Page 26 of The Secret of the Dashing Detective
She loved it.
“I know this is a far cry from Mayfair,” Matthew murmured in her ear, but she shook her head as a smile bloomed across her face.
“This is wonderful,” she said, meaning it with all of her heart. She could already tell there was such love in this room, and she had only just walked in.
When Matthew left to write and send her note, Betsy waved her in and patted the seat next to her on the worn, yet comfortable, sofa. The furniture was situated around a brown brick fireplace, in which a large fire burned merrily in the hearth.
Betsy introduced their other sister Mary, and her husband, Phillip, as well as another brother, George, and his wife, Sarah.
She also told Juliana the names of about six children on the floor who ranged in age from a small toddler to a child of about seven, but by then Juliana had lost the capacity to remember which name belonged to which child.
Despite the animated conversation around them, Juliana could feel Matthew’s presence when he re-entered the room, and her head turned, seeking him out even though she didn’t mean to do so.
His eyes caught hers, and the intensity in them was nearly more than she could bear.
It seemed that his family noticed too, as Juliana realized the conversation began to slow around them.
Finally, his mother eased the tension by announcing dinner.
Juliana waited to see who would go in to eat first – for surely all of these people couldn’t fit in the kitchen at the same time? But they seemed to have their own sense of order as they fed the children first and then arranged them in a circle on the floor.
They all crowded around the wooden table that had obviously been present for many years to witness the family grow. It took up nearly the entirety of the dining room and the chairs were squished as close together as possible, but no one seemed to have any concern.
They insisted that Juliana, as their guest, be served first of the adults, and when she reached for the dish, she was immediately as nervous as she had been her first time at a society dinner.
Fortunately, Matthew was right there next to her, passing her a plate and providing her with some helpful suggestions as to which dishes contained meat and which she would feel comfortable eating. Which, once his family heard, sparked some lively conversation.
“You do not eat meat?” Mary asked, her eyes wide, and Juliana shook her head.
“What about poultry?”
“What about fish?”
“What about eggs?”
The questions continued to be fired toward her, and Juliana couldn’t help but laugh at their curiosity until Matthew finally threw his hands up in the air and told them all that was quite enough. They settled down once everyone’s plates were full from the seemingly never-ending supply of food.
It also seemed that none of Matthew’s family cared about which utensils Juliana used to eat or what she drank – as long as the glass was full in front of her – nor whether she ate quickly or slowly or somewhere in between.
They accepted her as she was.
And Juliana wasn’t sure if she had ever been more grateful.
CHAPTER10
Matthew couldn’t move his eyes away from Juliana as she sat with his family. He had been concerned about how she would fit in, what she would think of them all, and whether she would look down at them and their lifestyle, so different from her own.
But instead, she seemed to belong here.
He had no idea what to think of it.
She sat across the table from him, wedged between his sisters, who seemed to have taken her in as one of their own.
She was breathtaking. In the dim candlelight, her cheeks were flushed, from either the warmth of the room or the conversation around her, he wasn’t certain. Tendrils of her chestnut hair brushed against the side of her face and her red lips had curled into a wide smile as she laughed at something his brother said. Matthew had been too caught up in watching her to even listen.
“She’s wonderful.”
Matthew turned to his mother, who was sitting next to him with a knowing smile on her face.
