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“I prefer actual history.”
“Do you?”
Immediately, Sarah worried that she’d sounded pedantic. Everything she had seen so far made her wish to be friends with Kenver’s sister. She hoped she hadn’t put her off. “Can I offer you…” Sarah remembered that they had used the last of the tea that morning. Kenver was also arranging for a delivery of provisions. But for now she had only well water. “Elys made a cake, but she ran out of sugar before it could be iced.” Seeing Tamara’s amused expression, Sarah realized that she’d said this out loud.
“Who is Elys?” her guest asked.
“Our cook. She worked in the kitchen at Poldene.”
“Did you lure away servants as well? Oh, that must have infuriated my mother.” Tamara seemed to relish the thought.
“Everything I do…” Sarah bit off this admission.
“Irritates her,” Tamara finished. “I know how that is. Very well indeed! I am not hungry. I can wait for dinner.”
So she did intend to stay. Sarah mentally calculated the supply of bedding.
“I can only spare a few days from home,” Tamara said as if she’d read her expression.
“I’m very glad you came,” Sarah assured her. “I hope we can make you comfortable.”
“I feel quite at my ease already.”
She seemed to be the sort of person who could be at home anywhere. Except at Poldene, of course.
The door to the kitchen creaked, reminding Sarah yet again that the hinges needed oiling. “Sarah,” called Kenver.
She stood. He would have left his horse in the barn and walked up, so they hadn’t heard him return.
Kenver stepped into sight holding up a chamber pot. “I found one. They are not readily available in the village.” He stopped as he noticed the visitor, automatically putting the china receptacle behind his back.
“Your sister has come to see us,” Sarah said.
“Tamara?”
She had also risen, and the two siblings faced each other. The resemblance was clear now that they were together. No wonder Sarah had thought Tamara looked familiar.
He set the chamber pot on the floor and came forward. “Tamara,” he repeated. He stopped before her.
His sister stepped up and gave him a hug.
Kenver stiffened in surprise. Spontaneous hugs were not a feature of the Pendrennon family, and for a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Then he put an arm around her.
Tamara pulled back and looked him up and down. “You’ve grown into a handsome man. You look a bit like our uncle Ruthven.”
“I do?”
“Around the eyes I would say. Not so much in the jaw. And he is much taller, of course.”
Their mother’s brother was quite tall and very thin. He’d joked that he was a regular beanpole, Kenver remembered, during his stay in London.
“It is astonishing that he can eat so much and still be scrawny,” Tamara added. Her smile showed that the last word was a joke.
“You have visited him?” This was another surprise.
“Yes. He doesn’t always agree with Mama, you know.”
He hadn’t known. Apparently, there was a good deal going on in his family that he knew nothing about. Why had he never wondered or inquired? Why hadn’t he become better acquainted with his uncle and learned this? Gazing at Tamara’s face, Kenver found an image surfacing. “You used to have a dark-green riding habit.”
