Page 28 of His Duchess in Disguise
It was a lovely dream, and so much more entertaining than dwelling on the fear that she might have been recognized.I am safe. I am plain Kathy Smith, the kitchen maid. I’ve been given a special light duty because I hurt myself cutting up carrots, silly me. Everything is going to be just fine.
As she came to the sad close of the Arthurian saga, she sank back on her heels and stared at the image of the dying Arthur.If only I could be sure of a happy ending.
Chapter 19
Leo was relieved that Captain Arnault went to see about his men shortly before tea. The girl, Kathy Smith, intrigued him. He was beginning to think that Arnie was right, that the young lady was not used to being a maid at all. That she was running away was certainly clear from both her behavior and her literary knowledge.
With the good captain out of the way, Leo went back down to the hall where he witnessed Miss Smith gently caressing the carving of the fallen King Arthur. She knelt in the rays of the last sunlight as it streamed through the window at the end of the hall. The white apron and mobcap seemed almost like a nun’s habit, and he could readily imagine her as a tragic Guinevere, mourning for her husband and her lover.
Except that he couldn’t imagine the resourceful Miss Kathy Smith as being nearly so lackluster and feeble-minded as the usual portrayal of Guinevere. No, she would be someone more robust. Not Morgana, but perhaps Nemue, luring Merlin away. Certainly not someone who would sit around waiting for her fate to occur.
“Miss Smith?” he said tentatively. She did not react. “Kathy? Kathy Smith?”
“Oh!” she looked up, startled. “Your Grace, I did not notice that you had come in.”
“I can see that,” he said. “Let me ring for someone to clear up your things, and I’d like to see you in my office. I’d ask Mrs. Noddicott to come chaperone you, but I think you would like for this meeting to be a little more private.”
She rose and curtsied. “Very well, Your Grace. I will be glad to attend you.”
Leo reached up and pulled on the bell rope. When Matthew the scullion appeared, he said, “Please clear all this up. I need to have a few words with Miss Smith. Tell Mrs. Chambers that she will be down directly when I have finished speaking with her.”
Matthew gave him a sullen look, but said, “I’ll tell ‘er, Your Grace.”
Leo ushered Emma to the front hall and from there into the library and then into his study. Hamilton was there, working at a small desk in the corner. The secretary rose and positioned a guest chair where Emma would be able to see both the secretary and the Duke himself when he was seated at his desk.
The gentlemen both waited for her to be seated before sitting down in their chairs. Leo looked her over carefully. “Miss Smith, will you please remove your cap, then stand and turn around?”
“Your Grace?” she asked, looking like a deer poised before a hunter.
“It is all right, Miss Smith. It is just a theory I’d like to test out. You are in no danger of any kind.” Leo reassured her. “Now, if you please…?”
Emma reached up with shaking fingers and untied the cap, removing it from her head. She then stood up and turned around. Leo remembered a fair head with a figure-eight knot that had three ostrich plumes worked into it and telling Mrs. Pearthorne that he was too fatigued to meet any green girls.
“You may sit down again,” Leo said. “My theory has been confirmed. You are a friend of the Honorable Mrs. Pearthorne, but we were not formally introduced because I was in no mood for social niceties the night of the presentation. So, tell me, Miss Smith, who are you really?”
Emma sat down and twisted her cap in her hands, to the complete detriment of the starched frill. “Please don’t send me back,” she said. “Not everything I told Mrs. Chambers was a lie. My father did hit me, and he does want me to marry a terrible, terrible man.”
Leo pulled his ducal dignity and authority about himself and looked at her patiently. “I can’t promise you anything until you tell me your complete story. Let’s begin with your real name.”
Emma drew herself up straight. “I am Miss Emma Hoskins, daughter of the Baron of Calber.”
Hamilton made a small choking sound but was quelled by a look from Leo.
“Tell me what happened, and why you ran away,” he said gently. “If it is what I think, I will not make you go back.”
Encouraged by his quiet words, Emma took a deep breath and told the story, beginning with being presented, then coming home to the news that her father had not only given the Earl of Cleweme permission to pay her court but had arranged for her to marry him.
“I couldn’t, I just couldn’t stay after that,” Emma said. “So, I sold the dress that Mrs. Pearthorne gave to me and my books. It was just luck that I saw the man mistreating Beauty, and I was able to buy her. We were making good time until she came up lame. Then I traded for the donkey, and we were off again until he refused to go and then ran off. If Rags hadn’t found the sheep shed, I don’t know what we would have done.”
“That donkey probably saved your life,” Leo said gently. “I sent Robbie to take the donkey back to his owner and check on your mare. He saw where the beast had set his feet and refused to ride on. There was a fresh subsidence there. He said it looked as if an old barrow had caved in. A few steps more, and all of you would have fallen in.”
“But Rags and I walked on in the same direction we had been going,” Emma said, bewildered.
“You and Rags are a lot lighter than you, Rags, and a donkey. As it was, you were apparently well past it when it fell in.”
“Oh.” Emma sat silently for a few minutes. “And I called him ‘Sir Faithless,’ when I should have been thanking him.”
“How did you get him back, by the way?” asked Hamilton.
