Page 12 of Miss Delectable
Did he and Benny still have a common language? He pondered that question all the way home, but still had no satisfactory answer when he summoned her for an audience in the morning.
* * *
The pain had eased,as Miss Ann had said it would. The awkwardness of facing the colonel was growing by the moment.
Benny stood at attention before the great desk, while Colonel Goddard flicked beads on an abacus before her. They were never to call their commanding officer Sir Orion, though he’d been knighted along with hundreds of other brave soldiers.
Once upon a time, Benny had wanted to be a knight.
“So how did you make Miss Pearson’s acquaintance?” the colonel asked, putting down his pencil.
“You had us watching the marchioness last spring, and I… the scents from the Coventry’s kitchen are ever so lovely. I took to biding in the maple tree in the garden there, and Miss Ann smelled me.”
The colonel regarded her with that slightly raised eyebrow the boys dreaded. He wore his eye patch today, doubtless to hide the scars, but all that patch did was make him look more fierce.
“Gracious, child, is bathing really all that distasteful?”
Benny shook her head.
“Ah,” the colonel said, coming around the desk and propping a hip on one corner. “You wore camouflage. Soot on the cheeks, dirt on your elbows. Clever of you.”
Benny flicked a confused gaze at him. “I deceived you, sir.”
“Have a seat.”
Benny would rather have leaped out the window, but Miss Ann had saidthe businesswould result in others viewing Benny differently. The colonel had never invited Benny to have a seat before, for example.The businesswas awkward, but also grown up. That wasn’t all bad, was it?
Benny sank into a chair and nearly did bolt out the window when the colonel took the chair beside hers.
“I never did inquire whether you were a boy or a girl, did I?” he mused. “You did not deceive me, so much as I deceived myself. Do the boys know?”
This conversation was extraordinary because itwasa conversation, a discussion rather than an interrogation or handing down of orders.
“I ’spect Otter does. He kept mum, though.”
“Otter excels at keeping mum. How are you feeling?”
Benny had the oddest sense the colonel was stalling. “Fidgety. Miss Ann said there’s no reason to give my courses more than a passing thought, and soon I will pay no more attention to them than I do a monthly bout of hay fever. I do not care for the bellyache part.”
“What lady would? But that’s the problem, Benny, you are a lady, a female, and this is a bachelor household. You cannot continue to bide here unless I find a housekeeper to live in, and even then…”
Benny nodded. She’d had two good years with the colonel. Plenty to eat, a safe place to sleep. A roaring hearth in winter, books to puzzle over, and mates, even if the boys weren’t exactly her friends. She had learned to read properly, made a start on French—she could speak it passably already—and learned some ciphering.
“I’ll go, sir. I can apply to the agencies for a maid’s post, and I’m a hard worker.”
A silence stretched, and the ache in Benny’s throat eclipsed yesterday’s tearing pain in her vitals. She had hoped for the impossible and put off the inevitable as long as she could.
“Who are your people, Benny? You speak well enough when you want to, and you’re taller than the average urchin. You were given a name worthy of a preacher’s daughter, and—”
“I won’t go back there. I’ll pike off, in truth, sir, and not even the lads will be able to find me. I have me wages.” Ire made Benny less careful with her diction, but especially now, she must not return to the place she’d once called home.
“Benny, I forbid you to take to the stews. You can still impersonate a boy for some time, but boys on the streets aren’t much safer than girls. Eventually, somebody will uncover the truth of your situation.”
The colonel’s order came as pathetic relief, for Benny would never disobey a direct command. “I don’t want to go, sir. This is me home.”
“All children leave home eventually, Benny, though if it were up to me, I’m not ready to part with you either. Is there a profession you’d like to pursue? A trade or calling?”
“I want to read better. Miss Ann shows me words when we sit in the garden together. And she knows French and German and Eye-talian. I sometimes help out at the Coventry when my chores are done here.”
