Page 89 of Miss Dauntless
Thomas the Vexatious would likely fall asleep before they’d been underway for an hour, though he hadn’t slept for the entire journey down from London. Matilda put a hand on his shoulder, prepared to reason and wheedle and bargain, but he jerked away from her hand.
“Don’t touch me! I hate you!”
“He doesn’t mean it,” the maid said, setting an apple cobbler before Matilda. “Overly tired, he is. The little ones don’t always travel so well, do they?”
Matilda was half tempted to deal with Tommie severely. A day of patience and placating him had resulted only in this spectacular tantrum, and they had quite a distance yet to travel.
“Thomas, look at me.”Or so help me, you will wish you had.Papa’s voice again, as he slapped a birch rod slowly against his palm.
Matilda was assailed by an old, old memory, of being squashed beside her father on a stage coach journey to London. She’d been about Tommie’s age, and she’d had to use the necessary, but hadn’t known how to communicate that need to her father.
She’d wet herself and got a smack and a protracted scolding for her stupidity. All the while Papa had been berating her, and the stink of her incontinence had risen from her clothes, she’d thought,I hate you. I hate you, you stupid, selfish, angry old man. I will always hate you.
And if she hadn’t quite loathed Papa from that day forward, neither had she respected him.
“France can wait,” she said to the maid as Tommie’s wailing subsided into brokenhearted whimpers. “You are right. My son is exhausted.” The proprietress had also reminded Matilda of the same obvious fact. “Might we have a room for the night?”
“The wind could die in the morning, missus. You could be stuck here for days.”
“Then the wind dies, but my child will be well rested. I have asked too much of an otherwise very good little boy, and the last thing I need or want is for him to take sick because he’s been overtaxed.”
“It’s cold on the water,” the maid said. “No mistake about that. We have rooms to spare this time of year. Eat your cobbler, and we’ll get a fire going for you upstairs.”
She bustled out, and Matilda was left with an overwrought child who was clinging to his stuffed horse as if Copenhagen were the last spar floating on a storm-tossed sea.
“Thomas, you owe me an apology.”
“S-sorry.” He sounded not the least bit remorseful, for which Matilda was proud of him.
“I owe you an apology as well. I’m not an experienced traveler, and I was so anxious to get us away from England that I did not plan our itinerary very sensibly. We’ll rest tonight and catch the morning packet. The ship leaves at low tide, weather permitting, and there will always be another low tide.”
Tommie sighed. “I m-miss Tidbit.”
“So do I. He is a wonderful pony. Would you like a bite of cobbler? It has apples in it, and I’m sure Copenhagen would enjoy a taste.”
Tommie sent her an annoyed look. “Cope isn’t real, Mama.”
“And you don’t hate me.”Yet.
Tommie picked up his spoon. “I was mad. I should not have said that. This has cinnamon on it, like the hot chocolate from the tea shop. Do they have cinnamon in France?”
“Yes, and hot chocolate.”But they do not have Marcus, Earl of Tremont, and for that, I hate France a little bit too.
Tommie had finished his cobbler and was sending longing glances at the remaining three-quarters of Matilda’s when the serving maid reappeared.
“Your room is ready, though the packet is just now boarding, ma’am. You could sail tonight and have the crossing behind you.”
“Mama…”
“I know, Tommie. We’ll take the room.” Matilda would far rather have boarded the packet, but removing to France could not be her excuse for turning into her father. “We are in no hurry, and we are both quite tired.”
She carried Tommie up the steps—he’d grown more substantial in recent weeks—and left the maid to bring up the traveling valise. The room was cozy and smelled faintly of lavender, and the bed was a fluffy four-poster liberally covered in quilts. Beyond the latticed window, moonlight glinted off dark, undulating waves, and the occasional running light marked the progress of a vessel out at sea.
“The coals are in the warmer,” the maid said. “And we can send up breakfast at first light if you prefer that to a meal in the common.”
“I do, thank you. Shoes off, Tommie.”
He blinked at her from the depths of a wing chair before the hearth.
