They were led into what Caroline knew to be the best dining room. It was commodious and faced a pretty garden at the back of the hotel. She suspected that if Harry had not thought he made a slight misstep on his guests’ arrival, they would not have been given it.
Lady Easton sized up the room and nodded her approval. After Harry closed the door behind him, Lord Bertridge said, “This must be a compliment, I think. Mr. Johnson always does hold this room back when he can in case a duke or the Regent comes through.”
Johnny, the most experienced waiter, came in and Lady Easton ordered the usual things to be had at a hotel—a pot of tea, ale for her nephew, a tray of cold meats and cheeses, a salad of some sort, and a basket of rolls. The waiter was then further ordered to bring a good mustard, or no mustard at all, though Lady Easton added that she would frown upon failing to see mustard.
Caroline thought Johnny left a bit shaken and was busy calculating precisely how good their mustard was and whether it would pass muster. She suppressed a smile as she imagined her father joking about such a thing. He’d say, “So tell me, Caro, did the mustard pass muster or was the lady in a fluster?”
Caroline attempted to make general conversation though both Lady Easton and Lord Bertridge were rather quiet. She commented on the size of the room and the flowers in the garden and the famed roasted beef always served at the place.
Other than Lady Easton mentioning that it was Thursday and they had roasted beef on Wednesdays, little was said.
Caroline was left to wonder what was always had on Thursdays, though she doubted she’d wonder for long.
*
Richard felt afeeling that seemed nearest to discombobulation, and he did not like it. Why did Miss Upton appear to be two things at once? When he’d arrived to his aunt’s house in the morning she’d been right on time and dressed in a very charming embroidered cloak and straw bonnet. She’d greeted him smiling and seemed a most pleasant lady.
All along the road he caught fragments of his aunt and Miss Upton’s conversation and they seemed to get on exceedingly well.
But then they had arrived atThe George, and she’d leaned out the carriage window and greeted a groom as if she were a local milkmaid. And then her greeting from Mr. Johnson. The hotelier had to be reminded whohewas but had recognized Miss Upton in an instant.
As if that were not enough, the hotelier had called Miss Upton Caroline and she had called him Harry. Not Mr. Johnson, but Harry. He did not call Johnson by his given name. He’d been to the hotel on many occasions and had never been asked to call the fellow Harry. Nor did he think he would do it if he had been asked.
It was far too familiar for any lady, much less an unmarried lady of so few years.
Something must be done. The talk of gin the night before had not been the aberration he’d hoped it was. No, later that night, she’d waved out the window at him when he’d been on the street, and now she was on a first name basis with grooms and hoteliers.
He glanced at his aunt and could see in a moment that she thought the very same thing. Miss Upton must be reined in and taught how to proceed as a proper young lady. It would reflect badly on them both if they did not rectify the situation.
Richard could not entirely blame Miss Upton for her current bad habits. A young person was the result of their raising. Except for himself, of course, as he’d understood that his parents’ way of going on was foolhardy and he’d been determined to rise above it.
He supposed Miss Upton was fond of her parents and that affection clouded her judgment.
Now, it had been left to him and his aunt to set her on the right course.
The waiter came in and fortunately, he brought with him a mustard. It was labeledMrs. Richmond’s Ownand he’d had it before at the inn, Mrs. Richmond being a local lady rather known for her mustard. Richard believed his aunt would favor it. After setting the table, the waiter silently closed the door behind him.
“Now,” Lady Easton said, “I believe we will have the privacy to talk freely. Miss Upton, Caroline, we really must discuss certain…modes you have adopted. And proceed to un-adopt them immediately.”
Richard could see that Miss Upton, who his aunt had taken to calling Caroline, had not the least idea of what his aunt referred to. Lady Easton, however, was ready to gallop toward the breach. He would prepare himself to act as her second in command.
Miss Upton’s modes must be corrected.
*
Caroline had blessedlycrawled into bed. She had hoped she would have her own chamber, as she usually did when she stayed atThe George, but that was not to be. Lady Easton’s maid, Prudence, had since arrived in the second carriage and would share her room. At least it was not Lady Easton herself, as she’d heard quite enough from that person for one day.
Prudence had dragged her bedstead across the room so that it rested perpendicular against the door. She explained that if any thieves or kidnappers or murderers attempted a break-in, they would have to push her bed out of the way and surely the racket of it would wake her.
Caroline did not point out the door swung outward and so the thieves and murderers could very conveniently step over her. Nor did she ask what Prudence would do once woken, but she did not imagine it was anything more effective than screaming. For herself, she was not the least worried about a break-in. Harry Johnson employed several sharp-eyed fellows who kept things in order and there had never even been a theft in recent memory.
Finally, now that she was away from the doleful eyes of Lady Easton and Lord Bertridge, she could take a breath and think things over.
What had her father sent her into? The luncheon had been one scolding after the next. She must never mention gin. Though of course her father had advised the same, she’d only mentioned it tothem, she’d not announced it to all and sundry at a ball. And then, it was not as if she’d admitted to having tasted the stuff herself.
Further, her father would never approve of failing to greet the staff atThe George. They were old friends! Harry had doted on her since she first arrived at the age of eight. He was very like a second father and her own father had not had one concern about leaving her at the hotel while he ran some errand, knowing she was under Harry’s watchful eye.
As a young girl staying atThe George, she might slip into the kitchens and have a confidential conversation over biscuits with the cook, or she might drift out to the stables and size up the horses, or she might sit in the common area and have a hot cocoa in front of the fire on a chilly afternoon. She had been as safe as a hatchling tucked away in its nest.
