She shakes her head. “I will be fine. I just needto eat something. We must get to London.”
I frown but do not dare to contradict her. I don’t want to upset her in her state.
The tavern maid comes then with the bread and cheese and cold meat and a passel of roasted potatoes. It is standard tavern fare but looks fresh and wholesome enough.
Once the maid puts down the plate, Annabelle doesn’t hesitate. Before the maid’s back is turned, she has a hunk of bread in her mouth.
She continues to eat the bread and I join her. It is a good repast and I am heartened to see her appetite. However, it only convinces me that I am correct. Emily always said she felt better if she could eat something solid after casting up her accounts—that it settled her stomach—and that she had to work to eat even when she didn’t feel like it.
I am hit with another jolt of anxiety. I know Annabelle consented to trying for a child. But she seemed unconvinced that it would be possible. I don’t want anything to interrupt our intimacy, especially when she seems to be growing fonder of me. When I tell her, I must pick the best way to do it.
A shadow looms over our table.
“Are you Annabelle de Lacey?” says a high, soft voice.
I look up, ready to defend my wife. Sure that I will have to. But the two faces hovering over the table give me pause.
They are young women, younger than both myself and Annabelle, with thin faces. They cannot be more than one-or-two-and-twenty. Brunettes. Sisters maybe.
One of the young women, who I guess is the one who spoke, has a large red birthmark across half of her face. Her eyes are trained on Annabelle. The other can’t seem to meet our eyes.
My wife gives them a guarded look. “Either you know who I am, or you do not.”
The one who spoke gasps. “Youareher.”
“It is not something many women would freely admit while traveling on this road,” Annabelle says, but to my surprise she has returned to her bread and cheese. I am perplexed. I still feel trepidation—but Annabelle has clearly relaxed.
“We are going to London,” the bold one says. “To start a new life. And we have heard—that you hire women in your counting house.”
Annabelle nods. “I do.”
“We would be so honored to work for you, Miss de Lacey.”
“What skills do you have?” my wife asks, putting down her hunk of bread again. Her face appears less peaked now.
“Amber has a marvelous head for numbers,” the talker says, nudging her companion.
“Is that so?”
The girl raises up her eyes for the first time. She has one brown eye and one blue. The effect at first is jarring. Now the women seem less like sisters. Their faces do not hold any particular resemblance.
“Yes,” she says. “Everyone back home says it.”
“And where is home?” Annabelle asks.
“Farleigh-on-Kilbarton,” answers the young woman with the birthmark. “In Northumberland.”
“You’ve come a long way already then.”
“Yes. But we so want to get to London. We’ve been on the train a long while. And now only half a day more.”
“Did you come all the way to London to work for me? If so, that was foolish.”
At first I assume Annabelle is jesting.
But the young women nod. And it seems Annabelle is not surprised.
“We didn’t depend on it,” the shy one says. “But we did hope…”
