Page 2 of Miss Delectable
Agricola craned his neck over the half door to nudge at Rye’s pocket. He rewarded the horse with a bit of carrot left over from their morning hack.
Where were the cats? The stable had its share, and they were a lazy, arrogant lot. The swallows made sport of them, and if the felines had ever caught a mouse, they’d done so under a vow of secrecy.
Benny loved the worthless lot of them, though. Rye climbed the ladder to the hayloft silently, his riding crop between his teeth. A fat tabby watched his progress from a beam over the barn aisle. An equally grand marmalade specimen lay curled in a pile of hay, yawning as Rye stepped off the ladder. Benny’s honor guard was keeping watch.
Threats welled, admonitions about boys who played silly games merely to get attention, foolish lads who set a whole household to needlessly worrying.
Except that Rye Goddard had once been a foolish lad unable to gain his papa’s notice, and on a few memorable occasions, he’d been a very foolish man. He poked gently at the hay with his riding crop.
“I know you’re in there,” he said pleasantly. “Grabbing a nap when there’s work to be done. Otter is worried about you, and if he’s worried about you enough to bother me, then you’ve made your point.” Not with fists, but with a more subtle weapon—absence.
The riding crop brushed against something solid.
“Go away.” This directive was muttered from the middle of the pile of hay, and never had two words given Rye greater relief.
“I’d like to,” he replied. “I’d like to get back to tallying up my revenues and expenses, like to create my income projections for the next quarter—a cheerful, hopeful exercise—but no. I am instead required to nanny a wayward lad who has probably fallen in love with a goose girl who rejects his tender sentiments. This happens, my boy. We all get our hearts broken, and it’s the stuff of some of John’s best melodies.” Also the stuff of a commanding officer’s worst nightmares.
“Go away.” For Benny, that tone of voice qualified as a snarl. “I ain’t talking to you.”
“Did Otter threaten to make you take a bath?” Benny didn’t stink, but neither did he regularly wash his face.
“Fetch the lady wot cooks at the Coventry. I’ll talk to ’er.”
Rye planted his arse on an overturned half barrel and considered the puzzle before him. Benny was not by nature a difficult or complicated fellow, but now he was talking in riddles.
“What lady who cooks for the Coventry?” The Coventry Club was a gaming hell doing business as a fancy supper club. Rye’s sister Jeanette had, for reasons known only to her, married one of the club’s co-owners several months ago. Multiple reconnaissance missions suggested the union was happy and the club thriving, which was ever so fortunate for the groom’s continued welfare.
And no, Rye was not in the least jealous. Jeanette deserved every joy life had to offer, and if Sycamore Dorning counted among her joys, Rye would find a way to be cordial to the man—when Jeanette was on hand.
“Fetch the lady with the kind eyes,” Benny said as the hay rustled. “I won’t talk to you.”
“Miss Pearson?” She was an assistant cook in the vast kitchens at the Coventry. Rye had met her once under less than ideal circumstances, but like Benny, he recalled the compassion in her green eyes.
“Aye, Miss Ann. She’ll come.”
Benny’s tone rekindled Rye’s worry. The boy wasn’t having a mere pout, he was miserable. Rye nudged the hay aside with his hand.
“Benny, are you well?” More nudging and swiping at the hay revealed the boy lying on his side curled in a blanket.Not well, was the obvious answer, not well at all.
“Go away.” Benny pulled the blanket up over his head. “Fetch Miss Ann. I ain’t tellin’ ye again.”
Ann Pearson knew her herbs, of that much Rye was certain. She had been a calm, sensible presence when Jeanette’s health had been imperiled.
“Benny, what’s amiss?” Rye asked, trying for a jocular tone. How long had the boy been in this condition, and what the hell was wrong with him?
“Fetch Miss Ann, please.” The lad was begging now. “I’m dying, Colonel. You have to fetch Miss Ann.”
Rye had half reached for the boy, prepared to extract him from his cocoon of wool and distress, but something stopped him. He’d been through many a battle, and yet, it still took him a moment to realize why he hesitated.
Benny’s unwillingness to move, his desperate rudeness to the person who provided him food and shelter, his decision to hide in the place that signified safety to him, all converged to support one conclusion. Benny wasn’t having a sulk or enduring a case of too much winter ale. He exuded the same quality of hopeless suffering common to soldiers wounded in battle, half fearing death and half comforted by the possibility. Rye had seen enough battles and their aftermaths to recognize the condition.
Benny was injured.
Seriously injured.
“I’ll send for Miss Ann. Don’t move, boy. Stay right where you are.”
Rye half slid down the ladder, spooked both horses, and bellowed for Louis to attend him immediately.
