Page 54 of Tamed By her Duke

“Oh, dear me,” said the woman, visibly flustered. “Your Graces, what an honor, what an honor. I am Mrs. Adler, at your service, of course. Are ye here for…” She trailed off, as if not daring to presume why such lofty personages had entered her establishment. “Well, whatever ye need, I’m sure as we can provide it.”

If she nodded any harder, her head was going to fall right off.

“Luncheon,” Caleb said shortly. Grace suppressed a sigh. He really did have the social graces of a rock. It was going to give poor Mrs. Adler the fits.

The woman in question looked torn between utter delight and abject terror. “Of course. We’ve pies today, if it pleases ye, Your Graces. Fresh made, of course, of course. Would ye permit me to escort ye to our private room?”

“No.” The word came from Grace; she spoke without thinking as she spotted, in the far reaches of the room, a man whose face she recognized. Frances had pointed him out, when they’d been here. He’d been keen to gossip, she said; his information had led them to the mill, and to Grace.

And if the man was knowledgeable and in possession of a loose tongue, then perhaps he would have some information that was useful to Grace, as well. Her father had insisted, after Grace’s return to London, that she didn’t need to “trouble herself” over the fate of the family that had imprisoned her.

“It’s best to put the unpleasantness behind you,” he’d said sternly.

But Grace found that she desperately needed to know. Had they hanged? Been sent to gaol? Been transported? She didn’t know that she longed to know the Packards were dead, necessarily—she hated them, to be sure, but they’d also been part of the Dowager Countess of Moore’s scheme—or Dowling’s scheme atleast. Nobody had ever been particularly clear as to how a poor family, miles and miles north of London, had been roped in to the plan to abduct Grace.

And yes, Dowling was dead, may his soul never find rest, but the dowager countess had been sent to bedlam, not killed. Did the Packards deserve worse than their employer?

Grace honestly wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t the arbiter of justice here, nor did she long to be. She just wanted to know thatsomethinghad happened. If she knew they were in Newgate or Australia or the ground then she would know, at least, that they could not leap out from behind any corner.

Mrs. Adler was looking at her, wide eyed, and Grace pasted on a politician’s smile.

“No,” she repeated, more gently. “I am new to the area, you see, and find myself very interested in getting to know the people who call these lands home.” She shrugged a shoulder as if to suggest that her interested was silly, perhaps, but harmless. “I know in other towns, the lord’s wife takes it upon herself to organize some form of entertainment—for the families and the children, especially—and thought if I talked to people, I might be better poised to do so.”

Grace realized the unexpected genius of her excuse when Mrs. Adler’s hand fluttered to her belly with a fond smile. The woman was expecting—or suspected herself to be—even if she was not yet showing her condition.

“Why, Your Grace, that is so terribly thoughtful of ye,” the woman said, flushed with pleasure. “Ye do hear things about the loveliness of grand ladies, but they did not do ye justice.”

This was flattering, if a bit much. Nonetheless, Grace gave a modest smile.

“Oh, you are too kind, Mrs. Adler. And I do so appreciate you indulging me.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I admit, I was raised in London, so your assistance is so valuable as I learn about village life. It is so much more calm and pleasant, is it not?”

Now it was Grace’s turn to lay it on a bit thick. The Packards had incessantly sneered at her for being from London—their ridicule was how Grace had learned that they knew any part of her background—and she suspected that even far kinder village folk might be pleased to hear that she preferred country life to London’s urbanity.

Indeed, Mrs. Adler’s flush grew.

“Of course, of course,” she said, nodding vigorously again. “Naturally ye can sit wherever ye wish, Your Graces.” She gestured broadly at the room.

Grace pretended to ponder briefly before making a beeline to the man she’d recognized.

As she settled herself in at the roughhewn table, she saw a flicker of unease disrupt Mrs. Adler’s smile, though it was not directed at the new arrivals.

“Don’ go talkin’ Their Graces ears off, ye hear, Da?” she demanded in a soft voice.

“Certainly not, my dear girl,” the man said with a casual dismissiveness that was—much to Grace’s relief and Mrs. Adler’s clear exasperation—entirely unconvincing.

Mrs. Adler gave him a threatening look before heading off to fetch refreshments for Grace and Caleb. Her father ignored her—much in the way that Grace was ignoring her husband’s curious eyes.

What are you up to,leannan?she could practically hear him ask. The Gaelic term rolled off his tongue with increasing frequency and Grace hoped that it meant something like “wife” or “woman” instead of “pox blister” or “woman I have regrettably found myself shackled to in a marriage of convenience.”

She couldn’t say, as she didn’t know how detailed or vast Gaelic vocabulary might be.

“Good afternoon,” she said brightly to the man. He was cradling a tankard of ale with the air of someone who intended to nurse it for a good long while, the kind of fellow who had come to the tavern for the company, not for the drink. “I’m?—”

“Oh, I know who ye are, Yer Grace,” the man said, chuckling, not at all perturbed to have interrupted the wife of the man who, in all likelihood, owned the house he lived in. Wherever Mrs. Adler had gotten her serviceperson’s instincts, it wasn’t from her father, it seemed.

“I’m Creedy,” he introduced, gesturing to himself. He was the sort of portly that suggested a gentle slope into middle age, one blessed with the opportunity to work a bit less than he had as a young man—though his rough hands and rougher speech spoke of those years, as well. “I heard ye telling my girl that ye wanted to know about the local whatnot, and let me tell ye, ye’ve come to the right place. I’ve lived here all me life.”

And,thought Grace with satisfaction,had spent that life jovially prying into everyone’s business.

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