A Proper Mistress (15 page)

"Ah, yes...like Sweet William—I must remember that."

She started toward a side door, but Grieg stepped forward at once. "This way, my lady, to the drawing room." He shot another frown at Molly and started up the stairs, glancing back as if to make certain that her ladyship followed.

Molly kept her steps slow to match Lady Thorpe's tottering pace.

On the upper floor, Grieg led the way to a pretty, yellow painted room that overlooked the front of the house. Even though it was summer, a fire crackled in the hearth, and it was welcome enough for the storm had chilled the day.

As Lady Thorpe moved to a chair, Molly started to undo the ribbons to her bonnet, but Grieg leaned closer and muttered, "You won't be staying that long."

She shot him a hard look. While she admired the protection he gave his mistress, it had started to irritate.

Defiantly, she took off her bonnet. Handing it to him, she said, "Thanks, but I think that'll be all I need of you."

She could almost swear she heard his teeth grinding, but as Lady Thorpe was again asking him to bring refreshments, he bowed, shot a warning glance at Molly and left.

Easing herself into a gold satin brocade covered chair near the fire, Lady Thorpe gestured toward the chair opposite. "Do sit down, Miss...Miss...?"

"I wish you'd call me Molly—or Mary as you did yesterday," Molly said, coming forward and hoping to stir Lady Thorpe's memory.

Her ladyship gazed back, the wrinkles on her brow creased and her eyes worried. Her face relaxed with a sudden smile. "Do let me ring for refreshments. Oh, but where did I put that bell?"

Over the next three quarters of an hour, Molly kept thinking of Theo's words—that it was not Lady Thorpe who suffered from her lack of memory. He had the right of it. Molly endured with a stiff smile as her ladyship kept forgetting who she was and why she was here. When Grieg returned with a footman and a silver tea set, the butler remained positioned just behind Lady Thorpe with a stern stare locked on Molly.

As if he's expecting me to steal a spoon,
Molly thought, her patience worn to the nub.

Only once, after pouring tea, did Lady Thorpe's eyes sharpen. She stared at Molly and said, "My, but you look so like Amy—only Amy's been dead for years."

She rambled off on another tangent, talking about her cats. Molly soon learned that while Captain Villers was a cat she wasn't sure if he could not be found because he had run off or because he, too, had passed on years ago.

She could not really make conversation—not when she had to keep starting and restarting the same topics. And she could not get Lady Thorpe to fix on the past long enough to determine if there was the least connection between them. An unlikely thing, really, but Molly had had to make the effort at least. But she ought to have listened to Theo's caution that everyone did their best to avoid the old lady.

Still, she could not help but want to be as patient as she could with her ladyship. Grand as she and her house were, what a terrible fate to be left with a rambling mind and only cats for company. One of them—a great, orange cat, and not Captain Villars it seemed—came strolling in during tea and sat on the edge of the rug, washing his paw and his face as if that was the most important task in the world.

She had some consolation, however, in the food. Lady Thorpe had a gem of a cook. There were dainty apricot tarts, thin slices of plum cake, and macaroons so tempting that Molly almost ate all of them. The almond cakes that Sylvain had noted Molly did give into, eating every one, and telling herself that it wasn't so bad, for they were quite small.

Finally, with her appetite satisfied, even if nothing else was, Molly admitted defeat and rose. "I shouldn't take up any more of your ladyship's time."

"But you only just arrived. Do allow me to at least ring for refreshments. Oh, but the tea is here already." Lady Thorpe glanced at the silver tea service, her expression surprised, and Molly decided she really must leave. It seemed as much a strain for her ladyship to be dealing with her as it was for her to deal with Lady Thorpe's forgetfulness.

Her decisions seemed to please Grieg, for he left at once and came back with her bonnet and umbrella.

Lady Thorpe smiled and came forward. "It has been lovely, Miss...Miss Swenton was it not?"

"Sweet," Molly said, the correction by now automatic. "Thank you for seeing me."

"You must promise me to come again—only not on Thursday. Lord Thorpe prefers me to have one day a week when I do not take callers. He says it tires me too much."

Molly wasn't certain if this instruction really came from her butler or her late husband. In either case, it was perhaps a wise idea. At the moment, Lady Thorpe looked as fragile as crystal, as if she might shatter if knocked too hard.

"Thank you, but I won't be stopping long in the neighborhood."

Lady Thorpe's smile faded. "Oh? What a pity. Well, promise me to call again if you do stay. Will you do that?"

It seemed a safe enough promise, though Molly still felt a twinge at giving it. She was already pretending to be something she was not, and that seemed quite a large enough sin on her soul, even if she was doing it for good reasons.

Still, what odds she'd be here much longer?

With that in mind, she offered up as good a curtsy as she knew and followed Grieg downstairs to the front door with her ladyship holding her arm.

She was glad of Lady Thorpe's company, though she gave the older woman more support than the other way around. However, it kept Grieg from dropping any more hints about how unwelcome she was.

He opened the front door for them, and Lady Thorpe glanced out at the slanting rain. She turned to Molly, her eyebrows lifted with startled surprise. "My dear, where is your carriage? Grieg, did you not send for it?"

"I walked, my lady," Molly said.

"Well, you cannot walk out in this wet. Grieg, have my coach brought to take Miss Street home."

Molly tried to protest. Grieg, too, looked unhappy but he moved at once to obey—most likely thinking that the sooner he had Molly gone, the better, even if it was in her ladyship's coach. And Molly could only hope that while he was gone, her ladyship didn't wander off.

That did not happen, though there was a near miss when an elegant gray cat with a feather-plume of a tail strode into the hall and her ladyship brightened, saying, "Ah, Captain Villars, there you are."

The cat glanced at Molly, froze in place, yellow eyes enormous, turned and ran—obviously skittish with strangers. Lady Thorpe started after the cat, but as Molly had a vision of her getting utterly lost in her own house, she caught her ladyship's elbow before she got far and diverted her attention by asking if she grew all these roses.

Amazingly, Lady Thorpe could name the type of every rose, though Molly had no idea if she was naming them correctly.

"Lord Thorpe and I planted them when we first married moved here. It was my one consolation from being so cut off from my family," Lady Thorpe said, touching a pink-tipped white rose. "They did not approve of Lord Thorpe, you see. Of course, they never approved of poor Amy's husband either. So dreadfully high in the instep, my family. It had to be money and a title, or they wanted nothing to do with any man!"

Molly's pulse quickened. "Was your sister named Amy—or was she only called that as a shortening for Amelia?"

Lady Thorpe frowned at the question, her eyes alert. Before she could answer, Grieg arrived to announce that the carriage was ready and Molly had to take her leave.

With an inward sigh, she told herself it was for the best. She was grasping for straws, and when she ended with a handful of hay, she'd only be disappointed.

So she put on a bright smile. She really ought to be grateful for her ladyship's hospitality. And that she had her own mind sharp—there were some things that perhaps money and a title and a lovely home didn't make up for.

"Do tell your cook that those almond cakes are quite the best I've ever had," she said, taking hold of the old lady's trembling hand.

Lady Thorpe's dull eyes brightened and she straightened a little. "How nice. Shall I have Mrs. Herbert write out her recipe for you?"

It was too much temptation—the almond cakes had been morsels of sweetness with hints of lemon and orange mixed in. She ought to go, what with Grieg frowning at her and the horses standing outside in the rain, and the coachman waiting. But she accepted Lady Thorpe's offer.

Grieg sent a footman to the kitchen with the request, and he must have told the fellow to be quick about it, for the footman returned in what seemed an instant with a hastily penciled list of ingredients. Folding up the paper, Molly again said good-by and was soon seated inside Lady Thorpe's carriage.

It kept her dry, but it also smelled of bitter apples which must have been used to keep the moths from the velvet upholstery, and which had only partially succeeded. Creaking and swaying, the coach made its lumbering way to Winslow Park, and Molly thought she would never risk taking such an ancient vehicle further.

After thanking the coachman, she ran up the steps of Winslow Park, her umbrella open overhead and held tight against gusting wind. With a sigh of relief, she pushed open the heavy front door and let herself into the house. But she was not the only one in the main hall.

She stopped still on the doorstep, dripping umbrella in one hand, her face reddening under the gaze of three startled dogs and two disapproving gentleman.

Simpson she knew, but she did not at once recognize the older gentleman with him, and she blinked in shock. Recognition set in at once.

Eyes as blue as Theo's—only a touch more bloodshot—stared at her, and she could only imagine that this had to be Squire Winslow come home.

With a discreet half-bow, Simpson edged himself from the hall, taking with him the squire's dripping hat and greatcoat. Molly wished she could go with him. She had come to Winslow Park to be introduced to the squire, only she had not been ready for it to happen just now. Where in...in blazes was Theo? This was his plan, his family, and he was the one who was supposed to bear the wrath of this rather daunting gentleman.

It was not that he was a large man—Theo stood at least a half foot taller. Stocky, with legs that looked bowed from decades spent on horseback, the squire seemed a harsh man. Hard with himself and others, she judged by how his mouth dragged down at the corners. He dressed in somber black—riding boots, breeches, high-collared coat, and waistcoat, with only a touch of white showing in his plain cravat and shirt and in the shock of thick, silver-white which he wore long enough that the ends curled around heavy jowls.

In contrast to that silver hair, thick, black eyebrows rode tight together over those sharp, blue eyes. His cheeks and nose shown ruddy, she judged the glow came from drink for even with the storm, the air was not chill enough to have reddened his face.

One of the dogs—a shaggy black and white with floppy ears—offered a growl, and the squire silenced it with a look and snap of his fingers. The dog glanced at the squire and stopped its noise. But the squire kept his gaze on her, staring at her as if taking her measure as he tapped a hunting whip against his boots.

She rather wished he did not have that whip. But Theo had insisted that he would not resort to physical violence. And if he wanted her driven out, he could set his dogs on her.

The dogs gathered close to the squire, the black and white one still looking as if he would enjoy chasing her from the house, but the reddish-coated one gave a tentative wag of his tail, and the third—a mix of brown and white—gave a tremendous yawn and sat down. All of them had soaked, dripping hair, muddy paws, and smelled of wet dog.

Shaking out her umbrella, she pulled it closed and waited. Best to let the squire make the first move. Rather like a game of backgammon where it helped to first gauge another's skills and weaknesses.

The squire continued to stare at her. A clock ticked away the seconds, almost as loud as her pounding heart.

At last, one black eyebrow arched in a gesture she recognized from Theo, and the squire said, his voice roughened from years of drink, "Not much size to you, is there?"

Lifting her chin, she stared back. A bit of a bully, she judged, to attack her in that fashion. She knew better than to show any weakness.

With one hand on her hip and bracing the other on her umbrella, she slipped into her best Sallie accent. "Don't know about that, ducks, but I'd say there's certainly more than enough of you."