When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,22

the gloom.

“If you have questions about me, Matilda, then you should simply ask them, not interrogate my staff when they are ill and unsuspecting.”

Matilda. “How do you know my name?” What else did he know, and what would he do with the information?

“I did not know your name. You disdained to answer to Madeline, and Matilda was a guess based on probabilities.” He gestured toward the doorway. “Come with me. The patient deserves her rest, and you and I have matters to discuss.”

If Matilda tried to bolt past him, run down the corridor, and dodge out the kitchen door, he’d catch her in the first six steps. And if she made it through the door, at night, alone, in the cold, without so much as a cloak…?

Hopeless. She closed the parlor stove, rose, and dusted her hands. “I don’t want to leave her for long.”

“You haven’t taken more than five minutes away from Mrs. Newbury’s side since noon.” He started for the kitchen, his stride brisk. “The doctor refuses to come.”

“You are angry.” Mr. Wentworth’s temper did not display itself in a raised voice or even a sneer, but rather, in diction more clipped than usual, in a marked economy of syllables. How angry would he be when Matilda left without so much as a thank-you?

Or would he be relieved?

He halted amid the cozy warmth of the kitchen. “I am…my rage is without limit. I sent money with the groom, lest the doctor think Brightwell’s circumstances too straitened to pay his fees. The issue is not money.”

The issue was good old English hypocritical prejudice. “We’ll manage without the quack,” Matilda said. “English doctors are deplorably ignorant, in any case. The medical expertise on the Continent and even in Scotland is much more advanced.”

Mr. Wentworth rubbed the back of his neck. “Stephen said as much, many times. You must be hungry.”

A clock ticked on the mantel above the great hearth. The hour wasn’t late by polite standards—barely ten o’clock—but the servants went to bed as soon after supper as their duties allowed, and thus the kitchen was deserted and lit only by embers in the hearth and a single sconce burning near the window.

Matilda put a hand on her belly. “I forgot to eat.”

“Easy to forget, when ignoring the appetites has become a habit. I was too pre-occupied to do justice to the trays that appeared on my desk as if by magic.”

He was opening and closing cupboards and drawers in a manner that would have scandalized Cook, had she known the master of the house was rummaging belowstairs unsupervised.

“What are you looking for?”

“Bread, of course.” He set a loaf wrapped in linen on the counter. “The cheese will be in the window box. I’ll fetch a bottle of cider from the butler’s pantry, and we’ll fend off starvation for the nonce.”

Matilda found a quarter wheel of cheddar in chilly proximity to the window. She was slicing bread—thick enough to toast, not too thick to make sandwiches—when a small boy scooted into the kitchen from the hallway that led to the pantries.

“I was only resting for a moment, sir. The kitchen is ever-so-warm. I wasn’t stealing nothing. I wouldn’t steal when I already have everything I need, would I?”

The lad looked about eight years old to Matilda, though he could be older. The yeomanry did not enjoy regular nutrition, and their offspring were often stunted as a result. This young fellow was quivering between indignation and terror, and spared Matilda not even a glance.

Mr. Wentworth followed the child into the kitchen. “What’s your name, boy?” He set a jug on the counter with an ominous thunk.

“J-Jinks, sir.”

Mr. Wentworth put his hands on his hips. “Your name.”

“Hiram Arthur Jingle, s-sir, but I wasn’t—”

Mr. Wentworth waved a hand. “We’ll need more bread than that, Miss Maddie. Jinks, wash your hands and be thorough with the soap or it will go badly for you.”

The child shot to the copper sink and used an overturned bucket as a step stool. Water splashed while Matilda cut four more slices of bread.

“That’s half the loaf, Mr. Wentworth. Cook will think an invading army has plundered her kitchen.”

“That’s a hungry boy, Miss Maddie. I’ll see to the cheese.”

Whoever the child was, he’d soon have a full belly. Hard to dislike a man who fed hungry children—and hungry women. Jinks set out plates and got down mugs while Mr. Wentworth supervised the cheese toast.

“This is college boy fare,” Mr. Wentworth said, sliding a piece of bread dripping with melted