“You didn't say Jacques wants a dinner party!” Kate cried the instant he entered.
Fletch deliberated turning around and going back outside. She wanted to go?
Not waiting for a reply, she continued while removing his potatoes from the fire. “I sent Rob over to see if they're willing to join us. You'll need to clear off the dining table. We haven't had dinner guests in forever! This is exciting.” She bustled out to the front parlor.
Here? She meant to bring a troupe of actors here? Complete strangers? Was the woman mad? Fletch stalked after her. “You don't even know these people! They could be a gang of thieves.”
Ignoring his warning, she opened the shutters to better study her unused parlor in the evening light. “Jacques is a nice young man. I've been meaning to invite him over, but it's awkward entertaining a gentleman as a widow.”
What was he, furniture? Not a gentleman, apparently.
“Do you think any of his guests are women? Perhaps I should have Brydie here,” she fretted.
He'd not met Jacques' tenants, but he'd come to know Damien's valet while they lived at the inn. Refraining from rolling his eyes, he said, “I doubt the proprieties are required in this case.”
She shot him a questioning look. When he had no words to explain, she glared at his oily mess in the dining parlor. “I know your work is important, but for just one night, can it be moved?”
She'd been a widow without any form of society for over a year. Unlike him, Kate seemed to enjoy company. He was the intruder here. Stupid to make himself at home.
At least she'd said his work was important. He'd thought of it as tinkering. “Should I take this project to the barn?”
“Good heavens, no, the clock is too valuable for that! The barn leaks.” She gave it some thought, then wrinkled her pretty nose. “My father's room. Brydie and Damien fixed it up while the Hall was being renovated. Lay an old sheet over the bedcover, move your work up there. . . I believe there's a comfortable chair in there.”
She was moving him upstairs, with her family. Fletch didn't know whether to run, screaming, from that level of civilization, or enjoy the expectations running rampant through his sick head.
He had to remember she was not a loose woman like his former mistress. Kate was a respectable lady with family who'd kill him if he insulted her. How could she be so utterly naïve about their situation? He shouldn’t even be here—except he needed help and she needed protection.
He should sleep in the leaky barn.
Twenty
Kate
Already excited by the fine, hardly-worn, children’s clothing she’d found in Henri’s boxes, Kate’s humor was fully restored at the idea of a dinner party, even if she had an uncivil soldier camping in her dining room. She refused to worry about Hugh trying to kill her with a pea-shooter. That was most likely boys being boys. Tonight, she looked forward to an evening of actual conversation. She missed dinner parties.
She set Rob and Lynly to cleaning dinnerware while the major moved his oily clockworks. She knew she could repair and alter her new purchases for Easter Sunday, but she wanted something special for their birthdays. She hoped she had enough coin left to buy Fletch’s automatons—if he was willing to sell them. She hated to ask, but for her children, she’d do anything. They had so little frivolous joy in their lives. But now was not the moment for asking. She had a dinner to prepare out of next to nothing.
Besides her widowhood, one of the many reasons they hadn’t held dinner parties recently was lack of any meat other than chicken. It had taken all her coins to buy the smoked ham and rashers last fall, and they were almost gone. Rob had said their guests were bringing their own supper, so she hoped they had enough for all. Rafe’s meat pie and her spring greens would only go so far.
She washed up and donned her best dark blue bombazine. The evenings were still cool enough for wool. She wound blue and gold ribbons through her auburn hair and studied the mirror for signs of gray. The poor light and badly silvered surface didn’t reveal any, yet. Then she donned a blue wool shawl with gold embroidery and set out for her first social entertainment in. . . forever. She hadn’t hosted any dinners during her husband’s illness and very few even before. George had been a good, decent man who was painfully aware of his lack of gentrified manners and speech.
She was adding watercress to the cheese plate when Rob shouted from the parlor that their guests were arriving. Even though she meant for the children to eat in the kitchen, she’d had them clean up and don their Sunday clothes so they might meet their new neighbors.
Major Fletcher had grumbled and threatened to eat in the barn, but he was at the door before she'd removed her apron. He'd retrieved a tailored uniform coat and a decent waistcoat out of his valise and even ironed his linen himself. As a former officer, he knew how to dress properly.
“We're here with food, fun, and entertainment,” Jacques called as he entered, carrying one of the Hall’s porcelain tureens. Damien's family had once been wealthy. The family heirlooms he couldn’t give away had been abandoned at the Hall, although Brydie had begun appropriating some for their new home.
“Only Kitty, Othello, and Mercurio have come with me.” Jacques handed the dish to the major as if he were a butler.
Fletch handed it back.
Kitty, Othello, and Mercurio? Trying not to stare at the eccentric assembly obviously using stage names, Kate rescued the delicate tureen as introductions were made.
Kitty appeared to be a very large, raw-boned woman in an elegant silk dinner gown and the shadow of a beard. She dipped a graceful curtsy worthy of a duchess.
Othello was properly. . . bronze. Garbed in flowing pantaloons and a blouse of rust and gold satin, he wore the exotic attire with tall, cuffed boots. His coarse hair and beard were plaited in dozens of piratical braids which were strangely attractive.
An older person of average height and distinguished posture, with silvered hair and olive complexion, Mercurio might pass for an Italian aristocrat. Even his—her?—accent was slightly foreign. Their embroidered frockcoat and breeches from an earlier decade were rather dashing—except for the hint of bosom beneath the ruffled linen.
