“Right quick, Miss Abney. Cook’ll have eats for us in the kitchen, but we only have a few moments. We can’t rest until we’re done.” Delilah, the little maid Mrs. Brewster had assigned to cleaning rooms beside Patience, bustled off.
Patience hadn’t stopped for hours. Refugees had flooded in, some injured. Once it had become apparent they would need every bit of space, they had begun opening up the old wings of the inn, left from when Fenwick was a bustling port. The morning’s influx had meant Mrs. Brewster needed every hand to lay straw, fetch blankets, and carry water. The maids moved from four rooms to two, packing their belongings with some grumbling, adding two more rooms for less fastidious guests—or the servants of the particular ones.
Her drive to check on her boys outweighed hunger and worry propelled her through the kitchen, where she found Walter packing up lunch for the stable servants and her boys. The cook seemed pleased to let both of them carry it over, sparing the man of all work.
The stableyard, partially sheltered, held off the wind, but it provided only a small bit of protection from rain that seemed to grow fiercer by the hour. It soaked the cloak she tossed over her head and wet her cheeks while she grappled with one handle of a large hamper and sped across to the carriage house with Walter, grateful when they ducked safely inside. Stump took her side of the hamper so she could shake off the rain, and wipe her face on her damp handkerchief. She reached to do the same to Walter, but he jerked away.
“Where are the others?”
“Peter went to the smithy with Mr. Ryman and didn’t come back. The others are with Sergeant Newell.”
“Even January?” She rarely saw the little one far from Stump.
“Stories, Miss Patience. Couldn’t keep him away.”
She skidded to a stop at the back of the coach house. Norb sat cross-legged, bent over a book. Froggy, January, and Millie listened with rapt attention while he read.
Millie?Maybe not. She and her puppies were snuggled up next to Norb at least, and he had one arm over her.
What put Patience’s heart in her throat though, was the man overseeing the proceedings. Sergeant Newell rose from his place on the bench at her approach. “On your feet, gentlemen. A lady has approached.” He put a finger in his own book, the one he had been reading while he watched Norb and the others.
The boys clambered to their feet and all four of them, from the lanky Sergeant to tiny January, gave a polite bow. Stunned, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Lunch is here,” which set off a small stampede. The sergeant smiled down at her, and Patience found herself unable to speak in the warmth of it.
She dipped her head, giving in to an inappropriate curiosity about his reading matter. “Shakespeare!”
“Surprised?”
She was not about to admit it. “Everyone loves Shakespeare,” she said, pleased she didn’t choke on her embarrassment. “Thank you for getting Norb to read. I was afraid he wouldn’t leave Millie.”
“He helped Froggy with the letter L first, but the younger boys demanded a story, and I decreed one of them had to read it. NoRobinson Familyuntil the day is done—correct?”
“Correct.”
“Norb fussed about the lost pup several times, but, when he got down to reading, it distracted him.”
“I was hoping he’d forget about that,” she sighed. “There’s little enough we can do. We had best go supervise.”
“We don’t want the locusts to devour the grooms’ lunch.”
Patience laughed at that nonsense as they walked toward where Walter had set out the lunch. Newell paused by a particularly fine carriage. “Yours?” she asked.
“My uncle’s.”
When he flipped up the lid of a box built into the boot she gasped. “Books!”
He slipped the Shakespeare into the one empty spot. “Surprised again?”
Not a little embarrassed, she blurted out. “You must like books very much to ship them with you.”
The deep small smile of a man content came over him. “My library is dukedom large enough.My poor room in Rumford is thick with them.”
“Prospero,” she said.
The glow of his smile swelled into sunlight. “You knowThe Tempest.”
She had the curious sensation that he caressed her with his eyes at that, but he looked away soon enough.He snapped the lid shut and gestured toward the luncheon. “Shall we join the troops and attempt to keep them in order?”
She fussed over January’s bread and cheese, cutting it just so. She reminded Walter to drink his milk. She suggested Froggy eat more slowly. All the while, half her mind focused on Zachary Newell, who leaned against a wagon and left the grooms and boys to the luncheon. When she could no longer resist the need to talk with him, she asked him why.
