Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

She gave him a brave smile. ‘It will seem better once we can get a fire going,’ she said bracingly. Clearly determined to make the best of a bad job. ‘And if the Brownlows normally live here, then there’s bound to be some provisions in the larder. We can manage.’

‘Come on, then,’ he said, kissing her hand in gratitude at her forbearance. ‘Let’s raid the kitchen.’

Pausing only to pick up the lantern, he led Mary along the stone-flagged corridor, his brow knotted in thought. His father had never really appreciated Julia’s mother. He’d treated her as though she ought to have been grateful he’d given her his name and title. He hadn’t seen it as a boy, but his father had treated his dogs and horses better than his own wife.

The minute he thought of horses, he recalled the hurt look that had flickered across Mary’s face when he’d told her how he’d sent his own horses down by easy stages.

Lord, he’d started out as badly as his own father had done! Pampering his horses and pitching his wife headlong into hardship.

‘You ought by rights to be ripping up at me for making such a botch of things,’ he growled as he opened the door to the kitchen for her.

She gazed up at him, wide-eyed. Then gave a little sniff and shook her head.

‘You were just in a hurry to get things ready for your sister,’ she said. ‘You were concentrating on getting her to a place of safety. It would have been a miracle if, somewhere along the line, your plans hadn’t hit a snag.’

‘That’s very generous of you—to take that attitude,’ he said, setting the lantern on the shelf just inside the door, which had always been used for that very purpose.

‘Let’s just hope this is the worst snag we hit,’ she said, untying the ribbons of her bonnet and setting it on the massive table that stood in the very centre of the room. Then she walked across to the closed stove and knelt in front of it.

‘Good, dry kindling laid ready,’ she said, opening the door and peeking inside. ‘And plenty of logs in the basket.’ She stood up, and scanned the shelf over the fireplace. ‘And here’s the tinderbox, just where any sensible housewife would keep it.’

Thank goodness she wasn’t one of those useless, helpless females whose sole aim in life was to be decorative. It would be an absolute nightmare to be stuck in this huge, empty house with one of those.

Fortunately, he managed to keep his thoughts to himself rather than blurting them out and provoking an argument. For what woman liked to hear a man think she was useful rather than decorative?

‘I’ll go and take a look around, then,’ he said, going to light another lamp. ‘See what I can discover. So long as you will be all right here for a while?’

She glanced at him over her shoulder and nodded, with a look that told him he was an idiot for even asking.

He gave a wry smile as he set out to explore the house. He’d contracted a practical marriage, with a practical, no-nonsense sort of woman. Of course she wasn’t going to have a fit of the vapours because he was leaving her alone to get a fire lit.

* * *

By the time he returned to the kitchen, it was noticeably warmer. And there were plates and bowls and things out on the sides, which had previously been bare.

‘While you were gone I had a good look round the larder, found some tea and made a pot,’ said Mary, pouring some into two cups. ‘There’s no milk to go in it, but we can sweeten it with some sugar.’

‘I didn’t expect you to have to act like a servant,’ he said glumly as he set the lamp on its shelf.

She put the teapot down rather hard.

‘Would you rather sit all night in the gloom, with an empty stomach, and wait for someone else to turn up and wait on you?’

‘No. I didn’t mean that! It’s just—I promised you a life of luxury. And on the first day, you’re already reduced to this.’ He waved his arm round the big, empty kitchen.

‘Oh.’ Her anger dissipated as swiftly as his own ever did. She shot him a rueful glance as she dumped two full spoons of sugar into both cups. ‘I don’t mind, you know. It’s the biggest house I’ve ever had to call my own. And I’m sure, come the morning, you will be able to find out what has become of the couple who should be taking care of the place. The state of the larder leads me to believe they have not been away all that long.’

‘It looks as though there’s been a horse in the stables very recently, too,’ he said, taking a seat at the table next to the place settings he noted she’d laid. Then he picked up his cup and braced himself to swallow the sickly concoction without grimacing. She’d been looking through the larder and preparing a meal, when she could have been sitting in front of the fire sulking. Her temper was frayed—the way she’d slammed down the teapot and ladled sugar into his drink without asking whether he liked it or not told him that much. So he’d be an ungrateful oaf to provoke her again, by complaining about such a small thing, when she was clearly doing her utmost to make the best of things.

‘Though no sign of any of my own. Nor my groom,’ he finished gloomily. Dammit, where was everyone?

‘Well, at least we have plenty to eat. Would you like something now? I can make an omelette, if you’d like it.’

‘I am starving,’ he admitted with a wry smile. ‘I suppose we ought to do something about finding somewhere to sleep really, but I could do with fortifying before I can face going upstairs again. The whole place is like an icehouse.’

‘We...we could sleep in the kitchen,’ she suggested, taking a sip of her own tea. ‘It is, at least, warm.’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said, setting his own cup down firmly on the table—with some relief that he had a valid excuse for doing so without having to endure any more of the noxiously syrupy drink. ‘There are a dozen perfectly serviceable bedrooms above stairs. And just because you’ve put on an apron and have to act like a cook doesn’t mean you need to sleep below stairs, as well.’

‘I’ve slept in worse places,’ she admitted.

‘Yes, maybe you have, but you’re married to me now and it is my job to take care of you.’ He was going to do better than his own father had done with Julia’s mother. He wasn’t going to assume Mary should be grateful for the privilege of bearing his name, and his title, no matter what the circumstances.

‘Of course,’ she said meekly, before rising and going across to a sort of preparation area near the stove and cracking several eggs into a bowl.

She didn’t utter a word of reproof, but the set of her back as she grated some cheese into the egg mixture told him he really shouldn’t have raised his voice to her just now.

He cleared his throat.

‘It’s very clever of you to know how to do all this sort of thing.’

‘It was necessary,’ she said, pouring the egg mixture into a pan where she’d already started some butter melting. ‘If I hadn’t learned how to cook, once Papa died, we would have gone hungry. We’d never been all that well off, but after he went, we had to move into a much smaller place and let all the servants go.’ She frowned as she kept pulling the slowly setting mixture from the edges into the middle. ‘Mama did the purchasing and tried to learn how to keep the household accounts in order, while I did the actual physical work of keeping house.’

‘Well, I’m glad of it,’ he said, and then, realising how heartless that sounded, added hastily, ‘I mean, glad you can turn your hand to cooking. That smells wonderful,’ he said, desperately hoping to make up lost ground. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

She stirred the egg mixture several more times before making her reply.