“What?” he asked, looking back at her intently.
Her face heated. The shabby major caught her staring at him.
“Nothing,” she said. “Finish up quickly so we can see Robert before we go to Isabella.”
“I doubt it is ‘nothing,’” he retorted. “I can see your mind working.”
“You like to eat,” she said.
“Any sensible man does,” he laughed. “Never know when the next meal will come.”
Nora digested that information. The dozen or so questions she had about the major flooded her brain.
“Where did you serve?” she blurted. There seemed no point in asking him when he left service. So many officers had been put on half-pay, so many soldiers jettisoned, after Napoleon finally surrendered.
“Here and there,” he answered, neatly deflecting questions once again. He made it clear she didn’t pay him enough to interrogate him. She let it pass.
He took a second helping of fish broiled in olive oil and changed the subject. “You’re good with children. Do you have experience?”
“You mean do I have children of my own? No.” Familiar sadness filled her.
The major ate in silence, but his raised brow encouraged her to go on.
“I did set up a cottage school for girls in my father’s parish after Edmund died. It was,” she groped for words, “poor in resources.” Sadness washed over her briefly. She missed it still.
“Your father didn’t support it,” he said. She found his shrewdness surprising when it surfaced.
“‘Damned foolishness’ he called it. He thought it contrary to the natural order to educate women.”
“Who educated you?” the major asked.
“My mother and the lending library,” she answered. “Behind his back,” she added before she snapped her mouth shut.He has no business asking about my family.
“Did you say your husband wrote poetry?” he asked.
Nora nodded. “I think I fell in love with literature. Edmund represented everything my father forbad me.” She still remembered the elation of that defiance—and the humiliation when she had to crawl back to him.
“Intriguing,” he said. “I wonder what else you did to thwart the vicar.” Laughter danced in his eyes.
“He forbad my work with the Dorset Anti-Slavery Allianceentirely. I finally had to resign,” she told him bitterly. “He managed to defend the greatest evil of our age by twisting Scripture.”
Memory of the old man’s voice when he threatened to cut her off and let her starve echoed in her head. She stared down into the dregs of her tea. Even now she found her capitulation humiliating.Some evils demand courage; my courage failed under pressure.
She couldn’t look at the major for a long moment. When she did, she saw that his laughter had ceased. She thought his expression looked pained. Perhaps he disapproved of abolitionists. She reminded herself it was none of his business.
He rose to his feet. “Let’s get to it,” he said in clipped tone.
She paid the bill, and they set out for the hospital. The major had proven to be dependable and, occasionally, even perceptive. She had the rest of the month to make use of his skills, and she determined to make the best of it. Now he looked surly and irritable.
“Is there a problem, Major?”
Chapter Seven
Jamie’s problems began when Mother Margarita started coming a bit earlier than needed. While Nora Haley’s curiosity had been easily deflected, the mother superior proved to be relentless.
Isabella, who had quickly decided to use her classroom English to “teach” her aunt Italian, sat next to the wren, laughing and pointing. His employer loved it. Jamie stood in the shade of the cloister walk and watched the wren and her niece trade vocabulary and smiles.
Mother Margarita found Jamie there. “Do you have children, Major?” she asked without preamble.
