Page 22 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“Youmay find them, my lord.You.” She seized a fork in one hand and the platter of eggs in the other and scraped the last two fried eggs onto his plate, where they landed with a wet plop. “At your convenience, of course.”
A growl of discontent rumbled upon his throat—and stuck there, when Willie caught his gaze and gave a slight, grave shake of his head, coupled with a severe, piercing stare.
Luke had taken Lizzie’s seat while she had still been preparing breakfast. And even amidst her roiling fury, she had slid the last of the eggs uponhisplate, taking none for herself. Guilt mingled with irritation; an unappealing blend of emotions. He jabbed his fork into the runny yolk as he shoved his other hand into the waistband of his damp, borrowed trousers, retrieving the letters he’d stuffed there, which had come out mercifully unscathed from his brush with a lapful of hot tea.
Slapping them on the table as he shoved a heaping forkful of egg into his mouth, he muttered, “See that these are sent today.”
And as Lizzie silently snatched up the letters and turned on her heel, Georgie tilted his nose up into the air and said, snidely, “It’s rude to talk with your mouth full.”
Just like his damned sister.
∞∞∞
“You could have gone in the carriage, Miss Lizzie,” Willie grumbled sourly as he began to unhook the horses from their harness. “Didn’t have to walk the whole way into town on your own.”
“I know,” Lizzie sighed, as she climbed down from the carriage, flexing her aching toes in her boots. She had needed to escape the house and all its pressures, just for a little while—and so she had cut and run at the earliest opportunity, stuffing his lordship’s letters into the pocket of her apron and walking the mile and a half into town on her own. But her boots, with the leather that had gone stiff with age, had not been as suitable to the walk as she might have otherwise hoped, and she feared she’d worn blisters into her feet.
It was sheer luck that she had run into Willie as she’d been dawdling in town, working up the resolve to walk back. His old bones could not handle the walk to and from town with the added burden of the purchases he’d had to make, and so he took the carriage whenever he was obliged to go.
Luckily, they’d both been done with their errands when they had met at last—or else there might’ve been trouble. The last time Willie had conveyed her into town, he had taken exception to a rude remark that the butcher had made, and while he’d successfully blackened the butcher’s eye, he had also lost a tooth for his pains. They hadn’t been welcome in the butcher’s shop for a solidmonth. And what a bleak month that had been.
Willie had taken a strong dislike to the townsfolk in general, and to certain ones in particular. It was Talbot land a large portion of them were living on—land Lizzie’s mother’s family had owned for generations.
Everyone was aware of the ruin into which the Talbots had fallen, and why. And because Papa had made it a practice of haring off to one corner of England or another—he had really never bothered to share with his children exactlywherehe was going, or how long he intended to be away—few of their tenants had felt pressed to pay their rents in his absence. Too many times she had heard the refrain from their tenants, someyearsin arrears, that they would pay their rents when Papa came and collected them himself and not before.
Too many times she had suffered the condescending smiles offered to her upon the back of those very words—theknowingin their eyes that she was powerless to do anything more thanaskfor what was due to her family.
As she bent to retrieve a sack of things that Willie had purchased from the market, there was the shrill squeal of hinges, and the unmistakable thunkof the solid wood of the front door slamming open. She lifted her head to see the marquess striding toward her, and despite the still sickly pallor of his skin, he had managed what was very nearly a jog.
A glower furrowed his brows and carved hollows into his cheeks. With his good arm, he gave a wild, aggravated gesticulation. “Youleftme! Withchildren!”
With a startled laugh at the offense scrawled across his face, Lizzie inquired, “And?”
The marquess drew up short, clearly unaccustomed to being questioned in any fashion. “Do I bear some sort of resemblance to a nanny?” When she failed to offer a suitable response over the course of a few seconds, his jaw tightened yet further. “Children give me hives,” he said fiercely. “Thoseones are particularly egregious.” This, with a vicious jab toward Jo and Georgie, who stood in the doorway, affecting matching innocent expressions.
Lizzie tightened her grip upon the sack. “Am I to take that to mean that you don’t wish to be left in their company in the future?”
“That ispreciselywhat I wish.”
Lizzie slung the sack toward him, gratified by the uncomfortable sound he made as it hit him square in the chest, and he was obliged to grab for it lest it fall to the ground. “Then run your own damned errands from now on.” And she stalked straight past his high-and-mighty lordship and into the house, ushering the children away from the ill-tempered man gawking in the drive.
Chapter Eleven
Luke’s pride had taken one beating too many since his ignominious arrival upon the Talbot estate. It had seemedprudentto warn Lizzie of what he was and was not willing to bear, and playing nursemaid to a couple of unruly brats had ranked highly upon theneverlist.
Instead of an apology, he had received a heaping serving of scorn, and a bag of—what? Potatoes?
Willie gave a muted scoff beneath his breath, his grizzled face sagging into a judgmental frown. “Come on, then,” he said, gruffly. “Least ye can do is stock the larder.”
With an appraising eye, Luke glanced over the bags. “How long is this meant to last?” he asked.
A one-shouldered shrug, encumbered by the weight of the bags. “Long as it needs to, I reckon.” Willie retreated through the door and waited until Luke had followed behind him to nudge it closed once more.
“I’ll admit I’ve not much experience with the procurement of food or the cooking thereof,” Luke said, meandering after Willie to the small room adjacent to the kitchen—what passed for a larder in the house, and which was mostly bare. “But I can’t imagine this would last more than a week or so for six people.”
Willie began to unpack the bags. Onions, it looked like, and turnips. A wrapped hunk of some sort of salted meat that would no doubt be stretched thin as thread to feed the occupants of the house. “Seven, soon,” he said with a stoic grunt.
Right. DearestPapawas due home shortly. “I suppose I’ll have to vacate the master’s chambers, then.” Though he couldn’t imagine that any other room going spare would have been kept in any better condition. Plainly the Talbots could hardly manage what rooms they currently used. No thanks due to Papa.
