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“Are you worried about getting home? Don’t be. I’ll have someone drive you home. You shouldn’t expose yourself to the elements so soon after an illness.” Lady Danbury’s eyes narrowed. “Although I must say you look remarkably recovered.”
“I don’t feel remarkably recovered,” Elizabeth said, quite honestly.
“What did you say was wrong with you?”
“My stomach,” she mumbled. “I think it was something I ate.”
“Hmmph. No one else fell sick. Can’t imagine what you ate. But if you spent the afternoon casting up your accounts—”
“Lady Danbury!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She certainly hadn’t spent the previous afternoon casting up her accounts, but still, there was no need to discuss such bodily functions.
Lady D shook her head. “Too modest by half. When did women get to be so prissy?”
“When we decided that vomit wasn’t a pleasant topic of conversation,” Elizabeth retorted.
“That’s the spirit!” Lady Danbury chortled, clapping her hands together. “I declare, Elizabeth Hotchkiss, you sound more and more like myself every day.”
“God help me,” Elizabeth groaned.
“Even better. Exactly what I would have said.” Lady Danbury sat back, tapped her index finger to her forehead, and frowned. “Now, then, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, we wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t have to walk home in the rain. Don’t fear, we’ll find someone to drive you. My new estate manager, if need be. Lord knows he won’t be able to get anything done in this weather.”
Elizabeth gulped. “I’m certain the rain will let up soon.”
Lightning forked through the sky—just to spite her, she was sure—followed by a clap of thunder so loud Elizabeth jumped a foot. “Ow!” she yelped.
“What did you do to yourself now?”
“Just my knee,” she replied with a patently false smile. “Doesn’t hurt a bit.”
Lady Danbury snorted her disbelief.
“No, really,” Elizabeth insisted. “Funny how I never noticed that end table there, though.”
“Oh, that. Moved it there yesterday. Mr
. Siddons suggested it.”
“That figures,” Elizabeth muttered.
“Beg pardon?”
“Nothing,” she said, a little too loudly.
“Hmmph,” was Lady Danbury’s reply. “I’m thirsty.”
Elizabeth immediately warmed to the prospect of having something to do besides stare out the window and worry that Mr. Siddons was going to make an appearance. “Would you care for tea, Lady Danbury? Or perhaps I can have Cook prepare some lemonade.”
“Too early in the morning for lemonade,” Lady D barked. “Too early for tea, as a matter of fact, but I’ll have some anyway.”
“Didn’t you take tea with breakfast?” Elizabeth pointed out.
“That was breakfast tea. Different entirely.”
“Ah.” Someday, Elizabeth thought, she would receive a sainthood for this.
“Make sure Cook puts biscuits on the tray. And don’t forget to ask her to fix something for Malcolm.” Lady D craned her head this way and that. “Where is that cat?”
“Plotting his latest scheme to torture me, no doubt,” Elizabeth muttered.
