Chapter 1 #2
The little girl’s head flew up. Wide gray eyes fixed on Eloise with an expression that was not shyness or mere surprise but something closer to genuine, instinctive fear, and Eloise immediately crouched down to the child’s level.
“I am so sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.”
The child stared at her. After a moment, Eloise settled herself on the wall a short distance away, far enough to leave space between them, and near enough that the gap did not feel like a dismissal.
“My name is Eloise.”
Silence stretched out. Then, barely above a whisper, came the answer. “Maisie.”
The girl’s lip trembled, as if merely speaking summoned more tears.
“Oh dear.” Eloise reached into her reticule and produced a handkerchief. “Would you like this?”
Maisie accepted it with both hands and the immediate relief of someone who has badly needed such a thing for some time.
While the girl wiped her eyes, Eloise watched her silently. The pallor, thinness, and overall fragility of her, as though she had not been eating or sleeping properly for some time, made Eloise’s heart ache more.
“Where are your parents?” Eloise asked.
The child looked confused, as though Eloise had just asked a trick question. Then, she bit her lip, chewing it for a moment before answering.
“I lost my brother,” she said as though that explained everything.
“Is he an adult, like me?” Eloise asked.
Maisie shook her head.
“His name is Duncan.” Again, she spoke as though her answer was the most sensible explanation.
Eloise sighed. She did not want to further distress the frightened girl by pressing with more questions. But how could she help the poor child if she did not know more?
A wagon rolled past on the nearby road with a sharp clatter of wheels on stone. Maisie flinched violently, and the rag doll nearly left her hands entirely. Eloise shifted, positioning herself between the child and the road, and waited until Maisie’s breathing steadied again.
“Shall we find your brother?” she asked.
The girl considered this, then slipped her hand into Eloise’s without any further discussion, and they began walking back toward the village together.
“How did you come to be separated?” Eloise asked.
“Duncan was angry,” Maisie said, with the patient resignation of someone reporting a recurring natural phenomenon. “He is always angry. He walks fast when he is angry, and then I cannot keep up, and then he forgets to look back.”
“He does not mean to,” Maisie added immediately, with a loyalty that was rather touching. “He just thinks of other things.”
They found him a few minutes later near the village square. He emerged from between two buildings at a near-run, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and wearing the expression of a boy who had been frightened and was deeply annoyed about it.
The relief on his face when he saw Maisie lasted exactly one second.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
“I got lost,” Maisie said.
“You wandered off.”
“You walked too fast.”
“You should have kept up.”
“You should have looked back.”
He made a sound of frustration, then apparently remembered that Eloise existed and swung his gaze toward her with immediate suspicion.
“Who are you?”
“Eloise.”
“Why are you holding my sister’s hand?”
“Because she offered it to me.”
He appeared to find this answer insufficient. “What are you doing with her?”
“Walking her back to the village to find you, as she requested.”
“I would have found her myself.”
“Eventually, I am sure.”
Something shifted behind his eyes. He folded his arms. “You are strange.”
“I have been told worse things,” Eloise said pleasantly.
Maisie was visibly suppressing a smile, and Duncan looked betrayed by his own sister. For all his hostility, his eyes kept moving to Maisie, as if making certain she was all right, and the protectiveness softened Eloise toward him.
Before anyone could say anything more, Maisie’s stomach made a sound that rendered further conversation temporarily unnecessary.
Duncan groaned. Eloise raised an eyebrow.
“When did you last eat?” she asked.
“This morning,” Maisie said honestly.
Eloise looked at Duncan.
“We were on our way back,” he said, in a tone that suggested this was entirely true and also entirely beside the point.
“Come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because hungry children ought to eat,” Eloise said. “Come along.”
“We are not hungry.”
His stomach, with impeccable timing, disagreed loudly and without apology.
Eloise waited. Duncan went the color of a brick wall, and Maisie dissolved into quiet, helpless laughter.
“Very well,” Duncan muttered, in the tone of a general accepting humiliating terms. “But only because Maisie is hungry.”
“Naturally,” Eloise agreed, and led them toward the inn.
The inn was warm, more crowded, and the scent of rosemary joined the smoke and bread Eloise had smelled earlier. Maisie moved closer to Eloise the moment they stepped inside, her fingers tightening around her hand. The child does not like crowds, Eloise noted silently.
A serving girl brought food without much delay. Fresh bread, thick stew, and a wedge of cheese arrived on the table. Maisie ate immediately. Duncan maintained his dignity for approximately ten seconds before abandoning it entirely.
Eloise sat back and watched them, and felt a quiet ache settle beneath her ribs. They were simply, plainly hungry, and she suspected that was not unusual.
When the first urgency had passed, she smiled, keeping her expression as reassuring and calm as possible. “Tell me about where you live.”
“Nearby,” Duncan said.
“That is helpful.”
“I thought so.”
Maisie pointed through the window toward the hills. “The big house. On the far side of the village, past the church.”
“And who looks after you there?”
“Our uncle,” Maisie said.
Duncan’s expression became carefully neutral. “He is very busy.”
“He works all the time,” Maisie added, in the same tone she had used to describe Duncan’s habit of walking too fast. Simply a fact of life, neither resented nor questioned, and somehow all the more troubling for that.
She tried again. “Do you spend much time with him?”
Maisie shook her head. Duncan focused on his bread. An answer in itself.
She was forming a clear picture of this uncle: a large estate, an absent guardian, and two neglected children left largely to their own devices, wandering the village unattended and going without a midday meal.
“Miss?”
She looked up.
The innkeeper was standing beside the table, a large, red-faced man with an expression that suggested he had just witnessed something remarkable and was not sure whether to be entertained or alarmed.
“Yes?” Eloise said.
He lowered his voice. “Have you completely lost your senses, miss?”
Eloise blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
His gaze moved to the children, then back to her. “Do you have any idea who these children are?”
“I know their names,” Eloise said. “Beyond that, we have only just met.”
The inn keeper stared at her, then appeared to select his next words with unusual care.
“These are the Viscount Macalpine’s wards,” he said.
The words landed in her stomach like cold water dropped from a considerable height. She looked at Maisie, then Duncan. Maisie gave her a small, uncertain smile, and Duncan appeared to be staring at the wall with the focused attention of someone hoping to be absorbed by it.
“The viscount’s wards,” she repeated.
“Aye.” The man leaned slightly forward. “The estate has had men out searching for them since mid-afternoon. Half the village knows about it. His Lordship himself has been out looking.”
Eloise sat very still.
“He would be angry that someone fed his niece and nephew?”
The innkeeper shook his head.
“He would be insulted that someone would imply that he could not, or did not, do so himself.”
Eloise swallowed.
“There is no implication.”
The innkeeper gave her a knowing look.
“Your eyes speak words that have not left your lips.”
With that, he walked away, leaving Eloise to her rising dread. She had just accidentally insulted the man she intended to ask for employment the following day.
Eloise sat very still for a moment. The absent, negligent uncle she had been privately building a case against in her head was the viscount.
She did not regret taking care of the children, but she knew that upsetting the viscount before even meeting him would likely ruin her chances of gaining the position.
She wanted to hold on to her horror at the state of the runaway children who were supposed to be in his charge.
But she was in no position to tell him how to care for his wards, especially when she desperately needed the job he was offering.