Free Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel by Katharine Ashe Page B

though I don’t know how she knew it.”
    Lady Holland grasped Tacitus’s coat sleeve and dragged him to an empty table.
    “Please, sit,” she said, and released him.
    “Just a moment.” He turned away.
    “
No
. Don’t leave.” Her eyes were fraught. “Please,” she whispered.
    “I am going to call up some breakfast for you. You are too pale.” And obviously agitated.
    She nodded. Moving swiftly through the taproom and foyer to the kitchen door, he poked his head in. The innkeeper looked up from her dishes.
    “Milord! You shouldn’t be in here.” She bustled toward him.
    “Mrs. Whittle, breakfast for Lady Holland, if you will. And coffee. Quickly, please.” He smiled. “Thank you.”
    He returned to the taproom. The woman in the tremendous hat was standing over Lady Holland waving her hands about and practically giggling. Lady Holland’s eyes rose to him shockingly bright. Panicked. Her hands were fisted in her lap.
    “Why, isn’t it delightful, my lord? This dear lady has promised to take tea at my shop today. How happy I am that the flood came so providentially and she is trapped here so that we can have a nice long cozy chat and catch up on all these years apart! Why, you know, Calista, how I always did like hats better than painting or French or anything else those horrid spinsters made us study. Didn’t I?”
    “You certainly did,” she replied in a flat tone.
    “My shop is right in the middle of Swinly, my lord, on the high street and safe from the flood. I will adore giving Lady Calista—oh! Lady
Holland
—the grand tour of it today. Do say you will come for tea too, Lord Dare. I daresay my darling little shop is as elegant as any shop in London you’ve ever seen.”
    “As I don’t often have the occasion to visit millinery shops, Mrs. Tinkerson,” he said, his eyes on Lady Holland’s drawn face, “I could not say. Would you excuse us now?”
    “Oh!” She looked back and forth between them curiously. “Yes, of course. Now don’t be late, dear Calista. My lovely little parlor in the room next to the shop will be all ready for you at teatime. Adieu!” Smiling vapidly, she fluttered out of the room.
    Tacitus took the seat beside Lady Holland. Molly came forward with a pot of coffee and a cup. A farmer leaped up from his seat.
    “I’m giving this one a wide berth!” he said heartily to his tablemates. They all chuckled and Molly’s cheeks flamed.
    “She spilled coffee on him a quarter hour ago,” Lady Holland mumbled. “Right about the time we left the ford.”
    “Did she?” Tacitus looked around. Sure enough, the farmer’s trousers were splattered with a brown stain. “How do you know that?”
    “It happened yesterday. And the day before. Only she spilled the coffee on me instead of him. I was standing just beside him.”
    “Perhaps you should eat before saying anything more.”
    “It won’t make any difference. After I ate yesterday it was the same. The day before that, of course, I did not eat until dinnertime.
Tea,
” she said firmly as Molly set the cup on the table and lifted the coffee pot. “I don’t care for coffee,” she added less steadily.
    “Yes, milady.” Molly scurried off.
    “If you haven’t been eating properly,” he said, “it’s no wonder you’re not quite top of the trees today.”
    “Lack of food has never before made me relive the same day three times in a row. Or at all. And did you really just use the phrase ‘top of the trees’?”
    “I did. Do you have a problem with that?”
    “I have a problem with all of this!” She cast her hands out to either side and Molly, carrying a plate and teapot, jerked abruptly, splashing tea across Lady Holland’s lap.
    The lady’s nostrils flared. “Cannot you refrain from dousing me
any
day?”
    “Oh, milady! I’m that sorry, I am! I’ll fetch a rag right quick.”
    “Don’t bother. Just set down the plate and pot and go.” She snatched up a table linen and dabbed at her skirt. “I