Mine Is the Night_ A Novel - Liz Curtis Higgs [74]
When they finished, the maidservants scattered—to the kitchen or the dining hall, Jack hoped. Only then did he notice another woman just inside the doorway. Her tattered black gown spoke of a widow without means, yet she was not included on Mrs. Pringle’s list.
The stranger’s face was shadowed by the broad open door, but he clearly saw Charbon curled at her feet. Jack could almost hear the cat purring from where he stood.
“Roberts?”
His butler was beside him at once. “Aye, sir.”
“Who’s the widow by the door?”
“She’s a Highlander. Came from Edinburgh with her mother-in-law, a Mrs. Kerr.”
Jack frowned. “Kerr is hardly a Highland name.” By squinting just so, he caught a glimpse of brown hair, almost the color of his own, a slender neck, and pale skin, though he could not make out her features. “How old would you say she is?”
The butler cleared his throat. “One cannot be certain without asking, but five-and-twenty would be my guess.”
Young, then. But wasn’t everyone when a man reached forty? As Jack watched, she disappeared into the recesses of the house, Charbon in close pursuit. “Perhaps Mrs. Pringle knows something of her story.”
“I believe she does, sir. You may speak with her at any time, of course, but you might prefer to wait ’til after you’ve enjoyed your dinner.”
“Aye,” Jack agreed, striding toward the door. “Dinner.”
Jack was miserable. On the Centurion he’d dined with other officers round the captain’s table, always a convivial group. In London he’d taken his meals at the better inns or public houses with a lively gathering of gentlemen, both friends and strangers. But to sit alone at a long table laden with food enough to feed ten hungry souls while Dickson stood behind him, two footmen tarried at the door, and maidservants came and went with eyes averted—well, it might be proper, but it would not do.
He summoned Roberts. “I wonder if you and Hyslop might join me at table now and again. I realize it flies in the face of convention.”
The color drained from his face. “Sir … we could not possibly …”
Jack narrowed his gaze. “Not even if I commanded it?”
“Oh! Well … of course, sir, but … the others …” Roberts spread out his hands, then folded them together: a servant’s equivalent of a polite shrug.
Seeing how uncomfortable Roberts was with the notion, Jack offered something less daring. “Reverend Brown provided a list of the gentry in Selkirkshire. Might dinner invitations be extended? Two or three a week perhaps?”
Roberts brightened. “I’ll see to it at once.”
It was a start, in any case. Jack surveyed his dining table, toying with another idea. “How many people will she seat?”
“Thirty,” Roberts said, “though the furniture maker still has a dozen chairs to finish.”
“See that he delivers them by the end of June.” Jack looked across the empty room, an image forming in his mind. “On the last of each month, I shall invite the entire household to sup at my table.” He turned to Roberts. “What say you to that?”
His voice was noticeably weaker. “If it pleases your lordship.”
“It does,” Jack assured him, already anticipating the evening.
“I must caution you, sir, their table manners—”
“Will be sufficient to move their food from plate to mouth, aye?” Jack smiled at the man charged with overseeing Bell Hill. Roberts was ever prudent and had his best interests at heart but could also be persuaded to do things his way. “The last day of June, then. I shall look forward to it.”
Roberts bowed. “Might there be anything else, milord?”
Jack pushed back his chair and stretched his legs. “Kindly fetch Mrs. Pringle. And that Kerr woman.”
Thirty-Two
Let honesty be
as the breath of thy soul.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
as his lordship pleased?” Elisabeth asked, her needle darting in and out of the broadcloth. She’d sent the housekeeper upstairs in such haste that the last few inches of Mrs. Pringle’s hem were merely pinned in place. “I pray he didn’t notice the tiny glint of steel along the hemline.”
The housekeeper