He stared at her. “You’re joking. That’s quite a hike from Belgravia to here.”
Her cheeks warmed and she glanced down. “I enjoy walking. Too much of my time is spent indoors sitting, so I walk whenever I get the chance.” No need to mention that she also did it to save the unnecessary expense of a cab or omnibus.
She sensed his scrutiny. “I imagine my aunt requires you at her side quite a bit.”
She bit her lip, striving to answer honestly, yet not be critical of his relative. “It’s the nature of my job.”
“I suppose so.” He didn’t pursue the subject. No doubt his interest in the topic of paid companions had waned.
By the time they were seated in the tearoom and the waiter had taken their order, Maddie removed her gloves and decided to forget about Lady Haversham and enjoy herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a public eatery. She glanced around at the charming interior. Dark wood oak beams framed the low ceiling. They sat at a small, round table covered with a spotless white linen tablecloth. A small bouquet of forget-me-nots and daffodils was placed at its center.
Mr. Gallagher leaned forward. “Tell me about your time in Palestine, Miss Norton.”
She folded her hands and looked down at the tablecloth. “There isn’t much to tell. We lived in Jerusalem from when I was eight until I was fourteen.”
“You said your parents were missionaries?”
“Yes.” She was glad to be able to speak about them instead of herself. “Papa felt a call to the mission field when he was a young man—both my parents did, actually. They went to Palestine under the auspices of the Foreign Mission Society, when representatives of the society came to our church to speak one Sunday.”
“I’m surprised they took a young child with them.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Not only one. Three. I have two older brothers.”
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine being responsible for anyone but myself over there. And you all survived your time in the field?”
“Yes. I won’t say it was without incident….” Her words slowed. “My parents probably wouldn’t have come back when they did, but I had fallen ill with malaria.”
“The Middle East can be a harsh place.”
She found him observing her, his long fingers idly smoothing down the ends of his mustache. She could feel her cheeks redden under his gaze, wondering what he saw—a woman past her youth, with eyes that tended to look sad even when she wasn’t, cheeks that gave away her emotions, a too-wide mouth. Her eyelids fluttered downward as the moment drew out.
“Most foreigners succumb to malaria at one time or another. I’ve gone through enough bouts to dread the symptoms.”
She sighed. “I grew to know them quite well. It was after my third attack that my parents decided to return to England.”
He continued stroking his mustache, studying her. He had such a direct way of looking at a person, she felt he could read her innermost thoughts.
“I’m still amazed that a European woman and her three young children survived the experience as long as you did.”
“My two brothers were old enough that my parents would probably have braved it out longer, if they had fallen ill, but I was younger, and somewhat frail when I was a child.” She gazed out the window. Her parents had had to make so many sacrifices on her behalf. She turned back to him, recovering herself with a smile. “My two brothers are now missionaries in their place.”
“In Palestine?”
“No. One is in Constantinople, the other in West Africa.”
He whistled softly. “Your family is spread far and wide. Are your parents still alive?”
“Yes. Papa has a small curacy in Wiltshire.” She steered the conversation away from her family. “Tell me how you came to be involved in Egyptology, Mr. Gallagher.”
He eased back against the small wooden chair. “The question is more, How could I help not becoming involved? I lived a good many years in Egypt when I was growing up. My father was a diplomat. When I came back to England to school, my great-uncle—Lady Haversham’s husband—took up where my life abroad had left off.”
He was interrupted by the waiter bringing them their tea. Maddie absorbed what he’d told her, watching him as he spoke to the waiter. Although he addressed the man casually, seemingly as at ease in this quaint tearoom as in the great lecture hall, she continued to sense a man outside his natural element. Today he was as well dressed as he had been at his aunt’s, in a starched white shirt, finely patterned silk tie and sack coat of dark broadcloth, yet she couldn’t help picturing him in more rugged garb, such as he must wear in the desert.
As she stirred sugar into her tea, Maddie chanced a glance at her own navy-blue dress. It was the same one she’d worn the day he’d come to visit his aunt. Well, that wasn’t surprising, being one of only three gowns she owned. It was certainly appropriate for a paid companion, but not up to standards to be seen in a gentleman’s company. She must look like a nursemaid or governess beside him. What would the waiter or the patrons sitting around them think of such a handsome man escorting such a dowdy female?
The waiter moved away from their table and Mr. Gallagher turned his attention back to her. “I really wanted to thank you today for how you are taking care of Aunt Millicent. You seem to have a way with her.”
“You have nothing to thank me for. I’m just her companion. She has a whole legion of servants to take care of her. As well as a fine physician,” she added, thinking of how often Dr. Aldwin was summoned.
“She seems to rely on you, however.”
Maddie removed the spoon from her cup and placed it on the saucer, uncomfortable with the compliment. “I’m only doing my job.”
“How long have you been a…companion?” He hesitated over the word, as if unaccustomed to the term.
“Since I left home.”
“When was that?”
“When I was eighteen.” In the silence that followed she wondered if he was calculating how old she must be. On the cusp of turning thirty, she could have told him.
He only nodded, and again, she had that sense that he was evaluating her words, taking nothing at face value. He was probably cataloging her as a spinster securely on the shelf.
She shook aside the depressing thought and imagined instead that it was probably a painstaking attention to detail that made him a good archaeologist. She was still amazed he had remembered her name—or her, for that matter. He’d hardly glanced at her during the time he was at his aunt’s for tea.
“How long have you been involved in archaeology?” she asked, returning to the topic she was really interested in.
Humor tugged at his lips, half-hidden by his mustache. “Oh, forever.”
She smiled at his evident pleasure in the topic.
