Peg nodded and crossed the room to the waiting baskets.
When her back was turned, Joan whispered, “Peg makes thin gruel for the children. It’s better for their little stomachs.”
And cheaper, Margaret thought, but did not say so.
“Six parts water to one part groats. Can you manage that? Unless you’d rather change Henry?”
“No thank you. I shall give gruel a go.”
———
Later, after they had eaten thin, lumpy, mildly scorched gruel with neither milk nor sugar, Margaret fumbled her way through drying the pot, spoons, and basins as Joan washed. As she did so, she thought about something Joan had said—that Peg’s name and address were recorded in Benton’s staff records as Joan’s next of kin. Sterling might very well put two and two together and knock on Peg’s door any moment looking for her. Margaret shuddered. She could not stay there long.
After the dishes were put away, Joan sat down with a wrinkled copy of a newspaper a few days old, reading through the advertisements. Not knowing what else to do, Margaret pulled her comb from her bag and went to work on the little girl’s hair, untangling then plaiting the ginger strands.
Peg glanced from her sewing to Joan, still bent over the newspaper. “Any luck, Joan?”
Joan shook her head. “It seems everyone wants maids-of-all-work here in town. That’s one fate I should like to avoid.”
Reaching the end of the girl’s hair, Margaret looked around for a ribbon or something else to secure it.
Peg tossed her a thin scrap of muslin. “Here.”
Margaret tied the end of the plait, and the girl stroked her coppery braid, smiling coyly up at Joan. “Am I pretty, Aunt Joan?”
Joan looked from her niece to Margaret, then back again. “Pretty is as pretty does, little miss. You remember that.”
The jab was intended for her, Margaret realized. At the moment, being pretty seemed of little use. What should shedo?
The “Gentleman Pirate”... a retired British
army major with a large sugar plantation in Barbados,
abandoned his wife, children, land and fortune; bought
a ship; and turned to piracy on the high seas.
—Amy Crawford,Smithsonianmagazine
Chapter 4
Nathaniel Aaron Upchurch spent two restless nights in his family’s London residence after his appearance at the ball. He did not see his brother at all the first day. Lewis slept in very late and then had left for his club while Nathaniel met with the family’s London banker. He supposed his brother was avoiding him after their fight.
In Lewis’s absence, Nathaniel began taking stock of the situation—gathering unpaid bills and paying the permanent staff as well as the valet and coachman who had come up from Maidstone to help run the place. All the while his sister remained in Fairbourne Hall, necessitating the upkeep of both houses simultaneously, further compounding their expenses.
Lewis sauntered down for breakfast late the second morning, sporting a black eye and bruised cheek. “I say, Nate ol’ boy, you made quite an entrance the other night.”
Nathaniel regarded his brother warily, but Lewis’s tone held no rancor. Nathaniel regretted losing his temper, overtired from the journey as he was. He was determined not to do so again.
Lewis sized him up, surveying him from head to toe. Nathaniel became conscious of the fact that he had yet to shave his beard or cut his hair.
“My, my,” Lewis drawled. “Who, I wonder, is this rogue before me and what has happened to my young pup of a brother?”
“Two years in Barbados happened.”
“The island did not have such an effect on me.”
Unfortunately, Nathaniel thought. But he said, “I am sorry we came to blows at the ball.”
