Her housemaid bobbed a quick curtsey and picked up the tea tray.
“What are you doing?” Amelia asked.
The maid froze. “Taking back the tea to get you coffee, m’lady.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. If the girl couldn’t get tea right, how on Earth were they supposed to handle a larger party?
“Leave the tea. Bring the coffeepot.”
The girl nodded and scurried out of the room.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Cassandra said.
“Neither do I.” Amelia poured tea into the two cups. “Deplorable stuff. Goodness knows why anyone drinks it.”
She had a second cousin that drank coffee, but he also held on to last century’s obsession with wigs, so he could hardly be considered a barometer of taste.
“Then why did you ask for coffee if you don’t want to drink it?” Cassandra stirred sugar into her tea with youthful vigor. Amelia delicately dipped her spoon once, twice into the brew.
“Because when you serve tea, you also serve coffee for those who prefer the latter.” She sipped. Divine. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was in London and the past few days were just a bad dream.
Cassandra slurped at her drink, sending shudders down Amelia’s spine. “That seems dreadfully wasteful. Ben would never approve.”
“It’s the aristocracy, my dear. If we insist on watching our pennies, we might as well be middle class.”
The housemaid came in with a coffeepot on a tray, face falling when she saw both of the girls drinking tea.
Amelia acknowledged the housemaid with a slight nod. “Thank you—?”
The girl turned a deeper shade of crimson. “It’s Daisy, m’lady. We met yesterday.”
“Of course. Thank you, Daisy.”
The maid left, and Amelia turned to her new sister-in-law. What she needed was information. Then she could form a plan.
“I thought when the weather cleared, we could go on a tour. You could show me Abingdale.”
Cassandra nodded. “I’ll take you to Mrs. Duggan’s bakery. She makes delicious apple tarts.”
Amelia counted backward from five. Were all children this frustrating? “I was more thinking the estatesaroundAbingdale. A tour of the grand houses nearby.”
“Eh.” Cassandra shrugged, suddenly less interested. “There’s Wildeforde House, I suppose. But I heard Mrs. Greenhill say you have already visited there.”
Amelia swallowed. “Any housesotherthan Lord Wildeforde’s?”
The girl tapped her finger against her cheek as she thought. “Lady Karstark has a big house, but she’s in the next county.”
Amelia’s thoughts immediately shifted to the decrepit Lord Karstark who’d condemned her to this life. His was not an acquaintance that she particularly wanted to pursue. But she was also a pragmatist and could recognize that there weren’t many other options.
“I made Ben promise to take me to see their library one day. He says it’s heaps bigger than our study, with thousands of books. It’s dusty, though.”
“Does he visit often?” Perhaps his relationship with them was not as frosty as it had seemed at first. Maybe he could introduce her to Lady Karstark, and Amelia wouldn’t be as alone out here as she first thought.
“No. He only went once—with his mama when he was my age.”
Hismother. That explained the age gap between brother and sister. “You both look so similar I wouldn’t have guessed you had different mothers.”
Cassandra flushed red. “His mother was very pretty. There’s a painting of her in the attic,” she whispered.
