Page 51 of Unmasked by the Marquess
He swung back onto the horse, which had been following meekly behind them.
“You don’t want to see your old nurse?” she asked.
“Of course I do, but I’ll save that for tomorrow when she’s more settled. Until then—Wait.” He put on his spectacles and peered at something at the edge of the barnyard. “Robin, what is that goose still doing alive and uncooked?”
“Louisa told Mrs. Trout you meant it as a present.” She opened her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “They both thought it very gracious of you.”
He looked so outraged at the idea of being considered gracious that she couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“I wrestled that creature into my curricle—”
“Alistair, you did not.”
“I certainly did. I’m not practiced in goose wrangling and I hope never to have the time to acquire that skill. But if it’s not to be cooked, I’ll have the innkeeper send over pie. Although the food at the inn is very indifferent, and you’ll wish you had cooked the goose.”
“You don’t need to do any of this.”
“Quite true. But I will anyway.”
“The dresses, the books, Mrs. Potton.” She shook her head, the scope of his generosity too great to put into words. “Thank you.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s my pleasure, Robin. And before I forget, I have another trifle for you.” He produced a parcel from the saddlebag and handed it to her before cantering away.
She tore open the package in the Trouts’ deserted sitting room. It contained a bottle-green coat, two shirts, several cravats, a waistcoat, and breeches.
There was also a note that read, “R—Just in case. Yours etc., A.”
While there was still enough light to see by, Alistair walked from the Duck and Dragon back to the farm, partly because he was bored at that terrible, terrible inn with only lovelorn Gilbert as his companion, but also because he wanted to see Robin again.
Mrs. Trout opened the door and regarded him with wide-eyed panic before dropping a curtsy and stammering something that sounded like his title. The woman was plainly at a loss as to how to deal with someone of his background. He felt faintly embarrassed in her presence, unaccountably guilty, as if he were imposing on her by being a marquess instead of a blacksmith or a ship’s mate.
Come to think, hewasimposing on her.
“Thank you for the girl and the chickens, your lordship,” she said, dropping a series of curtsies as she backed away toward the kitchen.
Alistair took her statement to mean that the maid had arrived. He knew that housing three additional women and the recuperating coachman would cause the Trouts a good deal of extra work. So he found a village girl in need of employment, gave her a few coins, and sent her to wait on Mrs. Trout.
He had also sent chickens, because barnyard fowl seemed to be an acceptable gift in Little Hatley.When in Rome, he told himself.
Climbing the stairs, he heard Robin’s voice. She was reading aloud from one of the books he sent over yesterday. He paused at the threshold, taking in the scene before anyone spotted him.
Miss Selby was propped up on several pillows, and apart from a bandage around her forehead she looked quite normal, which is to say she looked like a Dutch doll. He could see what had attracted Gilbert, if one’s tastes ran to extravagant prettiness instead of, say, unruly hair and winsome smiles.
Mrs. Potton, who had seemed quite sufficiently old when Alistair was a child and now appeared to be at least eighty, was bent over her knitting.
But Robin, though. Her dress warped his understanding of the body within. He had taken some pleasure in rifling through the dress shop in Biggleswade for the gowns she would find least objectionable, but hadn’t given much thought to what his own reaction might be to seeing her so attired. This morning he had been bewildered, alienated. When she wore her ordinary clothes—which was to say, men’s attire—he never paid any attention to the perfection of her collar bones or thought about how very much he wanted to kiss her neck.
She noticed him standing on the threshold and stopped reading, abruptly rising to her feet and letting the book fall to the floor.
He bowed, presented Miss Selby with a letter from his brother, and submitted to Mrs. Potton’s remarks about his appearance.
“You look more like his late lordship than I ever might have thought,” the elderly lady said. Alistair let himself take this as a compliment since she had rocked his father’s cradle and witnessed his first steps and was perhaps ignorant of his later exploits. And also because he heard the fondness in the nurse’s voice.
The nurse stepped out, announcing that she would return before midnight to relieve Robin. And so the three of them were left together. An awkward business. He couldn’t speak freely with Robin in front of Miss Selby; he doubted Miss Selby and Robin could speak in front of him; and he was damned if he could think of a single thing to say to Miss Selby under any circumstances.
Alistair bent and retrieved the book Robin had dropped. “I’ll read, if you’ll allow me.”
Sitting in the chair the nurse had vacated, and angling himself so the book caught the last rays of the setting sun, he read three chapters. He scarcely paused even when the sun set and Robin lit a candle. Occasionally he felt her eyes on him from across the bed, but when he looked up she hastily glanced away. Was she remembering what had happened the last time he had read out loud? He certainly was.
