“Davina,” I replied with a curtsy.
She turned back to Kit. “Where’d you find her? The palace?”
“Lizzie!” Mrs. Summers protested.
Kit rose, children still wrapped about him. “She’s not like that, Liz.” I resisted the urge to point out that he’d considered me exactly like that a mere half hour ago.
“I expect you’ll both be wanting a bath?” she asked by way of response.
He sighed, which would’ve been more impressive were he wearing less mud and fewer children. “Yes, please. And the use of a wagon if you have it.”
“Syd’s got it. He’ll be back before supper. I’ll get the water on,” she said. “Staying for supper as well?” She wandered over to the kitchen and added a few logs to the fire with one hand, babe still resting on her hip with the other.
“Please, and we’ve two others with the carriage.”
“They’re a mess as well?”
“Yes.”
She added another log without comment. “Simon, run down to the well if you please. Take Sarah too.” And the two oldest children broke off Kit’s legs and moved to the door, where they slipped through with ease.
“Oh, I can, if you just point the way,” I offered, gesturing to the door.
“Oh no!” Mrs. Summers insisted. “The two of you have clearly been through an ordeal. You should sit. I’m sorry, Lizzie’s completely forgotten her manners. What on earth happened?”
“Carriage accident,” Kit explained, moving to untangle himself from the still-clinging children.
“What?” his mother cried. “Is that blood on your forehead? I thought it was mud!”
“We’re fine, Mum. I’m going to help with the water,” he explained, batting ineffectually at her fretting hands.
“He hit his head,” I informed her, and he shot me a look when his mother immediately increased her fussing. She directed him to the table and pressed him into a chair. “I was going to stitch it,” I added, “but it seemed better to clean it first, if we could.”
Mrs. Earnshaw approached with a bowl of water and a clean cloth balanced in one hand. “Did you do this before or after you married without telling your family?”
“After,” Kit replied, not rising to the implied insult. His sister wandered off upstairs wordlessly.
I settled across from him and dipped the cloth in the water and then dabbed it to his cut. When I dipped it back in the water, the basin quickly swirled a terra-cotta brown.
“Was anyone else hurt in the accident?” Mrs. Summers asked, still fretting on Kit’s other side as the remaining children claimed chairs to watch.
“Kit took the worst of it,” I replied. “Just a few bumps and bruises for the rest of us.”
Mrs. Earnshaw came back down the stairs carrying a box of sewing notions in one hand, the child still resting on her hip. “I don’t have anything for the pain.” She settled the box before me with an expectant brow.
I’d never actually stitched flesh. But it couldn’t be so terribly different from fabric. Could it? Besides, this was clearly a test. One I was almost certain I could pass. I would pass. I had to.
“Shouldn’t have left the whiskey in the carriage, should we?” I asked, teasing.
“Mum can do it. It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said.
“Oh?” I asked, then shook off Mrs. Summers’ outstretched hand. “I wouldn’t have thought you accident prone.”
The corner of his lip quirked up in what I considered to be the biggest smile he was capable of. “You’ve forgotten the sight of me on the dance floor?”
Mrs. Earnshaw huffed behind him, but his mother’s soft, dreamy sigh overpowered it.
“You managed to refrain from maiming my feet. You merely require proper direction.”
