Mr. Banner, the shopkeeper, turned to face her. To Georgie’s astonishment, his skin was a few shades darker than hers, with his graying black hair and carefully cultivated mustache signaling his origins in India. He was a welcome but most unexpected sight here in rural Yorkshire.
A delighted smile crossed his face as he saw her, and he bowed slightly. “How may I help you, young sir?”
Georgie took a deep breath and consciously lowered her voice. “I have a letter to post to… my cousin. In Bath.”
Banner held his hand out and, after a moment’s hesitation, Georgie placed the letter in it. He made the necessary notes and collected her shilling.
“It should be there in three days.”
She nodded and turned to glance around the shop. Like many villages, the shop seemed to carry a little of everything to save the villagers from having to travel to a larger town.
“Is there anything else you require? Shaving soap, bay rum, a new cravat?”
“I … no, thank you.” She cast a glance at the row of embroidery silks across the room and looked away. She had been forced to abandon her projects when she left home, and she felt a bit at loose ends without something to keep her hands busy in the evening. But her masquerade as a young gentleman would not hold up for long if she demonstrated her skills at embroidery.
She drifted closer to the silks and allowed her hand to float towards the bright colors. Color felt as though it had fled from her life months ago, and was only just beginning to return.
Then, on a shelf near the silks, she saw the boxes of watercolors stacked high, and she knew how she could fill her time as she waited for Caroline’s reply. Except…
Her hand went to the pocket of her coat, where the purse that held her coins lay. It would be foolish for her to buy paints when she had so little money to sustain her. If Lord Peter evicted her from the vicarage tomorrow, she would need that money to keep body and soul together until she could form a new plan.
Without her conscious volition, her hand crept forward and picked up the nearest box of watercolors. It was a small traveling kit with tiny dividers holding a dozen different cakes of paint, along with a small glass to hold her water and three paintbrushes.
It could not compare to what she had left behind at home, but it could certainly keep her occupied while she waited and worried. She had squeezed her current sketchbook and a few pencils into her traveling bag, but her boxes of paints would not fit. At least, not the ones her cousin’s children had not already ruined.
“You have a good eye, young sir,” Mr. Banner boomed from behind her, and Georgie flinched. “That came straight from Thomas Reeves and Son in London. It can be yours for only one pound.”
One pound!If Caroline wrote back that there was a position for Georgie in Bath, it would cost her at least two pounds to travel there by coach, if not three. To spend half the cost of her coach ticket on something as frivolous as a watercolor kit would be foolish in the extreme.
But the call of creativity was too strong to resist. Even if her otter illustrations and her father’s manuscript had been destroyed by her cousin, she could begin again.
“I’ll take it,” Georgie said.
5
When she had accepted Lord Peter’s invitation to stay with him, Georgie had not realized what a center of activity the rectory was for the whole village and the farms nearby. There always seemed to be another person coming or going to confer with him, to ask his advice or request his presence for an ailing relative. A guarded question to Mrs. Barwick had cleared up the mystery.
“Well, he’s no stranger here, for all he’s only been acting as rector for a few weeks,” Mrs. Barwick said as she continued shelling peas for that evening’s supper, Georgie gathering up the discarded pods as a treat for the otters.
“The duke his brother’s estate is only five miles away, and Lord Peter would visit with his family once or twice a year, usually for the Harvest Festival. Folk were that relieved when it was Lord Peter taking over for Mr. Sloane and not a stranger.” The older woman sighed. “Though he’s only temporary, a’ course, and then we’ll have to start all over again with someone new.”
“Does everyone here want him to stay?” Georgie asked, and Mrs. Barwick shrugged. The careless gesture did not seem to match her next words.
“We’d always wanted one of us here. Mr. Sloane was a fine man, but he’s not bred to Yorkshire. Not like Lord Peter was.”
Georgie privately thought that might be a bit of an exaggeration Lord Peter had only been in residence once or twice a year while he was growing up.
“And, o’ course,” Mrs. Barwick said more practically, “having a son of the manor house as the rector would benefit the village. We always thought he was to come to us after he had been ordained, but he went to London to do good works instead.” Something about speaking of village matters made the housekeeper’s Yorkshire accent more prominent, to Georgie’s fascination.
Mrs. Barwick finished with the last peapod, set the basket on the table, and looked at Georgie.
“Now, if you don’t mind me saying, young sir, tha’d best allow me to do that trim. Can’t have tha disgracing us at services on Sunday.”
“Yes, Mrs. Barwick,” Georgie said meekly. “Thank you.”
Even with her newly-trimmed hair, Georgie did her best to stay out of the way of the visitors, fearing her masquerade could be revealed if she was in too long a conversation with any one person. That afternoon, however, she lingered in the main drawing room longer than usual, sitting at the writing table to make notes from one of the books on animal anatomy Mr. Sloane had left behind. It could not compare to her father’s library, but she must make do with what she had.
She heard them before she saw them, but Georgie knew immediately what was coming just from the sound.
