to the ceiling. “It is so desperately hard to entertain you, sir!”
“I apologize for it. Perhaps because the purpose of my visit is not to be entertained.”
“Then why did you come?”
He stared at her incredulously. “You invited me. You sent a note round to my hotel. When last we spoke, you said you’d send for me if you had news. You said tonight you had extraordinary news. I have come, Mrs. Honeycutt, for your extraordinary news.”
“Well, yes, but I thought you would be pleasant company now that we are acquainted...oh! There is the tea.” Mrs. Honeycutt startled him by hopping to her feet and hurrying toward the door. He hadn’t even heard the elderly woman come in. She was carrying a silver tray with a tea service. She and Mrs. Honeycutt seemed to have quite a discussion about the tea, but he couldn’t understand what was said.
Mrs. Honeycutt took the tray from the older woman and carried it to a rolling tea cart near the wall on Marek’s left. She was talking the whole time, not surprisingly. He was accustomed to very little chatter, also not surprisingly. She was talking about the tea, he thought, something about where it had been purchased. He wondered what it would be like to spend every night like this, admiring an attractive woman, listening to the lilt of her voice, the rise and fall, even if he couldn’t make out all the words. He thought it might be lovely.
She busied herself with cutting two thick slices of a cake, each slice enough for two people. She handed him a plate and then a cup of tea.
Marek glanced down at the cake in one hand, the tea in the other.
“That won’t do,” she said, and leaned across him, the scent of bergamot and lemon wafting with her. She took the cake from his hand and placed it on the table between the two chairs. “There we are.” She turned back to the cart and helped herself to cake and tea, too, and placed her cake on the table beside the needlework. And then she sat on the chair, kicked off her shoes, and drew her feet up under her skirts.
She was remarkable.
“You didn’t say,” she said as she forked her piece of cake. “What sort?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“On my word, I think you ignore half of what I say, Mr. Brendan. I was asking about the trees in Wesloria. For Christmas.”
Christmas trees. Not tea, then.
She put down her fork. “Did you hear a word I said?”
He blushed hotly. He glanced down at the delicate china teacup. There was no use pretending it wasn’t so. “I, ah...as it happens, I am deaf in my left ear, and perhaps partially so in the right. When someone is standing to my left—”
“It’s just as I thought!” She reached across the table and put her hand to his wrist in a move he was not expecting and almost saw him spill his tea. “I am so very sorry! It all makes sense to me now. My father is blind. Blind as a bat, can’t see anything at all. He likes to knit.” She removed her hand and picked up her fork.
He could not begin to guess what her father’s blindness had to do with his deafness, but it hardly mattered because she was on to the next thing.
“I was saying that Prince Albert brought the tradition of a Christmas tree to London, and none of us have been the same since! I told Donovan we must bring a tree and trim it with all the proper things, and he asked me what the proper things are, and really, I don’t know. Bows, I should think.” She popped a forkful of cake into her mouth. “And then I asked if you have the tradition in Wesloria. Do you?”
“Ah...” He put aside the tea. “Je, we do. Small trees for the table.” He held out his hand to indicate the height of the tree from the floor. More of a shrub, really, if one thought about it. He’d never had one in his house, and was fairly certain if he did, his dogs would think it an invitation to mark their territory. But last Christmas he’d been to dine with his neighbors, the Tarian family, and had spent the entire evening leaning to one side or the other to see around their Christmas tree.
“That sounds lovely,” Mrs. Honeycutt said. “This is delicious.”
“Mrs. Honeycutt,” Marek said. He didn’t know how long he