Page 74 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Lucy faltered. “As to that⁠—”

“If I were in your circumstances,” Mrs. Kitteridge said, “I’d have sent my man to the grocer in my stead.”

“Miss Beresford wished to come,” Lucy replied lamely.

“I did,” Charlotte said. She ended the conversation with a civil bow. “Good day, Mrs. Kitteridge.”

Mrs. Kitteridge went rigid at the abrupt dismissal. At length, she grudgingly bent her head in return. “Miss Beresford,” she said frostily. “Miss Champion.” Exchanging another knowing glance with the shopkeeper, she withdrew, but only as far as the end of the counter. She remained there, still within earshot, affecting to peruse a glass jar of boiled sweets.

Charlotte privately bristled at the intrusion. She nevertheless endeavored to ignore it. She had nothing to hide. And she certainly hadn’t done anything wrong. Not by her own standards.

And maintaining one’s own standards was surely all that mattered in the end.

“You’ll forgive me,” she said to the shopkeeper, “but I’m a visitor here and have no notion how orders work in your shop. You do provide a delivery service, do you not?”

“Aye,” he said. “I’ve a lad who can bring your order round in a cart, providing it’s large enough.”

“It will be large.” Charlotte looked at him expectantly. “You may wish to write it down.”

The man hesitated a moment before, at last, producing a pad and pencil. “Go ahead.”

“A wedge of that good cheddar, to start,” Charlotte said. “Some salt beef. Two tins of tea. A cone of sugar. Two pounds of butter, and the same amount of salt. Ten pounds of flour, three of oatmeal, one of raisins and dried figs⁠—”

The shopkeeper’s pencil flew over his pad. The more she ordered, the less brittle was his expression.

“Three pounds of candles,” Charlotte continued. “A quart of lamp oil. Some washing soda, and⁠—”

“Charlotte,” Lucy said under her breath. “The expense!”

“That’s rather the point,” Charlotte whispered back.

A shopkeeper might, after all, decline to deliver the odd order, but an order that would guarantee his business a hefty sum would be far less easy to refuse. Even if it was an order sent to the most notorious house in the district.

“A tin of cocoa as well,” Charlotte added when she’d at last come to the end of her long list. “I do love a cup of hot chocolate in the mornings, don’t you?”

The shopkeeper refrained from offering his opinion. “Anything else, miss?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she said. “But pray, don’t wait on me to remember it.”

With another stiff nod, the man strode off to collect the items from around the shop. Mrs. Kitteridge wandered after him, leaving Charlotte and Lucy alone at the counter.

“He’s heard the whole tale,” Lucy said quietly. “So has everyone else in the village, I’d wager.”

“Very probably,” Charlotte acknowledged.

“That woman is telling him even more of it now, I vow.”

The urgent murmur of Mrs. Kitteridge’s voice drifted across the store as she followed the shopkeeper about his tasks, lending weight to Lucy’s assertion.

“She may tell him all she wishes,” Charlotte said.

“That doesn’t concern you?”

“It does. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?”

“You could do as she suggested. Remain at Sowerby Hall until Mama returns. At the very least, you could refrain from going shopping.” Lucy wrinkled her nose. “How can you even think of all those things on your list, that’s what I want to know. You’re no housekeeper.”

Charlotte shrugged. “My mother says that any lady who heads a household must know something of the weekly order for candles and dry goods. It’s part of being a good housewife.”