Just then, he entered the drawing room, enjoying a brief respite from his upstairs study, where he’d been handling correspondence since their midday meal.
Frowning when he saw his wife sewing, Peter August von Ostenfeld said, “I can simply buy a new coat,meine Frau.You shouldn’t wear out your fingers.”
Lise’s mother laughed.“I know you can, dearest, but mending gives me joy and purpose.You wouldn’t deny me either, would you?”
He sighed.“As long as no one sees you.I don’t want anyone thinking I’m too poor to buy a coat.”
Lise lifted her head to see if he was serious.They lived in their spacious ancestral home on an estate of sizable acreage outside of Eutin, in the most desirable, beautiful spot in the world, as far as she was concerned.Not too far from the Baltic Sea in one direction and Hamburg in the other.
“How could anyone think you poor, Papa?”
He didn’t answer, merely shrugging.Then her father sniffed, which lifted his bushy mustache, before he peered at what she was doing.About to say something, the methodical rhythm of horses’ hooves accompanied by whinnying took his attention.
Striding across the meticulously knotted wool carpet to the front windows, he looked out onto the gravel forecourt, edged with low clipped box shrubs.
“This man, for instance,” her father said, gesturing with a nod of his head.“This stranger who has ridden down the lane and entered through our gates and who is even now dismounting and giving the reins of both his horse and his pack horse to Jacob.He appears to have the intent of entering our home.”
He paused, then added, “I think young Jacob needs new pants.We can’t have our stable boy looking scruffy.”
At last, her father reached his main point.“This well-dressed rider might see my wife sewing and think to himself that we are peasants, speaking low-German.Is that what you want, Elsabeth?”He turned and looked at Lise’s mother.
Already ripe with curiosity over an unexpected visitor, Lise looked at her, too.Her pretty mother blinked back, undoubtedly wearing the same questioning expression as her daughter.Who was the well-dressed rider?
A moment later, they heard their footman granting entrance to the stranger, who must now be standing in their front hall.Within seconds, Hans knocked and entered the drawing room, his gloved hands behind his back and his neutral expression giving nothing away.
“Begging your pardon, Herr von Ostenfeld,” Hans said.“There is a gentleman caller.An Englishman.”
Lise’s quill slipped, sending a line of bluish iron-gall ink across her paper, ruining at least two paragraphs of careful translation.Flustered, she closed her ink pot and began to stow her book and paper in the deep compartment inside the writing box, while her mother gathered up her project in a hurry.
Taking the bundle to the far end of the room, Frau von Ostenfeld shoved the coat and her sewing basket behind one of the three cupboard doors in their oak credenza.
Despite starting to wonder if it could behim, while telling herselfof course it could not, Lise bit back a smile at seeing her father’s eyes widen with dismay over the severe treatment of his coat.
“An Englishman!”he repeated.“Did he give his name?”
“Lord Bowen, sir.”
All traces of Lise’s smile vanished as the world contracted to a single point of impossibility.Jonathan was there.
In Eutin.
In her front hall.
“He says he’s acquainted with the family through Lieutenant von Ostenfeld,” their footman continued.
Nervous laughter bubbled up, which Lise quelled but not before she made a sound, caught between a snort and a gasp.If she were the type to do anything so vulgar as betting, she would wager her entire dowry that Jonathan was a damn sight more closely acquainted withherthan with her brother.
“Show him in,” her father said, while giving her a long look.“And then tell Frau Kemper to send in coffeeandtea service.”
“Peter August!”her mother exclaimed at the extravagance.The French had made both a scarcity lately.
“I insist,” her father said.“We’re not going to wait and ask him which he prefers.This way, he’ll know we have both without delay.”
“But we have so little coffee left,” Lise’s mother reminded her husband.“If he doesn’t drink it, then it shall be wasted.Who knows when we shall procure more beans.”
“Be that as it may, we shall not appear as peasants.Hans, make sure Frau Kemper uses our best dishes and includes slices of whatever cake Frau Becker made for after supper.”
Lise had gone numb.She set the writing box aside carefully, as though it were made of glass.Once it was stowed under the small table beside the sofa, she glanced up to see her mother staring at her, one eyebrow raised.
