To Seduce a Sinner (Legend of the Four Soldiers #2)(59)

She gestured for Bernie to take the tray in and then stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Have they said how long they’ll be gone?”

“He’s only now told my lady, but it’d have to be weeks, won’t it?” The footman shrugged, nearly upsetting the tray on his shoulder. “Months, even. An’ they leave right away. Tomorrow.”

One of the scullery maids burst into tears as Bernie left the kitchen.

Sally tried to swallow, but there didn’t seem to be any spit left in her mouth. She’d have to travel with Lady Vale to Scotland. That was what lady’ cwasut s maids did. Suddenly her new position, with the lovely increase in wages—enough even to set some by—didn’t seem so grand. Sally shuddered. Scotland was the edge of the world.

“Here now, there’s no need to carry on like this.” Mr. Pynch’s deep voice came from beside the fireplace where he was smoking his nightly pipe.

At first Sally thought he was admonishing her, but he was clearly addressing Bitsy, the scullery maid.

“Scotland isn’t as bad as all that,” the valet said.

“Have you been to Scotland, then, Mr. Pynch?” Sally asked. Perhaps if he’d journeyed there and back and survived, it wouldn’t be so terrible.

“No,” Mr. Pynch said, dashing her hopes. “But I’ve known Scotsmen in the army, and they’re just the same as us, saving for the fact that they speak funny.”

“Oh.”

Sally looked down at her beef soup, made from the bones left over from the roast Cook had prepared for their master and mistress. It was a very good soup. Sally had been enjoying it until just a couple of minutes ago. But now her stomach made a little unpleasant turn at the sight of the grease floating on top. Knowing a Scotsman and traveling to Scotland were two entirely different things, and Sally was almost angry with Mr. Pynch for not knowing the difference. His Scotsmen were probably tamed from their time in the army. There was no way to know what a Scotsman was like on his home ground, so to speak. Perhaps they had a liking for short blond girls from London. Perhaps she’d be kidnapped from her bed and used in horrible ways—or worse.

“Now, see here, my girl.” Mr. Pynch’s voice was very near.

Sally looked up to find that the valet had taken the seat opposite her at the table. The kitchen servants had gone back to work while she brooded. Bitsy was snuffling over the pan of dishes she washed. No one paid any mind to the valet and the lady’s maid at the far end of the long kitchen table.

Mr. Pynch’s eyes were bright and intent on her. Sally had never noticed before what a lovely shade of green they were.

The valet put his elbows on the table, his long, white clay pipe in one hand. “There’s nothing to fear in Scotland. It’s just a place like any other.”

Sally stirred her spoon about in her bowl of cooling soup. “I’ve never been farther than Greenwich in my life.”

“No? Where were you born then?”

“Seven Dials,” she said, and then peered up at him to see if he’d sneer at the knowledge she’d been raised in such a hellhole.

But he merely nodded his head and sucked on the end of his pipe, blowing fragrant smoke to the side so it wouldn’t get in her eyes. “And do you have family there still?”

“Just my pa.” She wrinkled her nose and confessed, “Leastwise, he used to live there. I haven’t seen him in years, so that might not be true anymore.”

“Bad sort was your pa?”

“Not too bad.” She traced the rim of her soup bowl with a finger. “He didn’t beat me much, and he fed me when he could. But I had to get out of there. It was like I couldn’t breathe.”

She looked at him to see if he understood.

He nodded, pulling on his pipe again. “And your mam?”

“Died when I was born.” The soup smelled good again, and she took a spoonful. “No brothers or sisters either. Leastwise none that I know of.”

He nodded and seemed quite content to watch her eat the soup as he smoked his pipe. Around them, the kitchen and downstairs servants scurried about, doing their jobs, but this was a time of rest for Sally and Mr. Pynch.

She ate half her soup and then looked up at him. “Where are you from, then, Mr. Pynch?”

“Oh, a ways off. I was born in Cornwall.”

“Really?” She stared curiously at him. Cornwall seemed nearly as foreign as Scotland. “But you don’t have an accent.”

He shrugged. “My people are fisher folk. I got the wandering urge, and when the army men came to town with their drums and ribbons and flash uniforms, I took the king’s shilling fast enough.” One corner of his mouth curved in a funny sort of half-smile. “Didn’t take me long to find out there’s more to His Majesty’s army than pretty uniforms.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

Sally looked down at her soup, trying to imagine big, bald Mr. Pynch as a lanky fifteen-year-old. She couldn’t do it. He was too much a man now to have ever been a child. “Do you still have family in Cornwall?”

He nodded. “My mother and a half-dozen brothers and sisters. My father died when I was in the Colonies. Didn’t know about it until I returned to England two years later. Mam said she paid for a letter to be written and sent to me, but I never got one.”