Page 11 of Unmasking the Silver Heiress
"Oh, little Eleanor, you must be frozen to the bone!" the woman tutted, ushering them inside and knocking the door shut with her hip. "The frost is unseemly early this year. Is the gentleman with you?"
"Yes," Nell said softly, looking from the woman over to Nathaniel. "Mr. Atlas, this is Harriet Goode. She helps run the shop with my aunt."
"Pleasure to meet you," Mrs. Goode said with a wide, earnest smile, striding forward to shake his hand. "I'm sure you'll be wanting Zelda. Why don't you come upstairs and I'll get you some tea while we wait for her to return. She popped out for pastries with your brother."
Nell froze, seeking out his eye from over Mrs. Goode's shoulder. "Peter is here?" she asked in an airy voice that did not at all match the expression on her face.
"Mm, he came in the night before last and said to expect you soon after. Come along!" She crossed the floor and opened a door that led to a staircase, allowing them to scale it ahead of her.
Abovestairs was a handsomely outfitted flat, a fair amount more opulent than the shop underneath. They were, as promised, placed in front of a fire with two scalding hot cups of tea, while Mrs. Goode fussed over their lack of biscuits until the chime of the downstairs bell forced her to return to her duties.
"It's a good thing, isn't it?" Nate asked, dropping a cube of sugar into his cup and giving it a gentle stir. "Perhaps Peter has already taken the initiative to explain the bulk of our misadventure, and all we have left to do is await our sentence."
"Peter has a tendency to dramatize things," Nell said with a grimace. "He might have spun a tale far more dramatic than the true series of events. Once he has done that, it is often difficult for me to set anyone's understanding of a story back to rights."
"Fanciful, is he?" Nate responded with a chuckle. "I genuinely would not have guessed it of him. He barely spoke in the month we spent at Somerton, to me or anyone else within my hearing."
"Yes, well," Nell said with a sigh, "once he builds up the courage to speak to you, he might never stop again."
"Fascinating," he murmured, sipping at his tea.
The sound of the bell ringing again downstairs was followed by a swell of voices, then heavy footsteps on the staircase. Nell straightened, gripping her teacup with a white-knuckled propriety that made Nathaniel feel a bit of her nervousness himself. He had not yet decided what to expect here.
The door seemed to be blown open by the pure force of the woman who burst through it. She was wearing a close-fitting, well-made gown of deep purple, and her stark white hair had been fashioned into a curling coif at the back of her head. She was chattering away to a harried and overburdened Peter Applegate as he scrambled in behind her, his spectacles slipping down the length of his nose as he struggled to balance several boxes of fresh baked goods in his arms.
"Oh, Peter," Nell tsked, rising to her feet and shoving her teacup onto the table in front of her in one smooth motion. She scooped several of the paper boxes away from him, allowing him to regain his balance and his dignity, all to the complete obliviousness of their aunt, who had simply continued to walk in and was pulling off her gloves next to a hallway mirror, still chattering away in one long, unbroken stream of gossip.
"And I said to the man, slander is what you're doing right now to my place of business, for I can prove the veracity of my claims and the ineptitude of yours. I swear to you, I thought he might weep, but at least it shut him up for a few moments so I could make my escape." She stopped for breath, frowning and turning over her shoulder. "I say, are you even listening to me? Oh, hullo, Eleanor."
"Good morning, Aunt Zelda," Eleanor replied in a tone that spoke to her weary familiarity with such antics. "Where shall we put the pastries?”
"Oh, should've left them downstairs. Now someone will have to take them back again. Just there on the coffee table for now, if you please." She turned from her spot, her gloves held tightly in her hand, and gave Nathaniel the iciest smile he'd ever seen in his life. "This must be your husband."
"Madam," he said, rising and giving a stiff bow. "It is an honor to meet you."
"Oh, stop it, both of you," Nell huffed, breezing past her astonished brother to drop the boxes onto the coffee table and flip open the lid of the one at the top of the stack. "He already knows who you are and you know who he is. Oh, you gotpain au chocolat! You must have been expecting me."
"I'm always expecting you, dear," Zelda Smith said, her smile warming considerably as she turned her eyes toward her niece. "That way, I can never be wrong."
"Perish the thought," Peter Applegate muttered under his breath.
If she had heard the comment, Mrs. Smith gave no indication. She gave Nell a quick embrace, but pulled back quickly, patting at her carefully coiffed, stark-white hair and glancing in the mirror that hung next to the doorway.
"Would you like a pastry, Nathaniel?" Nell asked, turning to look at him with those big, guileless eyes. "They aren't as pretty as you might expect, but the taste is divine."
"No, thank you, my dear," he replied with what he hoped was an affectionate smile. "Perhaps I'll have more of an appetite once our business with your aunt is concluded. After all, I believe we have a great deal to discuss."
"Not so much as you might think," Peter replied, though he was looking at his sister rather than Nate.
"It was a clever gambit. I'll give you that," Mrs. Smith said, plucking an apple tart from the paper box and arranging herself on the chair across from Nate. "Splitting your efforts doubled the chances for success, and only at the cost of your liberty, my dear niece."
"I found the documents," Peter told her, the words falling quickly from his mouth. "It is all rather a stupid story, but Alex did indeed take them from the Corden home by accident. They were recovered fully, alongside the coin."
"I see," Nell said with a little frown, her enthusiasm for her pastry dropping significantly. "And Alex himself?"
"Perfectly well," Mrs. Smith said with a haughty sniff. "Though that fiancée of his demands a series of rather lofty introductions come spring on his behalf."
"Fiancée," Nell echoed. "Do you mean Miss Blakely?"
