When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,23

cheese onto a plate. “Jinks, you will mind your manners. We’ve a lady at table with us.”

Jinks was minding the cheese toast, his gaze fixed on the platter like a cat watching a mousehole. Matilda poured three servings of steaming mulled cider and brought them to the table, as the fragrance of cinnamon filled the kitchen.

“Miss Maddie.” Mr. Wentworth held a chair.

She sat, though the moment was awkward. The boy was watching his employer, perhaps seeing for the first time how a gentleman held a chair for a lady.

Mr. Wentworth loomed over the boy. “Hands.”

The child held up his hands, palms down.

“Other side.”

The child obliged.

“We must acquaint you with a nail brush, Jinks. You can tell a lady by her hands. You can tell a lout by his even more easily. Sit.”

Jinks scrambled into a chair, and the concussion of feet kicking at chair rungs followed.

Mr. Wentworth sliced each piece of toast across the middle, putting two triangles on Jinks’s plate after he’d served Matilda.

“For what we are about to receive,” Mr. Wentworth intoned, “we are grateful, even if Cook scolds us halfway to perdition in the morning. Jinks, bow your head. The toast will still be on your plate when the grace is concluded.”

The child bowed his head.

“And should the Almighty see fit to bless our impromptu feast,” Mr. Wentworth continued, “we hope that He will send an angel down the passage to have a look in on Mrs. Newbury, whose swift recovery would be the answer to many prayers. Amen.”

The child darted a glance at Mr. Wentworth, but didn’t touch the food until Matilda picked up a piece of her toast.

“Amen,” she said, biting into a piece of heaven. The cheese was barely melted, the toast made from fresh bread warmed to perfection. “This is good.”

How she had missed hot food. How she had missed sitting down to eat with others rather than cramming sustenance into her mouth as she dodged behind a hedge. How she had missed spices, which turned mere cider into ambrosia.

Jinks slurped his drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then went back to demolishing his toast.

Matilda expected Mr. Wentworth to scold the boy, or at least instruct him on the use of a table napkin, but Mr. Wentworth was consuming his own portion as if he sat down to supper with the boot boy regularly.

I studied for the church. Why hadn’t he taken up that vocation—or had he?

Matilda ate in silence, trying to appreciate the food despite the impending interrogation from Mr. Wentworth. All too soon, the toast was gone, extra slices of bread and cheese had been wrapped in a napkin for Jinks, and the boy sent up the servants’ stairs to his frigid quarters in the attic.

“Let’s finish the cider, shall we?” Mr. Wentworth suggested when the food had been put away and the table swept free of crumbs. “Confession can be a thirsty undertaking.”

“I have no sins to confess,” Matilda said. “But I do wonder why, if you love children as much as I think you do, you are an itinerant bachelor who barely tolerates the company of his neighbors.”

Mr. Wentworth divided the remaining cider between his mug and Matilda’s. “You invite me to lead by example. Very well, but the tale is neither complicated nor pretty. Have a seat, and I’ll find us a few biscuits.”

* * *

“What the hell are we doing not five miles from where you nearly got me killed?” Herman Smith muttered.

Last week, they’d been Treachers. Sometimes they were Smiths. In Wales they tended to be Joneses. Up north, Roberts, Taylor, or Brown would do. No matter the last name, Herman and Jeffrey always seemed to find themselves without funds, and in the path of winter and summer storms when only the meanest of accommodations were to be had.

“We are warm and comfortable,” Jeffrey replied, swirling his pint. “Enjoying fine ale, flirting with the friendly tavern maids. Have another mug, Herm. Nobody’s going anywhere until this snow melts.”

Their money was going somewhere—straight into the pockets of mine greedy innkeeper. “Leave the women alone, Jeffy. They’ll steal the coins you don’t part with voluntarily.”

Women were trouble. Herman’s own mum had told him that, God rest her larcenous and often violent soul.

“This is snuggling weather,” Jeffrey replied, lifting his tankard in the direction of a chubby maid with a saucy gaze. “Nothing wards off the chill like a wench.”

The common room of the Drunken Duck was full of the usual storm refugees: a stranded coachload including