Chapter Nine #2
As the sleigh sliced through the snow, Poppy knew exactly what her sister was thinking. It was precisely what she was thinking herself. When they’d seen the snow begin to come down heavily yesterday, their first thought should have been for Miss Millthorpe.
They’d both been so involved in their own plans that they’d not thought to wonder if the lady was well-supplied and comfortable.
They should have retrieved her first thing.
What a frightening night she’d experienced and it was their fault.
That had been so selfish and only thinking about themselves.
Pansy reached for and held her hand under the wool blanket on their laps. Poppy’s eyes watered and she hoped anybody noticing it would attribute it to the cold wind.
“Heavens. I can see well enough what you two girls are thinking,” Miss Millthorpe said. She sat across from Poppy ramrod straight and with her bonnet tied tight under her chin.
“We should have come and collected you yesterday,” Poppy said.
“That is exactly what I was thinking,” Pansy said, brushing at her eyes.
“Nonsense,” Miss Millthorpe said. “If you had, I would have given you tea, scolded you for going out in such weather, and sent you straight back home. None of us could have predicted that ruffians would come in the night.”
“So you positively would not have come with us?” Poppy asked.
“Positively not,” Miss Millthorpe said.
“No matter how much we pressed?” Pansy asked.
“No matter how much you pressed.”
Poppy sighed in relief.
“I feel better,” Pansy said.
Mr. Lelander turned his head from his seat up front and said, “It is a credit to you that you experience such regret, even if it is unwarranted.”
Lord Burkhart made some rejoinder about Pansy being equally regretful but Poppy hardly heard it. These back and forths between the two gentlemen were becoming so usual they hardly made an impression on her.
Mr. Lelander did make an impression though.
He was so complimentary. They’d had such a conversation over backgammon last evening.
She’d told him the story of writing to the prince and being accused of skating near treason.
She’d not thought she’d ever tell any gentleman of that particular interlude.
And then he’d told his own story, which was also very bad.
She’d felt as if they’d become closer to one another in the telling. As if she knew something about him that most people would not. It had been rather fascinating to understand what had gone on in his eight-year-old mind.
This morning, he had clearly made an effort to arrive to the breakfast room early.
The way he’d smiled to see her when she came in!
She was certain he did not smile like that at anybody else entering the breakfast room.
Then, he’d been so solicitous about whether her eggs were satisfactory.
Once he was assured that they were perfectly fried, her toast had been examined.
Was it too light or too dark? He had not asked a single other person about their eggs or toast. It had been very heartening, indeed, even though Mr. Smuckers had looked disgusted over it.
Now, the horses had redoubled their efforts as they pulled the sleigh up the drive. They would know the end of their work was near. After they were returned to the stables, grooms would give them lovely rubdowns and an apple and oats for their trouble.
The house was in view. Poppy saw the curtains in one of the library windows pull back. Baron Montachet peered out. She supposed he’d somehow wiggled out of Teddy and Bertie’s plan to commandeer him for their fort building project.
As they got closer, the baron leaned closer to the window. Then, with a look Poppy could only describe as surprise, he dropped the curtain and disappeared from view.
She could not imagine what would surprise him to see them returning in the sleigh when he’d been there to see them off.
Johnny Johns reined in the horses at the front doors. Poppy had thought Mr. Smuckers would come out to greet them, but it was the viscount himself.
“Miss Millthorpe,” he said, “decided to hunker down here, have you? Quite right, to my mind.”
Poppy would have imagined that Miss Millthorpe would have preferred an orderly entrance into the house and a quiet interview with the viscount to relay the doings of the night before.
It was not to be. Poppy and Pansy took turns relaying the details of the horrid night their poor governess had experienced.
“My dear lady, you must be quite shaken. Never fear, you are safe here and your set of rooms has been kept just as you left them in case you ever wanted them back.”
“Very kind, Lord Mulholland,” Miss Millthorpe said. “I did think it prudent to relocate temporarily and hear how the magistrate will advise me.”
He extended his arm to lead her into the house and said, “Prudent! Our Miss Millthorpe has never been anything else.”
Poppy and Pansy called out their thanks to Johnny Johns. As he drove the horses toward the stables, he did not turn his head but waved his arm over his head in his usual fashion. Poppy was certain he viewed the entire trip as a palaver of the highest order.
Mr. Smuckers seemed startled to see Miss Millthorpe, and even more startled to hear parts of the conversation that hinted at the disastrous night the lady had experienced.
They all gathered in the drawing room, despite Miss Millthorpe’s hesitancy to sit in that room. Tea was sent for, though they had just had tea at the cottage.
“Well here we are,” the viscount said. “We will not be able to send for the magistrate until the morrow at the earliest. It is all well and good to take the sleigh such a short distance, but Pendleton Park is too far to attempt it just yet. The snow rollers will be through at some point and then it will be time to try it.”
“We are safe here, Miss Millthorpe,” Poppy said. “Nobody could get through the bolts on our doors.”
“I am not at all afraid of it,” Miss Millthorpe said.
“We will all stay snug here,” the viscount said. “I am anxious to get out on the estate with Mr. Tidewater, but the viscountess has forbidden it for today. She rarely fusses about anything, so…”
Poppy hid a smile. Her mother rarely fussed about anything as she usually had her way in things.
“Did you get a good look at their faces, Miss Millthorpe?” the viscount asked. “Will you be able to identify them?”
“Both of them had their faces covered with neckerchiefs. Dirty neckerchiefs, I might add,” Miss Millthorpe said, her voice dripping with disapproval.
“What about their builds or hair colors, Miss Millthorpe,” Mr. Lelander asked.
That was such a good question. He really was very clever.
“They had their hats pulled low, but I saw perfectly well. Both were dark-haired. One was tall and lean and the other shorter and a bit stockier. The stocky one did most of the talking. It was an accent emanating from Cornwall if I am not mistaken.”
The viscount looked reflective. “We will see what Weston can make of it once the roads are passable.”
Miss Millthorpe rose. “I have told you everything I can recall, Lord Mulholland. I cannot linger in the drawing room, it is most unseemly. I will retire to my rooms.”
“Very well,” the viscount said. “Though I will insist that you come to table this evening. Teddy is at table and I will not have you eating dinner in your rooms alone.”
“I must respectfully decline unless the viscountess insists on it. I must be firm on that point.”
“Yes, yes, I am sure she will,” the viscount said, waving his hands.
Poppy thought her father quite right in his thinking, especially after what Miss Millthorpe had been through. The lady ought not be alone with her thoughts this evening. She ought to have the comfort of the company of people she’d long known. “We will see Miss Millthorpe to her rooms, Papa.”
“Of course we will,” Pansy said.
Despite Miss Millthorpe’s protestation that she knew the way there perfectly well, they led her out and up the stairs. Jimmy followed them up with Miss Millthorpe’s travel case. The governess had attempted to take it herself but Jimmy all but wrestled it from her grasp.
She was such an independent lady that it was difficult for her to accept help, it had always been so. One time, she’d been terribly ill with the flu and what a palaver it had been to keep her abed.
As they passed the library doors on their way to the staircase, Poppy saw the baron peer out and then disappear from view. The man was so odd! Why had he not come to the drawing room when he knew very well that they had returned?
They made their way up to the third floor to the apartments of Miss Millthorpe and Mrs. Featherstone. They were located across from one another in the east wing and Poppy imagined the housekeeper would be happy to have her old neighbor back in residence.
The rooms that Miss Millthorpe had stayed in once Poppy and Pansy, and now Teddy, had been let out of the nursery were of good size. There was a bedchamber with an armoire for clothes, a cozy parlor, and a small separate room for her chamber pot.
The parlor had a dark green velvet sofa, a very well-padded matching chair, and a footstool covered in red damask.
The table in the center of the furniture arrangement was an oval-shaped walnut table suitable for a tea tray.
The windows looked over the back of the house with a lovely view of the gardens and the wood beyond.
Jimmy set the lady’s bag down and went to the hearth. “You’ll be needing coals and tinder, and far more wood than the few pieces what’s been left here,” he said.
“If you would be so good as to see to it, Jimmy,” Miss Millthorpe said.
“Aye,” Jimmy said. Then, rather than set off on his errand, he just stood there.
Miss Millthorpe sighed one of her little sighs. “I suspect I am shortly to hear the what’s what and real case of a thing, Jimmy?”
“Just so, Ma’am.”
“Well? Out with it before the day is gone and the sun has set.”