The child bowed his head.
“And should the Almighty see fit to bless our impromptu feast,” Mr. Wentworth continued, “we hope that He will send an angel down the passage to have a look in on Mrs. Newbury, whose swift recovery would be the answer to many prayers. Amen.”
The child darted a glance at Mr. Wentworth, but didn’t touch the food until Matilda picked up a piece of her toast.
“Amen,” she said, biting into a piece of heaven. The cheese was barely melted, the toast made from fresh bread warmed to perfection. “This is good.”
How she had missed hot food. How she had missed sitting down to eat with others rather than cramming sustenance into her mouth as she dodged behind a hedge. How she had missed spices, which turned mere cider into ambrosia.
Jinks slurped his drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then went back to demolishing his toast.
Matilda expected Mr. Wentworth to scold the boy, or at least instruct him on the use of a table napkin, but Mr. Wentworth was consuming his own portion as if he sat down to supper with the boot boy regularly.
I studied for the church. Why hadn’t he taken up that vocation—or had he?
Matilda ate in silence, trying to appreciate the food despite the impending interrogation from Mr. Wentworth. All too soon, the toast was gone, extra slices of bread and cheese had been wrapped in a napkin for Jinks, and the boy sent up the servants’ stairs to his frigid quarters in the attic.
“Let’s finish the cider, shall we?” Mr. Wentworth suggested when the food had been put away and the table swept free of crumbs. “Confession can be a thirsty undertaking.”
“I have no sins to confess,” Matilda said. “But I do wonder why, if you love children as much as I think you do, you are an itinerant bachelor who barely tolerates the company of his neighbors.”
Mr. Wentworth divided the remaining cider between his mug and Matilda’s. “You invite me to lead by example. Very well, but the tale is neither complicated nor pretty. Have a seat, and I’ll find us a few biscuits.”
* * *
“What the hell are we doing not five miles from where you nearly got me killed?” Herman Smith muttered.
Last week, they’d been Treachers. Sometimes they were Smiths. In Wales they tended to be Joneses. Up north, Roberts, Taylor, or Brown would do. No matter the last name, Herman and Jeffrey always seemed to find themselves without funds, and in the path of winter and summer storms when only the meanest of accommodations were to be had.
“We are warm and comfortable,” Jeffrey replied, swirling his pint. “Enjoying fine ale, flirting with the friendly tavern maids. Have another mug, Herm. Nobody’s going anywhere until this snow melts.”
Their money was going somewhere—straight into the pockets of mine greedy innkeeper. “Leave the women alone, Jeffy. They’ll steal the coins you don’t part with voluntarily.”
Women were trouble. Herman’s own mum had told him that, God rest her larcenous and often violent soul.
“This is snuggling weather,” Jeffrey replied, lifting his tankard in the direction of a chubby maid with a saucy gaze. “Nothing wards off the chill like a wench.”
The common room of the Drunken Duck was full of the usual storm refugees: a stranded coachload including a pair of inside dandies, a topside farm lad traveling into London to look for work now that the harvest was in, as well as the coachman, guard, and grooms. A foursome of young swells heading into the Midlands for foxhunting had kept the tavern maids hopping for the past two days, though the innkeeper had to be thrilled to have such custom at such a lowly hostelry.
“You might start a friendly game of whist with the young swells,” Herman suggested. “They can afford to lose a bit of the ready. They’ve been at the cards for the past two nights.”
“We don’t get above ourselves,” Jeffrey replied, quietly. “Bad enough you involved me in that little situation in the haunted woods. I’m not about to fleece four lordlings who’ve been fleecing each other for two straight days.”
The haunted woods had not been Herman’s fault. Any estate that had gone for years without the attentions of a proper gamekeeper was likely to be overrun with varmints, and snaring a few rabbits was purely in the way of public service.
Would that Brightwell was more than five scant miles away.
“What kind of woman pulls a gun on a pair of peaceable fellows like us?” Herman inquired of his empty tankard. “We never harmed nobody, and every rabbit meets with his eventual reward.”
The skinny little woman with the gun was giving him nightmares. Bad enough the landowner had come stumbling by, but he hadn’t been waving any firearms, hadn’t raised a hue and cry over one wee rabbit.
“Forget the woman,” Jeffrey replied, taking a sip of his ale and letting out a slow, froggy belch. “We got away, while she likely didn’t fare as well.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“She were underfed and twitchy. Her clothes were dusty and missing a few buttons. That was a woman with troubles. I’m guessing his worship added to her trouble after we so kindly left them their privacy.”
“Maybe she added to his. She had the gun.” Though now that Jeffrey remarked upon it, what was a woman doing with a loaded gun, alone, deep in the peaceful Berkshire countryside? No decent, sane female traipsed around a forest by herself.
Or brandished a weapon when she might have gone quietly about her business.
“On second thought, get the cards, Herm. It’s late enough the swells are the worse for drink. We’ll start up a friendly game, you ’n’ me, and them as wants to join in will be welcome.”
“I thought you said—”
“Get the cards. If this snow doesn’t soon melt, I’ll be talking gibberish, and not because I’ve imbibed too much ale.”
Herman got the cards.
Chapter Five
What to tell a woman who’d not surrendered even her full name?
Duncan raided the biscuit tin to the tune of a half dozen pieces of shortbread and brought them to the table. While Miss Maddie watched, he wrapped two pieces in her table napkin and passed them over.
“For later.”
She held out the plate containing the remaining four pieces. “For now. You were kind to that boy.”
“While I suspect life has not been kind to you.” Duncan did not want her confidences, for secrets were a burden on all who kept them. He also did not want her secrets wrecking his attempts to set Brightwell to rights. The conundrum was irksome, while a late-night sweet shared with another was comforting.
“Life has been very good to me,” Miss Maddie said, nibbling the smallest piece. “I am in good health, I am at liberty, I have been well educated and seen much of the world, relative to many. What of yourself?”
Lead by example, one of the bishop’s few admonitions that had been useful where Stephen was concerned.
“I was raised in straitened circumstances, though I was better off than most. My father took the king’s shilling and promptly got shot for desertion. I have no memory of my mother. An uncle took me in. My aunt was a good woman who mitigated my uncle’s harsh notions of discipline where she could.”
That factual recitation brushed over nights spent locked out of the vicarage in bitter weather, meals set before a famished boy that he was not permitted to consume, blows to the head—those left no marks—without number, and knees so sore from kneeling to pray that Duncan still occasionally limped after overtaxing himself.
“Finish my cider,” Miss Maddie said. “A little sweetness goes a long way.”
Was she speaking metaphorically? Duncan poured the rest of her drink into his mug. “What else would you like to know?”
“You studied for the church?”
Studied was too genteel a word for the passion Duncan had brought to his training. “I did.”
“Why?”
Always a thorny question. He stalled by dipping his shortbread into the hot, spicy cider. “I had seen the job of vicar done poorly. In my arro
gance, I thought I’d have a better approach. I was wrong and never made it past my first curate’s post. I enjoyed academics, enjoyed the company of my fellow students, enjoyed the notion that I might contribute something to a community eventually. When it came to being part of a congregation and supporting its leadership, I was not successful.”
He’d been a raging failure.
“If I’d dipped my shortbread,” Miss Maddie said, “it would have disintegrated all over the table and gone to waste.”
Duncan dipped the shortbread again and held it out to her. She might not share her truths with him, but she could share a bite of humble goodness.
After an entirely too sober perusal of him, the shortbread, the shadows lurking in the corners of the kitchen, and perhaps her own conscience, Miss Maddie took the treat, nibbled off a small portion, and passed it back.
“Why did you leave the church?” she asked.
“I lacked a proper vocation.” The bishop had said as much. Examine your conscience, and you’ll find that this might not be the path God has in mind for you. “I had the skills necessary to instead become a schoolteacher, so I pursued that livelihood.”
And had been a raging failure all over again, until Aunt—widowed, thank the timely intercession of the Almighty—had taken pity on him. Her generosity had arrived too late, or perhaps Duncan’s pride had been the issue. He’d spent several years flogging himself with that question before becoming absorbed in Stephen’s situation.
“Is any of this prosaic tale even true?” Miss Maddie asked. “I can understand a ducal family sending a younger son into the church, but allowing him to become a schoolteacher? They are an impoverished, overworked lot seldom held in any esteem.”
Not by their so-called betters, but the esteem of the scholars was a more precious commodity. “The title came long after I’d left the church. I loved teaching. If I was patient and wily enough, I knew I could put some learning into the heads of the farmers’ and tradesmen’s children. That learning might make them a little safer, a little more successful than they’d be otherwise, a little harder to cheat and exploit. You are absolutely right, though: Teaching is one step above starvation in most villages.”
That sad truth was the limit of what Duncan was willing to admit in an effort to win Miss Maddie’s trust, and he’d managed not to lie outright.
Time for some turnabout. “So tell me, to the extent you can without violating confidences, how you come to be alone in the wilds of Berkshire at this time of year.”
She gathered her shawls—two—and scooted on her seat, like a scholar preparing to recite. “I am widowed, and bad luck has me making my way home to Dorset.”
Her air of self-possession suggested she might be widowed, and the bad luck was believable enough, which left Dorset for the falsehood.
“I haven’t traveled much in Dorset recently,” Duncan said. “I did spend some time there as a younger man. Whereabouts is your destination?”
“A small village on the coaching road south of Shaston.”
Shaston did indeed enjoy a fair amount of coaching trade, something any map could have revealed to her.
“Such a pretty town, nestled in the shadows of such pretty hills. I suppose you’ve worshipped at St. Matthew’s?”
More fussing about with the shawls. “Occasionally.”
Duncan could accept her dissembling and let her go, for on the first fine day, she’d doubtless melt back into the woods where he’d found her.
Part of him would be relieved. He had an estate to set to rights, a house to restore, ledgers to sift through, and, time permitting, journals to edit. Sooner or later, some Wentworth or other would arrive—no need to send notice when ambushing family—and the whole business would become awkward and complicated.
Though how much more awkward and complicated to be a woman without means or defenses, alone in the English countryside? Compared to that situation, Duncan’s concerns were trivialities.
He rose, rather than watch his guest squirm. “Miss Maddie, you are an inept liar. This is to your credit. The fifteenth-century church in Shaston is St. Peter’s, and Shaston is one of few villages in Dorset to sit atop a high hill. You’ve never been there, and you don’t seek to go there.”
She bowed her head.
Duncan let the silence stretch. He’d learned to hold his tongue. Too late, at far too high a price, but he had acquired the skill.
“I am not wanted by the magistrates,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “I haven’t gained the notice of any thief takers.”
But she clearly feared somebody. Duncan came around the table and took the seat next to her.
Wild creatures were said to have two impulses when faced with danger: one to flee, one to turn and fight. Some animals—rabbits, burros, cats—adopted a third choice. They became motionless, blending into their surroundings, barely breathing, hoping to become invisible to their foes.
Miss Maddie fit that description, remaining seated at the table, wrapped in her shawls and her silence. She doubtless longed to dodge off into the night, just as she longed to rail against Duncan’s inquisition. He could feel that tension humming in her unspoken words and in her stillness.
He considered what puzzle pieces he had and connected them with logic and intuition, for the simple truth was, he did not want her to go. For her sake, he did not want her to be alone, battling the elements and God knew what foes with only a rusty pistol and a worn cape for protection.
And for his own sake, too, he longed for her to stay. Foolish of him, but he was no stranger to folly.
“If you are not fleeing the law per se,” he said, “then you are either the victim of a crime or you have witnessed wrongdoing, and your safety is jeopardized as a result. Of the two, the latter is the more difficult posture, but in either case, you have nothing to fear from me.”
He took her hand, tucked the table napkin containing the shortbread into her grasp, and closed her fingers about the sweets.
Her gaze put him in mind of the rabbit’s, not the snared animal’s blank acceptance of doom, but the bewildered gaze of a captive granted a reprieve.
“I will stay with Mrs. Newbury for the remainder of the evening,” he said, lifting Miss Maddie’s free hand in his own. “You will rest. We will speak further of your situation if, as, and when you decide the topic needs another airing.”
He kissed her knuckles, set the warm cider at her elbow, and left her alone in the kitchen’s cozy shadows.
* * *
In her toasty, curtained bed, Matilda had played chess games in her head as she’d tossed and turned. She’d twice risen to count her pieces of shortbread—four, because she’d taken all the remaining treats to her room. Before retiring, she’d also looked in on Mr. Wentworth and Mrs. Newbury.
The housekeeper had been sleeping peacefully—a very hopeful sign—and the master had been reading a French Psalter by the light of three candles.
What sort of woman was attracted to a tired man reading scripture in French late at night?
What sort of woman trusted that same man when he was so adept at catching her in her lies?
“I know the answers.” Matilda could admit that to herself in the early-morning solitude of her pretty bedroom. “Any decent man will loom in my eyes as a hero, until, being decent and English, he writes to Papa and ruins everything.”
She took a fortifying swallow of the tea Danvers had brought and rose, though no clever plan had occurred to her in the dark hours, no brilliant strategy for dealing with Mr. Wentworth. If she told him what had sent her onto the king’s highway in the dead of night, he’d be implicated and guilty by association.
If she fled the safety of Brightwell she’d be dead by spring, and Atticus Parker would never even know her fate.
Her disappearance likely didn’t trouble him much from a sentimental perspective, but his pride was doubtless smarting. Ye gods, what an idiot she’d been.
She set her tea tray on the sideboard in her sitting ro
om, collected her shawls, and made her way through the frigid corridors to the little parlor where she’d first taken sustenance at Brightwell earlier in the week. The day was brilliant, as only a sunny day on a snow-covered landscape could be, and thus the stairway, while cold, was flooded with sunlight.
Matilda paused outside the dining parlor, heart thumping for no reason. Why should the prospect of an informal meal fill her with nearly as much trepidation as a night spent in the open countryside had?
“Good morning.” Mr. Wentworth rose from his seat at the head of the table. He did not smile—did he ever smile?—but he did hasten to close the door behind Matilda and lead her to the place set at his left hand. The hearth held a wood fire that crackled merrily, counterpointing the dripping from the eaves beyond the window.
Had Mr. Wentworth ordered that place set for her for the past several days, only to be left to a solitary meal?
“I trust you slept well?” he asked, putting the teapot by her plate.
“As well as can be expected. How is Mrs. Newbury?”
He held Matilda’s chair for her, a courtesy that had upset her the previous evening and upset her all over in the morning light.
“Mrs. Newbury passed a fairly peaceful night, though fevers plagued her in the small hours. She permitted me to read to her in French, suggesting a constitution of considerable fortitude. A maid is sitting with her now.”
The scents of bacon and toast would likely always have the power to intoxicate Matilda, so substantial were they. A woman in hiding didn’t cook bacon lest a passerby detect the scent. A woman in a hurry never bothered to build a fire merely to toast her stale bread.
“Would you care for some eggs?” Mr. Wentworth asked.
No footman guarded a laden sideboard, no maid bustled about replenishing the tea or the toast rack. The meal was set out on the table à la française, with warming trays keeping the omelet, bacon, and ham hot.
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