If the count’s man came after her, he’d be no help in a drunken stupor. He owed her two more weeks.Apparently I owe it to her sober.
Chapter Nine
Jamie crouched behind a fragrant verbena bush and wondered how he might avoid Mother Margarita. She continued to waylay him every day.
Every conversation had been nothing but a series of feints and sorties designed to expose his flank. Once when she got him to admit he hadn’t been a model student of the classics, she said, “You are better educated than you would have her believe, aren’t you, Major?”
Thank God I never mentioned Cambridge or that two of my three closest friends have titles. I didn’t have to. She probably guessed.
Routed by a five-foot elf in a black habit, he now resorted to cowering behind the bushes. Much more and she would expose him to his aristocrat-hating employer and undermine his efforts to stay hidden.
“Dreading my company, Major?” Mother Margarita peered around the shrubbery and smiled in greeting; she spoke Italian as always.
Jamie rose to his feet. She was not alone. The figure of a tall, white-haired monk, austere in a black Benedictine habit, followed her. Big tired eyes and a gentle expression dominated the monk’s lean face.
“Dreading your company, Reverend Mother? How could I? You are always charming.” He turned on the smile that had once oiled his way through the finest drawing rooms in London. He spoke the truth; she used charm as a weapon.I ought to know.I do the same.
“What nonsense! You are adept at light conversation, but you keep yourself well-hidden. Does Mrs. Haley know as little about you as I do?”
“Less.”I certainly hope so.
“As I thought. She is foolish to trust a stranger.”
“Yes, but she has few choices.” He felt compelled to defend Nora Haley. Reverend Mother nodded sadly. They both knew Robert Beaumont’s days were numbered.
Jamie looked expectantly at Reverend Mother’s companion, hoping to distract her.
She took his hint. “May I introduce Padre Barnabas?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Jamie bowed. “I am honored to make your acquaintance, Father. Are you the chaplain here?”
The old man’s tired eyes, deep set in a narrow face that tapered to a strong pointed chin, lit up.
“When my duties permit it,” he said. “Madre Margarita is my cousin. I like to look after her.” The two smiled at one another with good humor as if from some familiar private joke. “My cousin told me about her English friends. She tells me the lady is lucky to have found a protector.”
A flush of embarrassment shot through Jamie. “Interpreter,” he said. “I am merely an employee. It may be, as Reverend Mother says, that she is foolish to trust a stranger, but she has few choices.”
“Perhaps not. She is lucky then to have found someone so trustworthy,” Reverend Mother said.
“You can’t know that!” The words were out before Jamie could think.The damned woman had no idea.He thought of his mother and sister.No woman should trust Jamie Heyworth.
Mother Margarita smiled at the monk but spoke to Jamie. “Isabella trusts you. Children are wise about the true nature of people. That alone would have been enough to convince me.”
“You can’t be?—”
“Can’t be certain? Perhaps not, but I am usually right.” She said itwith certainty, and Jamie noticed that the wizened monk found that very amusing.
“Whatever it is that you hide may be to your shame, Major, but it is not to Mrs. Haley’s harm, nor would it harm Isabella. You will carry out your obligations to her,” Mother Margarita asserted.
“I promised a month. She will get a month.”
“And if she needs you longer?” Father Barnabas seemed genuinely interested.
“I can’t promise any more.” Jamie closed his mind to any other possibilities.
“Oh, look she has seen me!” Mother Margarita opened her arms. Isabella threw herself into them.
“I teach Aunt Nora Italian, Mother!” the little one exclaimed in her native language.
