“You’ll need the lantern,” she said. “I can hold it for you.”
He let her follow him out, but he took the lantern from her as soon as he set the pan of water on the table that she used for drying herbs just outside the kitchen door. He hung the light on a hook above the table, and reached one hand to unfasten his shirt only to pause. “I’ll manage,” he said, watching until she left him.
Patience leaned against the closed kitchen door for a moment before going about her preparations.I’ll manage.He’d said it twice. She suspected Zachary Newell managed most hurdles that came his way. She warmed chicken and vegetables while she waited, heart beating in a rhythm she didn’t recognize. She set places for them on the battered kitchen table. There seemed no point in heating up the other rooms.
They ate in silence, bathed in the lantern’s glow and firelight. Patience tried to focus on her dinner, but her eyes kept flickering toward the man across the table, studying his face as if it were the map to El Dorado. Smooth planes. Prominent cheek bones. Firm chin. Furrows in the corners of his eyes—hard earned, she had no doubt. Where lanternlight struck his right side, strands of silver gleamed among the brown hair that cascaded to his chin and over his collar. She wondered how old he was.
His face came up abruptly. “Thirty-two.”
Oh God, did I say that out loud?One hand covered her mouth. She gulped down the thickness in her throat. “I’m so sorry,” she said when she could speak. “That was unforgivably rude.”
One side of his mouth quirked up adorably. “We’ve been traveling companions. Curiosity is normal. How old is ‘far past a marriageable age?’”
Patience rose to collect the dishes. “Old enough.”
He grinned and handed her his plate. “Fair is fair, Patience. How old?”
“Twenty-seven, ten years past most girls’ come out, not that I had one anyway.”
“Why not?”
“No money. No one to sponsor me. No interest! Would you like some tea?”
He looked skeptical about her lack of interest, but he allowed the change of subject, politely requesting tea, picking up a chair, and pulling it toward the hearth. She joined him moments later.
“What do you normally do of an evening?” she asked. As a question, it trod a line between familiar and safe.
“I have two sorts of evenings. On some I fall into bed too exhausted to think after supper. On others I read.”
“Do you not socialize?” That one started to cross the line.Why don’t you ask him if he has a lover and be done with it?
“Rarely. I visit my sister. I occasionally attend a lecture or chorale at church.”
Alone?Questions crowded in one after another, each one leading to dangerous ground. She stared into her tea.
“And you?”
Her head bobbed up. “With a dozen boarders? Once a month or so, a farmer’s wife relieves me so I can tutor and attend the Brewsters’ meetings at The Queen’s Barque.”
His direct gaze intensified and, for a moment, she thought he might ask her a question. If he did, he thought better of it and sipped his tea.
Hercules woke up from the towel she had placed by the hearth. He trundled over to lap up more milk. They both watched him wander back, where he rubbed against Zach’s boots. He set his tea aside, picked up the tiny creature up, and began to pet him, long fingers caressing the puppy’s back and rubbing his ears. Patience had never envied a dog before; she did now.
Her eyes met Zach’s for a long moment before he looked away first. “Norb will be pleased when we bring this wanderer to the inn. What are you going to say to him?”
“After I get done hugging him fiercely, I will bring down the wrath ofThe Academy for the Formation of Young Gentlemenon him.”
Laughter erupted from the man across from her. “A terrible fate indeed,” he said between guffaws. He slowly grabbed on to control. “What exactly does that wrath include?” he asked, gulping air when he was able.
Patience raised her chin, indignation stiffening her back. “He won’t see pudding at dinner for a very long time.”
His brows shot up and she rushed on before he convulsed again. “But he’ll be more upset to miss our reading times after supper. Banishment to write his arithmetic tables is a fate worse than death.”
Zach’s mouth quirked up on one side, and he nodded in appreciation, still amused. “A horrible fate indeed.”
“Though Stump would argue that the worst is being assigned to privy-cleaning duty every Saturday for a month.”
He gasped in mock indignation. “Miss Abney, you are a cruel woman!”
