Page 53 of Lyon of Scotland
“Sister?” She turned.
“Mary Eleanor. Nell,” he added. “Married to a good lad, Ewan Cameron, who is away, a surgeon in a regiment in Ireland. Nell needs something to do, and I am sometimes the victim of that.” He chuckled.
“She sounds lovely. I do not know much about your family.”
“I also have a brother, Quentin, the youngest. He’s in Ireland with Ewan Cameron. We hope to see them both by year’s end. Just now, I must apologize. With the servants away, there’s likely nothing in the larder but oats and beans. And I would not expect you to cook.”
“Mrs. Pringle gave us plenty of food.” Hannah gestured toward the basket she had set down. “I am not sure what is there, but it is sure to be good. Are you hungry? I’m rather famished.”
“Let’s see what we have. The kitchen is this way.”
She followed him along the hallway to a white door tucked in a corner. A short stairway led to the plain environment below stairs, all whitewashed walls and planked floors. They passed a stone storage cellar and entered the kitchen, a wide vaulted room with windows that looked out onto the lower part of the street.
In the dark, in the lantern light, Hannah put the basket on the worktable, then lit a fire in the huge hearth, taking time to nurse it to life while she set a kettle of water on a hook to boil. She went about the work capably, with little comment, feeling curiously comfortable in Strathburn’s kitchen, as if she had always lived here.
“My sister is going to love you,” he said. “She has no patience with those who expect servants to take care of everything.”
“We were taught to do for ourselves when we could, though we were fortunate to have servants in the house, and fortunate to have Mama and then Mrs. Pringle to teach us properly.” She stoked the fire as she spoke.
“So were we. It is the way of it in Scotland.”
“Where the servants are often our kinfolk and are inclined to say, ‘Oh, do it yourself, dearie, we are too busy,’” she replied with a laugh.
Dare chuckled in agreement and emptied the basket. Mrs. Pringle had provided an abundance of wrapped cold meats, bread, cheese, apples, fruit tarts, and a small pottery jug containing cool milk.
“Milk for tea,” he said, “if I can find the tea.”
“Let me look.” Opening a pantry, she found a wooden box holding three metal caddies and set it on the worktable. Pryingopen the lids, she sniffed each. “Green,” she pronounced, “and bohea—a very strong black, that one—and, ooh, cocoa in this one.”
“If you know tea and love cocoa, my sister will adore you,” he remarked. “Though it is late for tea. I know where the wine is kept, if you prefer that.”
She capped the canisters. “If you do not mind, I am partial to cocoa, and we have milk that should not sit about.”
“The cellars are always cool for such things. But cocoa it is, if my wife wishes it,” he said lightly, “with milk and sugar as she pleases, and cold meat with bread, wrapped as a sandwich, if that is not too ordinary for her.”
“I love picnics. Oh, the water is boiling!” Going to the hearth, she took the kettle off the hearth and set it aside, heated the milk to simmering, then found sugar in cone shapes wrapped in paper. Breaking off pieces, she mixed it with milk and cocoa. The divine smell of hot chocolate filled the kitchen.
She turned to find Dare slicing thick chunks of bread. He stuffed them with cold meat and cheese and set them on a platter, which he carried to a small table in a corner of the kitchen.
“There might be pickles in the cold cellar,” he said. “Cook puts them up often, I think. Is there aught else you would like with this, lass?”
“This is fine,” she said, smiling, feeling a wash of contentment as she looked around the homey kitchen. “This is wonderful.”
She added a plate of fruit tarts, then found silverware, porcelain plates, cups, and linen napkins stored in a cupboard with wide shelves and drawers. Dare pulled out chairs and they sat together in the low, intimate light from the oil lamp and the crackling glow of the hearth fire, with darkness deep outside tall windows.
Here in his home, in her new role, Hannah felt comfortable, felt she could finally be herself after months of tension, of watching, of feeling hurt and wary. Both she and Dare would need to adjust and merge their lives and characters in a willing whole. That would take time.
And that needed honesty. Something had been tapping at the back of her mind, and she needed to ask, if she could find the moment and the words.
Dare glanced up and smiled. “You have a way with cocoa. This is good,” he said, and sipped. “You do more than just paint and draw. I saw some of your sketches. Very skilled.”
As if he knew her thoughts, he had given her an opening for what had been bothering her.
“Thank you. Did you see my armorial drawings?”
“Just the ones you did aboard ship. Masterfully done.”
“Thank you.” But she frowned, wondering. The thought would not leave her despite tonight’s happiness.
