Chapter 22
“You need to discipline your staff, Veronica,” Aunt Lilly said.
“One of the maids actually had the temerity to smile at me this morning.” She lifted the lid of each of the chafing dishes, frowning.
“What is this penchant the Scottish have for oats?” she asked.
“A good dish of herring is what’s needed in the morning. Don’t you agree, my dear?”
Veronica knew better than to assume the last statement had been directed toward her. Uncle Bertrand looked up absently, then nodded.
Her father hadn’t liked oatmeal, either, and it had become a loving jest around their house.
If you don’t finish weeding the garden today, Veronica, you’ll have porridge for supper.
Her mother used the threat against her father: If your father isn’t done with his writings in an hour, I shall give him a porridge instead of this lovely stew.
She didn’t share that story with her aunt. Neither Aunt Lilly nor Uncle Bertrand liked to speak of her parents, as if not mentioning them would somehow erase them from her mind.
Montgomery, seated on the other side of the breakfast table from her uncle, glanced at her. She didn’t need any sort of Gift to know what he was thinking. Her relatives annoyed him.
At least he was there, at breakfast, preventing her from having to suffer through a meal with her family alone, a gesture for which she was exceedingly grateful.
“I’m sorry you don’t find anything to your satisfaction, Aunt Lilly,” she said. “Perhaps if you would let me know what you’d prefer, I’ll inform Cook. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be better prepared for you.”
Dear God, how long were they staying?
“A good hostess is prepared for all contingencies, my dear,” Aunt Lilly said, returning to the table. For someone who hadn’t found anything palatable, she’d certainly filled her plate.
“Why, exactly, have you decided to grace us with a visit?” Montgomery asked.
She glanced at Montgomery, then Aunt Lilly. If she’d made that remark, she’d have been chastised for the effrontery of it. With so many people at the table ready to castigate her for one gaffe or another, it was a miracle food hadn’t curdled in her stomach.
Aunt Lilly only smiled at Montgomery.
“We are not simply visitors, my dear boy. We’re family. I didn’t realize we required an invitation to feel welcome in your home.” She smiled again. “But then, we didn’t know that you would be engaged in . . .” Her hands fluttered in the air as her words trailed away.
Her family had been shocked to see the balloon, so much so that they’d stared at Montgomery all during dinner as if he were some sort of winged creature invited into the drawing room. Breakfast didn’t look to be any better.
Of the two episodes—flying in Montgomery’s balloon and welcoming her family to Doncaster Hall—she much preferred flying.
She stood before Aunt Lilly could say anything further.
“Of course you’re welcome at Doncaster Hall, Aunt Lilly,” she said, signaling Montgomery with a glance. She then did something she’d never had the courage to do in London.
She left the room.
Montgomery met her outside the family dining room.
“How could they simply appear?” she asked. “Am I to hear her criticisms until they leave? And when are they leaving?”
“Since they’re your relatives, I couldn’t venture to guess,” he said. “Have you considered asking them?”
“She’ll just pat me on the head, tell me not to worry, then proceed to order the kitchen staff about.
The only reason breakfast was halfway bearable was because my cousins decided to take a tray in their rooms. Five trays, Montgomery.
We don’t have an infinite number of staff.
Every maid was pressed into service this morning.
Even Mrs. Brody was ferrying trays up and down the steps. ”
“You had no idea they were coming?”
“I had no idea they were coming. And if we don’t do something now, Montgomery, they will continue to come. Every few months. And stay.”
The look on his face mirrored her inward horror. Emigrating to America was almost preferable to endless visits from Uncle Bertrand and his family.
“Can you imagine a repeat of dinner for the next two weeks?”
Dinner the night before had been a higgledy-piggledy affair, with Mrs. Brody’s careful menu thrown out due to the unexpected arrival of seven relatives and their three servants.
They’d cobbled together a meat course, a fish course, a vegetable course, and pudding, but Uncle Bertrand and Aunt Lilly had not ceased complaining, along with Adam, Amanda, Alice, and Anne, about the paucity of the food and its quality.
The only person who hadn’t ventured a negative opinion was Algernon, because he was feeling ill and had remained in a hastily prepared guest chamber.
“Perhaps if I was exceptionally rude,” Montgomery said, “they’d leave earlier.”
She shook her head, feeling panic rush in. “On the contrary. Aunt Lilly would take it upon herself to instruct you on proper manners. She’d stay longer.”
They looked at each other. For the first time in their married life, they had a shared goal as well as a common enemy.
“You could come and help me with the balloon,” he said.
“Are you asking because you’re feeling sorry for me? Or because you genuinely wish my assistance?”
“I’m asking because I haven’t any other idea how to spare you your aunt’s attentions,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I should warn Mrs. Brody,” she said. “Tell her to pay Aunt Lilly no heed.”
He nodded.
“And warn Ralston as well,” she added.
He only smiled.
“We should be a good host and hostess.”
“We should,” he echoed. “But Mrs. Brody and Ralston will simply have to fend for themselves. As will your family.”
She placed her hand in his, allowing him to lead her to the servants’ stairs. By the time they reached the arched bridge, they were running, like children escaping the schoolroom.
At the top of the bridge, he placed his hands on her waist, twirled her around until her skirts were swirling above her ankles. She began to laugh, teased into merriment by the look in his eyes and the smile on his face.
Who knew that Montgomery had a mischievous side?
He hadn’t been speaking in jest when he said he would put her to work. He gave her a leather apron and directed her to several crates stacked in the corner.
Tom, one of the stableboys who’d come to work with Montgomery, was to assist her.
Tom was young, and shy, a fact she discovered when she smiled in his direction.
His face flushed, he ducked his head, and he mumbled something she couldn’t hear.
Rather than ask him to repeat himself, she took pity on the boy and looked away.
“What is it, exactly, you want me to do, Montgomery?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, startled to notice he’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. She’d never noticed how well developed his arms were. Even fully clothed, Montgomery was arresting.
He’d remained in his room last night, and she’d stayed in hers, feeling a little odd about her entire family being in residence and in rooms down the hall. Instead of feeling reticent, she should have gone to him.
Their gazes locked, and she flushed.
“I’m looking for the blades of a fan,” he said. “I thought I’d unpacked it but couldn’t find it. It’s time I unpacked everything, I think.”
He gestured toward the six crates, and she nodded.
Tom used an oddly shaped iron tool to pry off the lid of the first crate.
By the third crate, she was ankle deep in wood shavings and sneezing periodically, as ladylike as she could.
Tom, on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely, as evidenced by his broad smile each time they discovered something new and unusual.
She’d unearthed an oval crystal object Montgomery identified as a thermometer. Something else that looked like a weathervane incited a word of praise from him. He strode across the distillery, took it from her, and held it up in front of him.
“I wondered where that was,” he said. “I ordered it from Italy, you see, and hadn’t thought it was here yet.”
Without telling her exactly what it was, he strode back to his worktable. Her gaze followed him, watched as he perched on the stool, and smiled at the weathervane-like object as if it were a well-cherished friend.
The air was filled with dust, and the temperature was rising in the distillery to almost an uncomfortable warmth. She didn’t know what she was doing yet she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier.
After her adventure the day before in the balloon, she was more than willing to go up again. Even eager, a comment she made to him when the last of the crates was unpacked and the wood shavings piled into a barrow for use as kindling. He smiled at her, as if pleased at her enthusiasm.
When she saw one of the maids on the arched bridge, carrying Montgomery’s lunch, it was a clear signal she needed to return to the house to ensure that her relatives weren’t ordering everyone around.
“Is there anything I can do to convince you to accompany me back to Doncaster Hall?” she asked.
He kept his attention on the mass of metal parts arranged on a workbench.
For a moment, Veronica was certain he was unaware she’d spoken.
A second later, however, he proved her wrong by glancing at her and smiling.
He set the tool he was using down on the workbench, wiped his hand on a cloth, and met her in the middle of the building.
Sunlight speared through the door of the distillery, bathing him in a bright light. She walked closer, stopping only when the toes of her shoes met the toes of his boots.
Since the day before, she’d been filled with an effervescent feeling of excitement, an emotion that even the appearance of her relatives couldn’t destroy.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him, blinking against the light.
Placing both hands on his chest, she could feel his heat, and the steady and certain beat of his heart.