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Such machinations seemed disrespectful. Almost as disrespectful as presenting oneself as a guest when one intended to comport oneself as anything but.
Fiona sighed in her sleep, her second protracted nap of the day. “Shall we wake her?”
Hester brushed the child’s hair back off her forehead, the gesture tender and, to Tye, unsettling. “To what purpose?”
“So she isn’t keeping you up half the night when you’re obviously fatigued from looking after her the livelong day.”
“I’ll manage.”
With two words, she might as well have kicked Tye out of the compartment, so vast was the indifference she conveyed. She put him in mind of his mother after a particularly vexing do
“Hester, I am not your enemy.”
“No, you are not.” She studied him for a moment in the dim light of the compartment. “You are not my friend, either.”
The hope he’d been guarding for a hundred miles curled up under his heart with a weary whimper.
But it did not die. He was nowhere near ready to allow it to die.
They arrived to Quinworth well after dark, though even by torchlight, Hester could see the place was imposing. The facade was a vast expanse of pale blond stone, the same shade as Alnwick Castle, but modernized to boast many windows, and terraces abundantly graced with flowers.
Fiona would delight in exploring the place.
“Is she still asleep?” Hester kept her voice down, lest the child slumbering in Spathfoy’s arms waken.
“Out like a candle.”
“I can take her.”
“Get out of the coach, Hester. She’s too heavy for you, and you’re dead on your feet.”
He sounded amused and so damnably patient, Hester had no choice but to comply. A liveried, gloved footman assisted her from the carriage and stood by while Spathfoy managed to maneuver himself and his burden out of the coach.
“Has a room been prepared for the child?” Spathfoy’s voice was soft in the gloom.
The footman kept his eyes front. “In the nursery wing, my lord. There’s a room for the child’s nurse as well.”
“Miss Daniels is not the child’s nurse, but rather, my guest. Please inform Mrs. Hitchins that Lady Dora’s room is to be given over to Miss Daniels’s use, and have a truckle bed put there as well for the child.”
The footman snapped a bow. “Pardon for my mistake, and I’ll see to it at once, my lord. I’m to tell you there’s refreshment awaiting you in the library, my lord.”
Hester glanced at Spathfoy to see if all these obsequies were making his head spin, but he appeared quite at home.
He was home. She surveyed again the enormous edifice before them, and realized how humble Fiona’s household in the Highlands must have seemed by comparison.
“Miss Daniels, are you coming?”
She was Miss Daniels now, not Hester. That was to be expected. She moved along at his side while footmen and porters swarmed the coach, unloading boxes and trunks and yelling at one another to have a care with that bag.
This was Tye’s welcome home—three “my lords” and a tray in the library.
This was Fiona’s welcome as well. Hester was not at all pleased, not for the child, and not for the son of the house who’d been sent north to retrieve the child. She followed Spathfoy through an enormous, soaring foyer, down a lighted hallway, and into a cavernous library.
“We’ll need to give the servants some time to make up Dora’s bed for you,” he said as he laid Fiona on a leather couch, then rearranged the blanket she’d been wrapped in. “And you should eat something.”
“Does it strike you as odd that the marquess is not on hand to greet his long-lost granddaughter?”
Spathfoy straightened but continued to regard the sleeping child. “His lordship is an early riser. He and Fiona will have plenty of time to greet each other tomorrow. May I fix you a plate?”
He crossed to a sideboard where Hester spied a veritable feast. “Is this how the help indicate they’re pleased to see you?” Beef, chicken, and ham slices were arranged on one tray, several kinds of cheese on another; hulled strawberries were piled high in a crystal bowl; and various pastries and tea cakes with all the fixings sat on a second tray.
No chocolate cakes, though.
“Pleased to see me? I haven’t a clue. This is how they indicate they wish to continue in my father’s employment. As I recall, you like a deal of butter with your scones.”
She let him do this, let him prepare her some sustenance, just as she’d let him manage all the details of getting them safely half the length of the kingdom. He was good at it, in part because people seemed naturally to heed him, but also because he had the knack of anticipating which detail was about to need attention—like putting a truckle bed for Fee in Hester’s room.
She accepted a plate from him, piled high with good food. “Thank you, Spathfoy, but you’ve served me far more than I can hope to consume.”
“We’ll share, then. Will you pour?”
She ought to balk. She ought to shove the plate at him, fix herself a more modest serving, and find a single chair on which to seat herself.
But it was late, they were both exhausted, and the remaining sofa looked comfortable. “I’ll pour. I should also make up a little something for Fiona if she should wake in the night.”
“Ring for the kitchen—one pull is the kitchen, two is the servants’ hall, which will get you a footman.”
He began to put away food at a prodigious rate, while Hester savored a fortifying cup of tea. She’d just realized she’d poured none for him, when he looked up. “You’re not going to join me?”
“In a minute.” She passed him a cup of tea, which he drained and held out to her for more.
This little late-night meal held an intimacy. Hester watched Spathfoy eat with his fingers, while the fire—a wood fire, no less—snapped and crackled softly.
“How long will you stay, Hester?”
She could divine nothing from his question, not hope, not impatience. “I don’t know. Not long. A few days, maybe a span of weeks. Are you in a hurry to see me off the property?”
He paused with a rolled-up piece of ham halfway to his mouth. “You are tired, and this was not at all how you expected your day to unfold. Have I thanked you? I’m not sure how I would have managed both Fiona and Rowan in Aberdeen. One of them would have gotten loose and come to mischief if you hadn’t been on hand.”
“You’re very patient with your horse.” He was patient under other circumstances, too, but she pushed that awareness to the back of her weary mind.
“I’m not patient so much as determined. I get it from both my father and my mother. Eat something before I demolish the entire plate.” He held it out to her, an offering of ham, beef, strawberries, and two buttered scones.
And of peace. He had not allowed her to pick a fight, and she was grateful for his forbearance. “Will you check on Rowan before you turn in?”
“I probably should, but I’ll see you and Fiona up to your room first. The layout of the house isn’t complicated. I’ll give you a tour tomorrow, and you’ll catch on in a couple of days. Go ahead and eat the strawberries, Hester. They’ll go to waste if you don’t.”
Hester. She liked it when he called her Hester rather than Miss Daniels. They were not friends, but it was as he’d said: they were not enemies either.
She ate every last strawberry on the plate.
Hale Fly
He understood horses and respected them for their elegance, utility, and sheer, brute strength.
He understood his place in the world, his title being a symbol of stability and tradition in a society where progress was touted on every street corner while bewilderment lurked in the heart of the common man.