Page 13 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
Nor Lizzie in hers, with a bed-bound marquess groaning about his circumstances and taking up far too much spaceandfood within the house. Her stomach gave a ferocious grumble, and at least she contented herself with the fact thatbothof them had gone to bed evening last without dinner.
Still, now that morning had come she was ravenous—with too few eggs to split amongst too many people. And she puzzled over them as she began the process of heating the skillet in which they would be fried.
“Don’t ye do it, Miss Lizzie.”
She gave a start, whirling to face Willie, who had managed to make it into the kitchen entirely unseen. “Willie,” she said, one hand held to her chest. “You gave me a terrible fright.”
“Don’t ye do it,” he repeated, turning a forbidding glower upon her. “Don’t think I don’t know what ye did evening last, and what came of it.” He gave a phlegmy snort, turning to carve up the remains of yesterday’s bread.
Lizzie cracked two eggs in the pan. That left eight remaining—which would have been sufficient, were it just the five of them. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know the sound of broken crockery well enough,” Willie said, spreading thin whisks of butter across the bread. Extremely thin—barely more than a whisper across each slice. Probably he’d been observing her subtle economizing for some time now, had deduced that she had been trying to stretch their food further than usual. “Saw it in the rubbish this morning m’self. You gave that ungrateful sod yer supper, Miss Lizzie. Ye shouldn’t have bothered.”
Probably she shouldn’t have, she thought. She had always been too soft a touch, too easily persuaded to mercy. Oh, she was provoked into temper easily enough, but when it fled—then came the shame for having let her emotions rule her actions, the guilt for having said something unkind in the heat of the moment.
And she knew even as she prepared the last of the eggs that she would sacrifice hers to the damned miserable marquess laying upstairs, and take only a slice of bread for herself. Even if he threw those, too, against the wall. Because, when one got right down to it, she had put him in his present position.
She told herself that it was tantamount to turning the other cheek—that it would be good practice for the coming months, when they would all have to tighten their belts still further.
She turned, plate in hand. “Willie—”
Willie heaved a sigh. “I’ll take it to him,” he said, his face set in sagging lines of disapproval. “I’ll take it to him, Miss Lizzie. And ye’ll have one of my eggs.”
She managed a tremulous smile. “We’ll have an extra slice of bread each, then, hmm?” And she turned to begin laying the dishes out upon the table, the mismatched crockery like a patchwork quilt laid upon the rickety table, complete with the incongruously ornate silver candlestick holders as centerpieces.
Just as she had laid out the last of the plates, Imogen dashed into the room, and Lizzie turned to her only briefly. “Imogen, could you call down the children—”
“There’s a letter!” Imogen interjected, bouncing upon the balls of her feet. “Oh, Lizzie, there’s a letter. It could be—”
From Mr. Wycombe? Lizzie’s heart leapt—perhaps Imogen had been right all along. Perhaps Mr. Wycombewouldbe returning.
“Postage due,” Imogen blurted, holding out her hand in expectation. “It’s sixpence.”
And just like that, Lizzie’s heart plummeted anew. Their already strained budget was about to be strained yet further. The man couldn’t be bothered to pay to post his own letter? Still, she bit back a sigh and reached for the small tin where the household funds—dwindling by the day—were kept, and carefully counted out the coin, dropping it into Imogen’s hand.
Imogen didn’t even bother to thank her; she simply wheeled around and dashed off, a shrill squeal of delight eking from her mouth. And Lizzie was left to climb the stairs and send the children to wash up and come down to breakfast.
And when she came down again, it was to find Imogen seated already at the table, pale and wan. Her heart sank even further. “Oh, Imogen—”
“It wasn’t him,” Imogen said, and Lizzie knew that the certainty to which Imogen had held fast that her lover would soon return had cracked just a little more. “It wasn’t him.” And she held out the letter wordlessly to Lizzie.
Lizzie snatched it up and scanned the lines contained therein. “Oh, no,” she said. “No.”
But she met her sister’s gaze across the table, and for once of late they were in accord. The worst possible thing had happened. Papawas coming home.
∞∞∞
Luke stared down at the fried eggs and slices of barely-buttered toast upon his plate, which had been delivered to him by the dour-faced manservant, Willie. “Bacon?” he inquired hopefully, striving to inflect his voice with something less than the scorn to which they had all become accustomed.
Willie sniffed. “Ain’t had bacon in this house for weeks.”
“I suppose plum cake is right out, then.” Luke prodded the eggs with the tines of his fork. He preferred them coddled, but as it was unlikely that Miss Talbot—Lizzie—was possessed of either the time or inclination to humor his requests, he supposed he would simply have to eat them as they had come.
Something of his perturbation must have shown upon his face, for Willie made a rough sound in his throat and muttered, “And don’t ye eventhinkof pitching this across the room. Ye’re taking food from Miss Lizzie’s mouth only existing; she don’t need to be fretting over broken crockery in addition to hunger.”
Taking food from her mouth? “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean Miss Lizzie gave yeherportion last night and then again this morning,” Willie barked. “Imagine she’llkeepdoing it, too, for all that yer ungrateful arse ain’t worth keepin’ alive. So ye’ll eat what ye’re given, and ye’ll bethankfulof it—understand?”
