Page 34 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Brancaster examined the bricks. “It must be a local stone, different from the limestone. This looks to be a sandstone.”
“Kellaways rock, is what we call it, and more than that I can’t say,” Mrs. Blake replied.
“His lordship likes stones and brick making,” Lede explained. “It was a feat getting him here past all the monuments. He wanted to inspect St. Giles.”
“Do you, then!” Ives exclaimed. “Would you want to see my snake stones, sir?”
“Milord,” Betsey corrected him as the boy scampered up the stairs to the room above. He came down directly with a small wooden box and headed to the table with it.
“Not your dirty old stones on the table we’re about to eat from!” his mother scolded. “Take it elsewhere.”
Ives dutifully veered to a side table, and while the women laid out the food, Ives showed his lordship his treasures.
“Found ’em near the riverbank,” Ives reported. “They’s all over. We calls ’em snake stones as for the lines in them. Like snakeskins, see?”
“These are fossils,” Brancaster said. “We see them all over Norfolk, too. The going theory is that these are evidence of the Flood. Ancient sea creatures stranded on land when the waters receded, and so trapped in layers of earth.”
Leda joined them and was given a whitish stone to inspect, heavy enough to fill her hand. She marveled at the shape printed inside, curled like a snail but with a striated shell. “A fossil?”
“Some small, strange beast wiped out by the deluge,” Brancaster said. “Their like no longer exists, not that any living fisherman has found.”
“How strange to think the earth was once so much different,” Leda said.
“But we can learn about it. The evidence is contained within our rocks. Some buried beneath the earth, and some beneath the sea.”
Leda lifted her gaze to his and caught the full impact of his gray eyes, kindled with the light of excitement. He cupped his hands around the stone she held, with one hand tracing the print of the creature, the other cradling her knuckles. His skin was warm.
The air between them disappeared.
“They’re not just stones,” he said. “They’re stories. About the world unseen around us.”
“Fascinating,” Leda breathed.
“Eat before it gets cold,” Mrs. Blake called, breaking Leda’s momentary trance.
Their meal was as merry as could be, all of them gathered around the table. Ives, who had never been relegated to the nursery as he would have been in a gentleman’s home, joined in the lively discussion about Leda’s new life in Bath.
“Many famous people come for the waters,” she told the boy. “They call it the Royal Crescent now because Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, stayed there for a time.”
“Did the king ever visit?” Ives wanted to know.
“Not that I know of. The king prefers Weymouth for the sea bathing, I believe. But the Duchess of Gordon is in Bath as we speak, and she is a great friend of my employer, Lady Plume.”
“And this lady is good to you, aye?” Mrs. Blake asked. “Not setting a gentleman’s daughter to making her possets or sorting her embroidery silks.”
“I would do those things if she asked me, and many gentleman’s daughters have ended in far worse circumstances,” Leda replied, heaping her plate with purslane. Fresh greens from the garden were a treat she’d forgotten. If she ever had a homeof her own, she would surround it with gardens. “And you are happy here, all of you?”
“Aye, it’s a fine place,” Mrs. Blake replied. “Kellaways isn’t much for a village, but there’s Bremhill on one side and Chippenham when we wish a jaunt, and some fine lady in Bath sends us money for all we need. Betsey’s earning a bit working at the girl’s school for the Moravians, enough to buy her bits and bobs, and our eggs and butter go well at the market. We look after ourselves, and that’s more than I can say for you, mum.”
“I live in the lap of luxury, I assure you. If I could, I would bring you all to Bath with me.”
“I do not see my Aunt Plume as the maternal sort, reigning over a little family,” Brancaster observed, his mouth lifting in a wry smile. Leda reminded herself not to look again at his mouth.
“Does she serve you birds?” Ives eyed the two pair of roast larks adorning the adults’ plates. “Not even sure how you eat those.”
“With one bite, bones and all.” Brancaster demonstrated, and Ives grinned at the satisfying crunch.
“I say! I’ll get my slingshot and catch you all the songbirds you want, Mrs. Blake. And maybe a hare or two, if I can catch ’em. This civet’s a bully good one.”
