“If it was young Sebastian, I’d have my doubts,” Quinn said. “But you were always a good boy.”
Lord Randolph made a face as if he wasn’t entirely pleased with this characterization.
“Well, come in, come in.” The old woman moved back and gestured.
The door opened directly into a small parlor, uncluttered and comfortable. A fire burned low on the hearth. Their hostess moved unerringly to a chair before it, set the candle on a little table to the side, and sat down. “I don’t sleep much these days,” she said. “I often sit up here. It’s more interesting than lying in the bed, isn’t it? I do miss reading though.” She said it without self-pity.
“Where’s Dorothy?” asked Lord Randolph.
“Away visiting her sick sister. And the fuss she made about going! You wouldn’t credit it. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
He looked relieved, and Verity wondered who Dorothy might be. Probably a companion for the old lady.
“Sit down now. Will you take a drop of cider?” Her gnarled hand fell to an earthenware crock at the side of the fireplace. She obviously knew the place of each object in her home, Verity thought.
“No, thank you, Quinn.” Lord Randolph sat on a straight chair, leaving Verity the seat opposite their hostess.
“Always a polite boy.” The old woman smiled, teasing a little. “He writes me more than all the others put together, you know,” she told Verity. “A lovely copperplate, too. I taught him that. I can still see it, even if Dorothy has to read the words to me.”
“My brothers visit,” he responded.
“So they do.” She nodded. “Such a mob of lads. Six! Why Nanny—Hannah, that is—had three nursery maids working under her and a junior cook slaving away just to feed them. And I was practically running a dame school all on my own. If two of the boys were busy, two others would be up and racing about. Little Alan…purely amazing, he was. Knew more than I did by the time he was four years old.”
Verity found the picture both endearing and daunting.
“He lives up at Oxford, you know. Lord only knows what he does there. He tried to tell me once, but I couldn’t follow beyond a—” Quinn’s nod deepened and slowed. Her eyelids drooped. And then she was asleep in her chair.
“She does sleep,” said Lord Randolph quietly. “Like a log, actually. Just not in her bed.”
Indeed, the old woman showed no signs of stirring. “How do you know?”
“Mama keeps track of her. Quinn began to lose her sight before Alan went off to school, and so we had to find a place for her.”
Which was more than many families would do, Verity thought.
“Dorothy takes her over to Mama’s school every week. She tells stories to the littlest girls.” He stood. “Come.”
Verity followed him through a doorway at the left of the fireplace and discovered that the cottage was larger than it looked from the outside. The building stretched back from the street. They walked through a small kitchen with another hearth at the end; a wide room with beds on either side, partitioned off by thick curtains; and finally into a spacious, well-equipped sewing room. Shelves held a selection of fabrics, a rainbow of color. There was a long cutting table down one side and a daybed in the far corner. A sumptuous silk gown, half finished, was draped over a dressmaker’s dummy.
“Dorothy’s a seamstress,” said Lord Randolph. “Daughter of a Langford tenant. Very talented, I hear. Mama set her up in business with the condition that she look after Quinn. Well, they were friends already. It was no hardship. Dorothy could sew up your cloak in a trice. Only, she’d give me such a glare for bringing you here at this hour.”
He was babbling. Verity rather liked it. She took off her cloak. Her sensible, practical part noted that the old thing had torn at both shoulders, and the cloth was frayed along the seams. It would take an age to fix it. Best to stitch up her dress and carry the cloak. There was no fire in here, and the chilly air drifted through the long rip at the waist.
“I knew you’d easily find needle and thread in Dorothy’s workshop,” Lord Randolph added.
It was very quiet. And clandestine. Verity savored the word. She’d never been clandestine in her life, and she might never be again. She felt as if she’d fallen into a fairy tale. She’d come to the good witch’s cottage, and magic was