contrast to the cheap baize of her skirt and jacket. He was able to make this observation because the back of her skirt had been tucked into its waistband. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he chose to believe this had happened accidentally, no doubt while she was jumping into her clothes. Rather than call the faux pas to her attention, which would have embarrassed them both, he reached out and corrected the problem with a sharp, decisive tug.
Cosy whirled around. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Benedict showed her only boredom and a slight, puzzled frown. “I beg your pardon?”
His unruffled calm succeeded in confusing her. “I thought—I thought I felt something brushing against me,” she said uncertainly.
“Oh? I daresay it was a draft.”
Evidently judging it best to keep an eye on him, she backed through the swinging door that led into the servants’ part of the house. After a short flight of stairs leading down, Benedict found himself, for the first time in his life, standing in a kitchen.
Chapter 2
Unlike the cold, dark hall upstairs, the kitchen was warm and inviting. Cosy dropped his bag next to the huge brick chimneypiece, placed the branch of candles on the big work table, and invited him to sit down. Though shabby and threadbare, the two chairs beside the fire were upholstered in brocade and must have graced a drawing-room at some point in their careers. As promised, a tortoiseshell cat was curled up in one of them. Benedict took the other.
Miss Cosy’s easy manners seemed better suited to the kitchen. He felt that he was now in her domain and that she, and not he, was in charge. Briskly, she stirred up the small banked fire with the poker, adding a few broken bits of wood to it. Then she stood on tiptoe to retrieve the whiskey bottle from its niche in the chimneypiece. She poured a generous measure into a glass.
“Get this in you quick as you can,” she said, holding it out to him.
He raised a brow. “You keep the brandy in the chimney, do you?”
Her eyes twinkled at him. They were green as the sea. He was less sure about the color of her hair. In this light, it looked more yellow than orange. “There’s no brandy in this chimney,” she told him. “It’s whiskey. And it’s doing you no good this side of your tonsils.”
Leaving him to it, she took the kettle into the scullery to fill it from the pump. “He’ll spoil the milk if he stays,” Nora warned her, taking the kettle from her.
Cosy was not surprised to find Nora hiding or, rather, spying, in the scullery.
“That is an ignorant superstition, Nora Murphy,” she said angrily. “Anyway, he can’t help being left-handed, poor man. He’s an amputee.”
“I had the notion he was foreign the moment I clapped eyes on him,” Nora said darkly.
“Aren’t you ashamed to be so ignorant?” Cosy scolded her. “He’s had his right arm amputated at the elbow, Nora. That means it was cut off by the surgeon. Now, go and make up the fire in my room before I lose my temper.”
Nora was shocked. “Your room, Miss Cosy!”
Cosy blushed. “I’ll be sleeping with you in the attic, of course,” she snapped.
When she returned to the kitchen with the kettle, the Englishman was sitting as straight as a ramrod in his chair, but he had finished his whiskey like a man. Encouraged by his thirst, Cosy set the kettle on the hook, swung the arm into the fire, and then refilled his glass. Not a word of thanks did he utter. She could only suppose that extreme privation had made him forget his manners. And, of course, being English, he had little manners to begin with.
She tied on her apron. “You’re hungry, of course,” she said brightly. “And if there’s anything I won’t stand for, it’s a hungry man in my kitchen.”
“No, thank you,” he replied.
“It’s no trouble,” she assured him.
Incredibly, he claimed not to be hungry.
“Are you sick?” she demanded.
“Certainly not,” he said coldly.
“Would you not have something?” she pleaded. “Even if it’s only bread and jam.”
Benedict sipped his second whiskey, accustoming himself to the smoky flavor. “You seemed to be having trouble hearing me, Miss Cosy,” he said. “I am not hungry.”
The sad fact was, she had little in the house to tempt a man’s appetite.
“You should have been here last week, sir,” she sighed. “The scallops were so nice. You wouldn’t have said no to them. God forgive me; I nearly forgot the pear! With a drop of honey, it’ll make you a nice tart.”
She looked at him hopefully, but he was unmoved. “I dined earlier in Chippenham.”
She retreated reluctantly. “If you’re sure you’re not hungry…”
“I am!” he told her curtly.
“Oh, you are hungry,” she cried, delighted. “Will it be the tart, then?”
“No, I’m not hungry,” he said, cutting short her pleasure. “I am absolutely certain of it.”
He sipped his whiskey.
“Sure that pear was bruised anyway,” she said, rallying. “Is it a pipe you smoke, Sir Benedict? I could fill it for you. My own father smokes a pipe, and, ever since I was a young girl, I’d always fill it for him, so it’s no trouble.”
“I don’t smoke,” he said.
She smiled incredulously. “You don’t smoke?”
“Not anymore,” he said with more accuracy. “The tax has become so impertinent, I have decided to give it up for a bad habit.”
“In that case, I’d say your coat’s been sneaking a few behind your back.” She laughed.
Benedict was horrified. “That is not the scent of my tobacco,” he said quickly. “I was obliged to take up some stranded people on the road. The gentleman smelled of cheap tobacco—and perfume, unfortunately. The carriage was utterly polluted. But I had no choice. In good conscience, I could not have left them out in the rain.”
“’Tis such a bother, indeed, taking in strangers on a cold, wet night,” she gravely agreed. “Sure they’re more trouble than they’re worth, them strangers, and never a word of thanks!”
“Quite,” he answered, in no way connecting her remarks to his own situation. “But one must always be charitable to those in need. I apologize if the odor offends you.”
“Ah, no. It’s myself that owes you an apology,” she said, sitting down on the brick step with her back to the fire. “Here I thought you’d been out all night, smoking and womanizing, like a proper gentleman!” Her green eyes danced.
Benedict could not believe the woman had
