“I like it.” Robin dug enthusiastically into his eggs. “Salt and all. You should cook every day, Miss Weston.”
“Heaven forbid,” she shuddered. “Then we’ll be eating oversalted eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“I have to say, Miss Weston. I didn’t think you’d had it in you,” Mr Merivale admitted as he put the fork down.
“You liked it? You really did?” She felt the sun rise.
His eyes twinkled. “It wasn’t the worst egg I’ve ever tasted. The other day, Katy managed to miraculously produce purple eggs.” He chuckled.
“Purple eggs! How so?”
“I wanted something special. Not the same old omelette. So I added violets.” Katy explained.
“I am sure it tasted wonderful,” Arabella said. “You’re a good cook.”
“So are you.” Katy replied with a big smile. “Your eggs are better than mine.”
“Especially since they were prepared with gentle hands that previously never have had to cook.” Mr Merivale leaned back in his chair, teasing laughter dancing in his eyes. “Or make fire?”
He couldn’t have seen how she’d fumbled with the tinder box earlier?
“These hands are capable of so much more than just cooking,” Arabella retorted, suddenly overcome with that old feeling again, that urge to prove that she wasn’t entirely useless.
“I have no doubt about that.” He said softly, looking at her hands that rested on the table. Her skin tingled. She rubbed the back of her hand with her thumb.
Philip got up. “Well. Back to work.” He strode to the door and turned. “You are not any less talented for not knowing how to do some things, Miss Weston. I just wanted you to know that.”
Arabella felt something warm spread in her chest. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you for breakfast, Miss Weston,” the children told her before they scampered out of the room.
Arabella felt a feeling she’d never felt before: the feeling of satisfaction when oneproduced food that was eaten.
Chapter 12
Miss Weston and the children had disappeared into the parlour, and Philip hadn’t seen any of them since. He’d cleared out the parlour earlier, so they could use it as a school room.
Philip chuckled at the memory of breakfast and the oversalted eggs. She hadn’t noticed, but he’d watched her through the kitchen window. She’d first stood in the kitchen, lost, then struggled with his improved tinderbox, as he called it, his very own invention. A laugh escaped him. She’d struggled with the fire, too, first putting in too many logs, then taking them all out again, then putting in too much paper, then taking it all out again as well, then alternating between logs and paper. She’d crouched on the floor, her hair undone, her cheeks red with blowing into the sparks. He’d expected her to give up and dissolve into tears. He was about to have mercy on her and relieve her of the task. Instead, he’d heard her utter an unladylike curse and growl, “I can do this, if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.”
And then she did.
A feeling of grudging admiration took hold of him. She wasn’t one who gave up easily. She wasn’t the milk-and-water miss he’d feared she’d be. This Miss Weston had gumption. She was a problem solver. Just like him.
Philip walked past the open door to the parlour with the pretext of obtaining a mug of ale from the kitchen. To his surprise, the children were sitting at the table, their heads bent over their slates. He hovered behind the door to listen.
“I am going to invent a flying machine,” he heard Robin say. “It’s going to look like this.” He heard the chalk squeak on the slate.
Ah. Brilliant child.
“How clever of you, Robin,” he heard Miss Weston say. “But now we want to focus on our Latin. Shall we? Translate ‘the bird flies under the cloud’.”
“Avis volat in nube.”
“Try again.”
“Avis volat sub nube.”
“Almost. It’savis volat sub nubem,” she corrected. “And now try to say, The bird flies through the cloud.”
