Miss Montgomery laughed, and it reminded him of church bells on Christmas Eve. The sound brought a smile to his face as he speared a piece of chicken.
“I must admit that I never quite mastered any of it,” Miss Montgomery replied. “It’s a good thing I haven’t needed to cook for myself here. I’m afraid I might starve.”
“Surely it can’t be that bad. It can’t be worse than my attempts at beans,” Mark said.
“Oh no, my creations are truly terrible. You may break your teeth.”
Mark laughed.
“Thankfully, I never had to cook to survive,” she said as she set her fork down.
Mark thought back to when his mother patiently taught his younger sister how to knead bread and cut carrots. And then he tried to imagine being wealthy enough that such skills weren’t needed. “Did your parents discover your friendship with Mrs. McNab?”
Miss Montgomery appeared to think for a moment as she rested her fork on her plate. “They didn’t. I was forever disappointing them, so I doubt they would have been surprised.”
She glanced at him with an expression so heartbreaking that Mark reached out and laid his hand upon hers. He hadn’t fully realized what he’d done right away, thinking only that she was hurting and he wished to comfort her. And once he did realize that this might not be the wisest decision, he didn’t much want to pull his hand away.
Charlotte’s eyes darted to their hands, but she made no move to extract hers. Mark’s heart swelled with some undefinable hope as he kept his palm resting over the back of her smaller hand.
“I don’t see how you could be a disappointment to anyone, much less your parents,” he finally said, dragging his mind back to the conversation.
She gave him the ghost of a smile. “When I was young, I was forever climbing trees and tearing my stockings. I much preferred conversing with the gardener or the cook to perfecting my needlepoint or sitting quietly. I even convinced Anthony—that’s my oldest brother—to show me how to fight when I was twelve. But now . . . mostly my mother worries about how brash I am with company and how little I’m interested in meeting the men my father carefully chooses. Such as Mr. Lindstrom.” She shuddered slightly at the name.
A flicker of irritation at his employer sparked inside of Mark at Miss Montgomery’s words. What sort of man wanted to push his daughter into a marriage that would surely be unhappy?
A man who was paying him, that’s who.
But here, with Miss Montgomery sitting across from him looking every bit of the vulnerable yet confident woman she was, Mark wondered if the money was worth her misery.
He tightened his hand around hers. He shouldn’t feel guilty. After all, it wasn’t as if Mr. Montgomery had asked him to push Miss Montgomery into marriage. He only needed to keep her safe.
“Are you all right?” Miss Montgomery’s voice was laced with a quiet concern. “It looks as if something is troubling you.”
Had he been that obvious with his thoughts? The idea sat uneasily with him. What if Miss Montgomery could see the effect she was beginning to have on him?
Mark quickly arranged his face into a neutral expression. "I’m fine. I only wish I could have helped you find Mrs. McNab.”
“Are you speaking of Ruby McNab?” Their waitress, a tall, slim woman older than both Mark and Miss Montgomery, had returned with a pitcher of water. Mark yanked his hand away, stowing it safely on his lap.
“Yes, indeed, we are.” Miss Montgomery turned her friendly smile to the waitress. “Do you know her?”
The waitress refilled each of their water glasses before speaking. She clutched the pitcher between both hands. “I’m afraid to say I did know her. She worked here for a while. Hired her on myself. I thought she was a nice girl, newly married and needing to earn some money.”
The waitress frowned. “I didn’t realize that her idea of earning money was stealing everything we had made in a week.”
