Simply Unforgettable

“Strangely, Miss Allard,” he said, “I do not feel unmanned in admitting that, yes, indeed it is—and the last time too, I fervently hope. Who is going to wash all those dishes?”

A stupid question if ever he had asked one.

“I am,” she said, “unless I have a volunteer helper. I doubt it is even worth asking Thomas. And I sent Wally away to shave. I daresay that task will occupy him for the next hour or so. That leaves your coachman or . . .” She raised her eyebrows.

How the devil had he got himself into this ridiculous situation? She was not seriously expecting . . . But of course she was not. There was undisguised ridicule in her eyes.

“Do you want me to wash or dry?” he asked curtly.

“You had better dry,” she said. “You might ruin your gentleman’s hands if you had to keep them submerged in water for too long.”

“My valet would weep,” he admitted. “He went home ahead of me yesterday. He would refuse to leave my side ever again.”

This was turning into a stranger day by the moment, he thought as they proceeded to wash and dry the dishes while the potatoes bubbled merrily in their pot and the smell wafting from the oven caused his stomach to groan in protest at being kept waiting for its dinner. It was a day unlike anything else in his previous experience.

He never ever stopped at any inn but the very best. He rarely traveled without his valet, but Jeffreys had had a cold and Lucius had not been able to bear the thought of listening to his self-pitying sniffs all the way home in the carriage. He had not set foot inside a kitchen since he was a child, when he had visited frequently and clandestinely in order to beg tasty morsels. He liked his creature comforts, or, if he did give them up, in order to go out riding on a rainy day, for example, he liked to do so voluntarily and in pursuit of an activity he enjoyed or considered worthwhile.

This day had been a disaster ever since Peters had overtaken a carriage so ancient that Lucius had wondered if the snowstorm had somehow catapulted him back in time. And the day was not getting any better.

It was strange, then, that he was beginning almost to enjoy it.

“You do realize, do you not,” she said as he tossed down the wet towel on top of the final dish after drying it, “that there will be this to do all over again after dinner?”

He looked at her with incredulity.

“Miss Allard,” he said before making his escape back into the taproom, “has no one ever explained to you what servants are for?”

By the time they had dined and Mr. Marshall had assigned Wally and the two grooms the task of washing the dishes, Frances was feeling tired. It had been a long, more than strange day, and the darkness of the winter evening made it seem later than it was. The wind that rattled the window of the taproom and moaned in the chimney, and the heat and crackling sounds coming from the fire were lulling. So was the hot tea she was sipping.

She sat gazing into the fire, drinking her tea and watching with her peripheral vision the supple, highly polished leather of Mr. Marshall’s Hessian boots crossed at the ankle and resting on the hearth in an informal, relaxed pose that somehow made him seem twice as male as he had seemed before.

Dangerously male, in fact.

She dared not excuse herself and go up to bed. She would actually have to get to her feet and announce that she was going up there, to the room next to his. There was not even a lock on the door, she had discovered. Not that she suspected him of fancying her. But even so . . .

He sighed with apparent contentment.

“There was only one thing wrong with that beef pie, Miss Allard,” he said. “It has spoiled me for all others.”

It had turned out rather well considering the fact that she had never before cooked unsupervised and had not cooked at all for several years. But the compliment surprised her. He did not seem like the sort of man who handed out a great deal of praise.

“The potatoes were rather good too,” she said, provoking an unexpected bark of laughter from him.

Their acquaintance had started very badly, of course. But there was no point in keeping up an open hostility just for the sake of being nasty and provoking nastiness, was there? Somehow, by unspoken consent, they had laid down their weapons and made a sort of grudging peace.

But how strange it was to be sitting thus, alone with a very handsome, masculine gentleman, who was slouched in his chair, totally at his ease. And to know that they would spend the night within a few feet of each other, alone together on the upper floor of the inn. This was the stuff of fantasy and daydreams. But such fantasies were not quite as comfortable when they became reality.

Good heavens, for the past three years she had lived and consorted with none but females, if one discounted Mr. Keeble, the elderly porter at Miss Martin’s school.

“Your home is in Bath, is it?” Mr. Marshall asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “I live at the school where I teach.”

“Ah,” he said, “so you are a teacher.”

He had guessed it, had he? But it was not surprising. She was obviously not a fashionable lady any longer, was she? Even the private carriage in which she had been traveling was shabby despite the wealth of her great- aunts.

“At a girls’ school,” she said. “A very good one. Miss Martin opened it nine years ago with a few pupils and a very small budget. But her reputation as a good teacher and the help of a benefactor whose identity she does not even know enabled her to expand into the house next door and to take in charity girls as well as paying ones. She was also able to employ more teachers. I have been there for three years.”