Page 56 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
The proprietor stroked his beard that was already liberally covered in flour. ‘You have caught me in a small prevarication, sir. We didn’t think that no one would be coming to the inn today and she has gone off to help our daughter deliver her baby at a nearby farm. There’s no one here to cook but myself.’
Some of the dismay that Devin felt must have shown on his face.
Peebles held up both hands. ‘Now, don’t you fret, sir. Your dinner will taste better than it smells.’
Devin sincerely doubted that. ‘Would you mind if I poured my own glass of wine at the bar? I don’t drink from the tap.’
‘Certainly,’ he said with a false smile. ‘You’ll find the red to be the finest in the house.’
Bowing his head, Devin left the dirty and smelly kitchen and returned to the bar, where he located the bottle of red wine. He poured himself a glass and took a sip. It was a very fine French wine and as a servant of the law, he was also certain that it had never paid a duty in any port. Sighing, Devin brought the glass back to his lips. He was snowed-in with a woman he both desired and loathed and whom he was pretending to be married to for her safety, a pair of violent criminals, a quarrelsome couple with a whiny child and a proprietor with bootlegged booze.
What could go wrong?
Chapter Four
Julia sat close to the fire until she felt as if she was being dried out like the clothing she’d hung in front of it—both hers and Devin’s. Still, it was nice to finally feel warm and it was even nicer to experience some peace and quiet. Although she would feel more comfortable when Devin returned to their room.
She hoped that little Lizzy was fed and happy, but she doubted it. Even at the advanced age of eighteen during her Society début, Julia had felt uncomfortable living in an unfamiliar environment and being surrounded by strangers at parties. She was too old for dolls, but she always sewed when was sad. Every time she held a needle, Julia remembered her late mother and her kind patience as she taught her daughter needlework. Julia did not have a doll to give to the small girl, but she could sew her one with the scraps in her kit.
Opening her trunk, she took out her sewing box and selected a patch of peach silk for the face. Julia threaded her needle and carefully sewed on a smiling mouth. She tied off her stitch before finding two black buttons that did not quite match each other, but made rather nice eyes. She attached them just above the mouth and then set that piece of scrap aside. For the dress, Julia picked a crimson velvet and laid it out on the wooden floor. She would have preferred to use a pattern, but she was a clever seamstress and she could work without one.
Besides, having something to occupy her hands and her head kept Julia from thinking about Devin’s scowl and his shirtless back. Both were terribly distracting. Blinking, she forced herself to focus on her current project. She took out her late mother’s silver chatelaine. In almost all of Julia’s memories of her mother, Mama wore the chatelaine attached to the waistband of her dress. The fashion of high-waisted gowns made it impossible for Julia to wear the chatelaine the same way, but she could still use the sharp scissors and the other beautiful sewing instruments on the silver chains.
She was cutting out the doll’s dress when Devin opened the door without knocking—a thoughtless gesture but which made sense from such a brusque and unpleasant man.
‘Stop playing with scraps. ’Tis supper time and the only food that we’ll be eating for the rest of the day,’ Devin said as he stood in the door-frame. ‘And fix your hair respectably before you come down. You look like a hoyden.’
Julia’s hands tightened on the scissors and she would have very much liked to stab Devin with them at this moment. ‘Your word is my command,husband.’
He flinched and then shut the door with a loud thud.
She wrapped the chatelaine up and put it away in her sewing kit before touching her hair. It was long and thick and difficult to get to cooperate. When she’d had a lady’s maid, the servant had been able to pin her curls into submission. But Julia had not enjoyed the services of a maid in three years and she’d learned how to arrange her thick and unmanageable hair into a serviceable chignon at the bottom of her neck. It was neither attractive nor comfortable, so whenever Julia was alone, she always took her hair down. She ruthlessly twisted the hair into a knot and pinned it.
There was no mirror in the room, so Julia glanced into the window for a shadow of her reflection. Her gown was dark and shapeless—which was to be preferred, since her stays were still not dry. It did, however, seem monstrously unfair that Devin looked nice enough to attend a London party and Julia didn’t appear presentable for a dinner in a small inn.
Sighing, she put on her shoes and left the room. Once she was in the hall, she heard Lizzy crying for her doll again and Mr Mack hollering at his wife to make the child stop. As if yelling at his spouse would help the situation. She passed the last door in the hall that belonged to the two bridle culls. It was across the hall from the driver and groom’s door. Instinctively, she felt for her mother’s pearls around her neck. They were still there. But she’d left her silver chatelaine, which was Julia’s most precious possession, in her trunk. She couldn’t bear to lose it.
Turning around, she returned to her assigned bedchamber and unwrapped the chatelaine, and then pinned it on her dress at her high waistline. A proper lady would not be wearing her sewing instruments to dinner. But there would be nothing proper about tonight’s dinner and she felt safer with the sharp scissors within reach.
The Macks opened their door and Julia saw that the very pregnant wife was still holding the small girl, who whimpered unhappily. Even in the poor light, she could see how weary Mrs Mack was.
‘Would you like me to hold your daughter?’ Julia offered. ‘I can assure you that I am quite good with children. I am—was—a governess.’
‘Oh, you must mean before you were married,’ Mrs Mack said with a tired smile. ‘I was a governess as well. That is how I met Mr Mack. He was the uncle of my charges.’
Julia held out her arms and Mrs Mack exhaled as she handed over the cranky and no doubt tired child.
Lizzy outstretched her arms back to her mother. ‘Mama! Mama!’
It seemed that the young girl was going to throw yet another screaming tantrum if Julia didn’t do something and quickly. She bounced the girl up and down. ‘What is your name, poppet?’
The little girl stopped whining. ‘Lizzy.’
Julia was not about to say that her name was Mrs Ballantine. She would rather be boiled in figgy pudding first. ‘And I am Julia. Are you hungry? Should we go have some dinner?’
Lizzy nodded.
With her free hand, Julia pointed for the Macks to go downstairs. She and Lizzy followed behind them. As Julia supposed, the inn wasn’t large enough to have a private parlour or dining room. Two tables had been pushed together with mismatching chairs. At least the tablecloth and dishes appeared to be clean. She felt Devin’s presence behind her before she saw him.
