Page 45 of The Lady’s Deception

“You’ll excuse me for just a moment,” he said, moving as if to rise and dropping a kiss onto the top of Bell’s head. She might still have resisted, but the kitten chose that moment to emerge from beneath the table and distracted her. Eileen licked her whiskers and staggered rather drunkenly toward Bell, thrown off balance by the sudden roundness of her belly.

Letter in hand, Paris strode from the table, pausing first to speak to the serving girl for a moment, then disappearing through the door that led into the inn. Before he had returned, a tray of food arrived: a steaming tureen of stew, more bread, even a pot of tea. The serving girl set it before them with a wink, and the two Burke sisters needed no other encouragement.

Rosamund held back for a moment. She oughtn’t to take any more from him than she already had. Though she really couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. And as the delicious aromas rose from the table and wrapped themselves around her, she discovered she was quite hungry. Starving, in fact.

No sooner had she fallen on the food than Paris returned, just in time to see her shoveling stew into her mouth in the most unladylike fashion. Eileen had behaved with more decorum as she attacked the fish head on the dirty floor. She tried to restrain herself long enough to thank him, to invite him to join the repast. But the offer died as she licked a drop of stew from her lip and glanced around the table. The tureen had already been scraped bare, she realized, and the loaf of bread was now little more than scattered crumbs.

“Quite all right,” he said, seating himself once more between his sisters. The corners of his mouth curved with that smile that wasn’t quite a smile; this one, in fact, looked somehow sorrowful. “I will be perfectly satisfied with a cup of tea.”

While they finished eating, he offered to regale them with his adventure. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about Kilready. But he of course began at a later chapter of his story: his return to Dublin and Molly’s shocking revelation. Then he told how he’d set out again immediately, uncertain where to look, and how he’d wasted time seeking here and there. “I did not have the good fortune to enquire first of Lady Sydney, you see,” he added with a wink for Bell. “But I did have one advantage over you. I was on horseback. My feet aren’t tired at all.” Eventually, his enquiries had led him to the harbor—the two girls had caught the notice of several people—but he had arrived too late to board the Claremont. “Fortunately, the Peregrine was still at anchor and I was able to secure a place just as she was ready to sail. Though we very nearly had to turn back to Dublin when the wind shifted and the sea grew rough.”

“Were you worried, Paris?”

He took a sip of his tea, then looked down at Daphne with his laughing expression. “And what, may I ask, would have been the use of worry?”

Rosamund, however, was not fooled. She had glimpsed the slightest tremor in his hand as he returned his cup to its saucer. And she could not help but wonder, oddly, whether her own brother had ever worried for her.

After they ate, the girls were quiet. Drowsy. Someone had pushed Rosamund’s bonnet aside to make room for the food and even Eileen could do no more than bat half-heartedly at its strings, though they dangled invitingly over the edge of the table.

Absently, Paris pulled the ribbon away from the kitten and rubbed its frayed end between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze at first unseeing. Then, as the pale blue silk came into focus, the motion of his fingers stopped, and she watched his eyes travel over the bonnet to which the ribbon was attached. Another strange expression quirked across his features and was gone. The ribbon slithered from his grasp as he rose.

“Come.”

At the sound of his voice, his sisters started as if from slumber. “Are we going h-h-home now?” asked Bell around an enormous yawn.

“Not tonight. We’re staying here at the inn.”

Daphne nodded drowsily and staggered to her feet, while Bell gathered Eileen in one hand and reached for Paris with the other. Only Rosamund did not move.

“Aren’t you coming, Miss Gorse?” Daphne asked, impatient for bed.

Rosamund fixed her gaze on the table and the sad remnants of their feast. “I—”

“Yes, Miss Gorse. Mustn’t dawdle.”

Paris’s voice. Despite its mocking tone, her pulse quickened. But no. She mustn’t accept the offer. For a dozen reasons. A hundred.

She looked up and met his gaze.

She rose.

She grabbed her bonnet and followed.

Chapter 16

The room to which the chambermaid showed them was neat and pleasant, but small. A folding screen had been set up to partition the space further, into a sitting room that contained just one seat—an overstuffed chair with comfortably worn upholstery, placed beside the crackling hearth—and a bedroom that contained just one bed.

A hip bath and cans of steaming water stood on the bedroom side of the screen, and a pile of fresh linen lay on the bed itself.

“Your man told me your trunks got left behind when you sailed,” the chambermaid said. “Pity those porters can’t do a better job o’ managin’. I scrounged a few night things for you, an’ I’ll take your dresses to sponge and press, if you’d like, ma’am.”

Rosamund was still doing mental calculations. One room in which to undress and bathe and sleep. One room…for the four of them? She tried her best to hide her unease at this state of affairs. “I—er. Thank you,” she said, though she’d hardly heard the girl. She gave another nervous glance around the room.

And discovered Paris was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

“’e went back down to the pub, ma’am,” the chambermaid explained.

Of course. “All right, girls,” Rosamund said, emboldened by his absence. She ushered the sleepyheads behind the screen and assisted them in undressing. After giving all three of their dresses to the waiting chambermaid who carried them away, she helped Daphne and Bell to quick baths and tucked them into bed. At last she stepped into the tub herself. The girls were sprawled on the bed and sound asleep before she had finished bathing. Eileen, curled beside Bell’s head on the pillow, gave one flick of her ears, a sort of wave of dismissal, as if to dissuade Rosamund from disturbing them further.