The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater Page 0,35

my broken arm.” She hesitated, then asked, “Will she talk about me, Richard? Tell everyone about my arm and what I look like?”

Richard said quietly, “Rest your mind easy about that, Mistress Radcliffe. Elspeth Cameron will have plenty to say to you in private, if you do aught she disapproves of, but she’d rather be boiled in one of her own kettles than talk about farm business to any Sassenach—that’s you English,” he explained with a grin.

“Not me,” said Kathryn stoutly. “I’m an American.” She got up, adjusted the veil and handed Richard her reticule. “Please pay the landlord for my room and the excellent meal. Ask the girl to bring down my things. I’m really too weary to climb the stairs again.”

At once Richard got up and went out. She could hear him, low-voiced, arranging to have his horse put to, and paying the bill. In a moment the little chambermaid was back, holding Kathryn’s satchel. “I put in your comb and brush, ma’am, and your soap in the silver box,” she said, wide-eyed.

“Thank you. You must have” (what did they call it in the 1770s?) “a gratuity,” Kathryn said from behind the veil.

The girl bobbed and smiled. “Mr. Bennet, he already give me money from your purse, ma’am, and some for the kitchen maid too.”

“Good,” said Kathryn, hoping Richard’s beneficence hadn’t turned her into a nine days’ wonder in case Lord John ever made inquiries for a lady with a broken arm. Still, she’d hidden that fact, she was sure, and the veil had hidden Nadine’s face. And the too-memorable hair.

Richard let her out and helped her into the small two-wheeled carriage, stowed her satchel under the seat, and took his place beside her. The landlord, his wife, and the chambermaid all stood on the broad doorstep, waving them off, with the well-lighted inn looking cozy as a Christmas card behind them.

Kathryn had determined to ask many questions about the Vicar and the farm, but before she knew it she was fast asleep against Richard’s shoulder, with his arm firm and gentle around her. And so she came to Bennet Farm.

Ten

She woke very early with the sound of cowbells sweetly discordant, and a very unmelodious voice raised in Covenanting hymns directly beneath her room. She stretched luxuriously. The bed was firm enough to give her support; the linen was sweet with lavender, which came to her nose in fragrant whiffs every time she moved. The windows in her room were small, with many tiny leaded panes. Ruffled white curtains moved in the gentle breeze from the open windows. The early sunlight flickered on them like flakes of gold.

Kathryn’s gaze slid lazily over the coverlet, a cheerful bright patchwork in blue and white; the floor, of oak polished to a satiny glow and covered with hand-woven blue rugs; a big old fashioned dresser with a starched white cloth on the top of it, and a heavy armoire, or cupboard, occupying most of one wall. A tiny round mirror hung above the dresser, so high that one would have to go on tiptoe to see one’s face. Kathryn’s lips quirked into a smile. She would be willing to bet that the owner of the voice singing doleful hymns had chosen that mirror. Trust a dour Scot to avoid the very appearance of vanity! Plain living and high thinking for you, my girl, she told herself; and then, more soberly, it’s what you’re used to, Kathryn Hendrix, so you’ll be right at home.

The words had a good ring. I’ve never really had a home, she thought, quite without self-pity, rather with a kind of self-discovery. Isn’t it strange I should feel so much at home in this English farmhouse, two hundred years before my birth? A little shiver of unease ran through her. Don’t get too attached to all this!

“Time I was up and about the business of earning my living.” In a library, too! Even if it was a multilingual hodge-podge, the choice and inheritance of an unworldly eighteenth century clergyman, it should be fascinating and absorbing. And rather a change from the flesh-pots of high society in London . . .

Kathryn sat up abruptly, not liking the direction her thoughts were taking. What folly to remember a pair of gray eyes warm with emotion, a golden head bent to hers, a deep voice saying, “You cannot deny that we do have—something for each other?”

Whatever they had, thought Kathryn crossly, it was Nadine and John who had it, not Kathryn.