“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 her 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.
