Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(23)
Dare was accustomed to eating with his manservant when traveling and didn’t mind a shared meal in the kitchen. Apparently Emilia’s maid was more co-conspirator than servant and didn’t protest their informal dining either. She also didn’t shut up and didn’t wash dishes. Since he had as yet to see Bessie help his wife dress or undress, he wondered what exactly the maid did do.
They’d included the footman and driver in their informal repast, if only to save carrying hot food out to the stable.
“Robert, did the marquess give you a time for returning the carriage?” Dare asked, leaving his dish in the metal sink while the driver fetched more water from the pump.
“He’s up north with his lady wife, awaiting the birth of his heir, m’lord. He’ll not be needing me or the carriage for a while, and said it would be convenient if we kept it here so Lady Pascoe-Ives might use it when the time comes.”
“The midwife,” Dare confirmed, checking with Emilia. “Do you have any notion how soon she will need to travel north?”
The Pascoe-Ives were the occupants of the abbey he needed to visit. He had to figure out if they’d be willing to sell a portion of the abbey land to the railroad. He hadn’t been there when the surveyors plotted the track. He needed to look at the maps and see which properties they crossed and where.
“I believe Lady Ashford is due next month,” Emilia said. “That’s all I know. We need to pay a call on the Pascoe-Ives, but I’d rather visit the village and ask after my grandfather’s servants first.”
“That was my thought. I need to post a letter to your father about the state of neglect here so he can look into it from his end. And while I’m at it, I’ll set up accounts with the merchants. I can ask after the servants as well, if you wish to stay and see things to rights here.”
She gave him a look that would have withered weeds. “I know as much about housekeeping as you do about dishwashing. I’ll go into Alder with you. A few of the merchants may remember me, and I’ll need to establish a source of pens and paper, as well as pots for my plants.”
Well, he had told her to be honest.
Fighting a cough and the gnawing in his gut, Dare acknowledged her demand with a curt nod. He could scarcely complain of his bride’s unfeminine lack of interest in the household when he’d married her as a business proposition. “Can you be ready within a half hour?”
She gave a commanding nod at the driver instead of replying. The man got up from the bench where he’d taken his meal, deposited his plate in the pan, and with a tug of his forelock, left to prepare the horses.
Dare tried not to splutter around his cough. “Who elected you queen?” he muttered, offering her his arm as he rose from the table.
“Queen?” she asked in genuine puzzlement, shaking out her skirt.
Today, she wore some pinkish-red thing without the enormous fashionable sleeves. Dare found himself abnormally fascinated with her attire, perhaps because he kept trying to see beneath whatever folderol she covered her bosom with.
He coughed into his handkerchief without answering.
“I’ll need the equipment from the wagon before I can make more horehound,” she said regretfully. “I do hope they arrive soon.”
That was probably a safer topic than explaining that he was accustomed to women waiting for him to take charge. If she was to live as a widow after he was gone, it was no doubt a good thing that she knew how to command the male servants.
“I can buy horehound in the village,” he said as they entered their shared chambers.
“Not medicinal horehound.” She picked up her skirts and departed for the dressing chamber.
Medicinal horehound? She complained about his perfectly legitimate prescribed medicine and fed him doctored candy?
It finally dawned on him, his wife was a quack.
“Good morning, Mr. Thornbull. I don’t know if you remember me, Sir Harry’s great-granddaughter?” Emilia lay a packet of writing papers on the counter, along with the rest of her shopping list.
Mr. Thornbull was a stout man just past middle-age, with thinning hair, spectacles, and a round face. He peered over the top of the glasses. “Miss McDowell, as I live and breathe. We thought you had forgotten us.”
“Of course not.” She removed one of her gloves so she might count out coins for the paper. “I have only just married. We came directly after the service was said. I had hoped to find Mrs. Wiggs and Mr. Barton still with us. I should like to visit them if they’re nearby.”
He looked suspicious, but the coins and the shopping list opened the path of communication, as she’d hoped. She might not be good at small talk, but she understood negotiation. She wasn’t entirely certain why he should regard her with suspicion, however.
“Mr. Barton fell last winter and broke his hip,” the merchant said grumpily. “He felt he wasn’t capable of his duties and went to live with his daughter in town.”
Town presumably meant Harrogate, not London. Not wanting to stem the flow of information, Emilia figured she could inquire elsewhere if she needed his direction. “Oh my, no one told me! Did Mr. Crenshaw send someone to help Mrs. Wiggs then?” Crenshaw was the name Dare had found in the books, the one who received the monies to be dispensed to the staff.
“If he did, I know naught about it,” the stationer declared. “She said as she was afraid to stay about the place alone, she’d rather stay with her sister.”