting things to try and tempt his sister’s interest. It was hard to decide what to take, for Miss Dunton might be a very fragile invalid or she might simply be a wilful and tiresome brat. Time would tell.
‘We provide tea and refreshments twice a week. Customers come and work on their latest artistic projects, or their writing, perhaps. They exchange ideas and take tea. It provides a congenial place for ladies to congregate, somewhere they are not expected to confine themselves to idle chit-chat or to sit about looking decorative.’
‘And it encourages them to replenish their supplies while they are here.’
‘Exactly. This is a business, after all, Mr Dunton. The ladies encourage each other, take up new crafts having seen them being practised by their acquaintances and have an enjoyable few hours together. If you are ready?’
She put on a light pelisse, tied on her new, and pleasingly dashing, bonnet and added her reticule to the craft supplies. Mr Dunton reached for the basket, Sara held on to it. ‘There is someone outside to carry it, thank you, sir. I will be back soon, Dot.’
He held the door for her and attempted again to do polite battle for the basket, but as they emerged Tim Liddle came trotting over from the mouth of the alleyway beside the milliner’s shop opposite. He was eight and the main support of his widowed mother, so Sara gave him all the odd jobs she could find and some she had to create. He was clean but skinny, despite her best efforts to feed him up, and dressed in clothes that were worn and handed down, but his gap-toothed grin was cheerful.
‘Here you are, Tim. Down to the hotel with it, if you please.’ She handed over the laden basket, took Mr Dunton’s proffered arm and sent him a slanting look from under her bonnet brim as they walked down the hill to the promenade. ‘You did not really think I would go to a hotel with a strange gentleman, just like that, without any escort?’
‘That lad would not provide much protection against some unscrupulous buck, I’d have thought.’
‘No? If I do not reappear by the time I give him Timmy will raise hell with the hotel staff, then run for Dot, then fetch the constable whose second cousin he is.’
‘Ah, the formidable Dot. Now she would scare any ill-meaning male. She might well have assisted Cronus in his gruesome assault on Uranus, given the size of those brawny arms and the look she gave me. Does she not like my face in particular, or is she opposed to the entire male sex on principle?’
Sara did not rise to the bait of his reference to Aphrodite’s birth. ‘Dot was a dipper. They need to be strong women to deal with nervous customers who have never been in the sea before. Some of them fall over and have to be dragged out of the surf and others become agitated when it comes to being dipped and so have to be held tight and ducked under even more firmly. She hurt her back and could no longer do such heavy work, so she came to help me. She was grateful for the opportunity and, quite unnecessarily, has set herself to guard me against…importunity.’
That should suppress any inclination Mr Dunton might have to flirtation. Sara, who was not above enjoying the escort of a large, elegant gentleman—or the stimulating sensation of a well-muscled arm under her hand—allowed the silence to persist for the five minutes it took to reach the Royal Promenade Hotel at a gentle stroll.
The hotel was a straggling edifice consisting of a number of adjoining buildings tacked together with linking doors and added passageways. All had been unified by a coat of cream colour wash over the entire façade, set off by royal blue trim and the hotel’s name in large gilt letters.
Mr Dunton removed the basket from Tim’s grasp and stopped in front of the reception desk where the proprietor was speaking to the clerk. ‘Mr Winstanley, would you show Mrs Harcourt to our private sitting room while I fetch my sister to her?’
Nicely done, sir, Sara thought as she, and her basket, were ushered upstairs and through to a pleasant room with a bay window overlooking the promenade. All very much above-board and using Mr Winstanley to establish his credentials as a respectable man who does, indeed, have a sister in residence. But there is still something not quite right about you, Mr Dunton.
But whatever it was it did not affect the essential attractive masculinity of the man, even if something was making her antennae twitch with curiosity. He was very aware of her as a woman and she was equally as aware of him—the trick was going to be not showing that.
She settled herself at the table, took the sketchbook and a pencil from the basket and began to draw the scene from the window, concentrating on a rapid and amusing vignette of two ladies who had stopped to chat by the flagpole. One was large, the other thin, and both had ridiculously small lapdogs on ribbon leashes. When the door opened Sara stood up and dropped the book quite casually, face-up, on the table.
The young woman who came into the room with Mr Dunton at her back was obviously his sister, with the same brown hair and hazel eyes, but a straighter nose and less firmness to her chin. She was also very obviously young, had been unwell and was in a state of the sulks.
‘Marg—Mrs Harcourt, might I present my sister, Marguerite.’ Mr Dunton frowned at his own stumble and the girl sent him a sharp glance. ‘Marguerite, this is Mrs Harcourt whose shop I passed today. She has kindly brought down some things that might interest you.’
Miss Dunton bobbed the sketchiest of curtsies and sat on the other side of the small round table set in the window bay.
How very interesting. Dunton had begun to present her to his sister, which was correct if the girl was of higher rank. Then he had caught himself and presented the girl to her, the older, married woman. Which meant two things. Firstly he was treating her like a lady, not a shopkeeper, and secondly he and his sister actually ranked above a respectable married lady, even though he did not know to whom she had been married.
If you are not in possession of a title, my fine gentleman, I will eat my expensive new bonnet, feathers and all.
So what was he doing in Sandbay and what was wrong with his sister?
Sara summoned up her professional smile and a brisk but friendly tone of voice. ‘Good morning, Miss Dunton. My shop provides everything in the way of rational entertainment for ladies.’ That was met with a blank look so she tried for something more direct. ‘I stock everything from hammers to hit fossils out of rocks to nets to explore rock pools with.’
Finally she had managed to produce a blink of reaction from the young woman. ‘Hammers?’
‘And art materials and plain wooden boxes and mirror frames and so forth to decorate with paint or shells or scrollwork. Fabrics and embroidery floss, knitting wool, water trays for making seaweed pictures, patterns…books, journals.’ She nodded towards the basket. ‘Perhaps you would like to take a look. Would you excuse me while I just finish my sketch of those two ladies outside, they make such an amusing picture.’
Behind her chair she gestured with her hand towards the doorway, hoping Mr Dunton would take the hint. After a moment, when she picked up the pad and pencil again, she heard the door open and close and bent her head over the sketch. To have the man out of the room was like releasing a pent-up breath and letting air into her lungs. He seemed to inhabit all the space, even when she could not see him.
Sara steadied her breathing and her pencil. She was not here for Mr Dunton’s sake.
Copyright ©2017 by Melanie Hilton
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ISBN-13: 9781488028908
THE COMPANION
Copyright © 2001 by Deborah Sieganthal.
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The Companion Page 10