Free Barbara Metzger by Cupboard Kisses

out a dose of laudanum to ease the captain’s pain.
    “A promise?”
    “Aye, if it’ll help you rest.”

Chapter Six
    A-achoo!”
    “Are you all right, ma’am?” Major MacDermott was all solicitude, offering her a snowy handkerchief. “You seem a trifle under the weather, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
    Cristabel snuffled. “Thank you, it’s merely a head cold,” she tried to tell him, but her voice came out a squawk.
    He poured a glass of something from a decanter on a side table and pressed it into her hand. “Here, this should have you feeling more the thing.”
    Cristabel accepted thankfully and gulped it down—anything for her burning throat—and immediately choked on the fiery liquid.
    “I am so sorry, Miss Swann. I should never have offered you spirits. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Perhaps some tea?”
    “There is some lemonade in the hamper Mrs. Witt fixed for me,” she managed to croak. “Would you be so kind as to fetch it?”
    While the handsome officer hurried to do her bidding, Cristabel took a deep breath and a better look at her surroundings. The damask cabbage roses were not to her taste nor the maroon hangings nor the gold tassels decorating the lamp shades, the drapery valances, and the loose pillows. There were an awful lot of loose cushions. Cristabel shrugged. There were no nasty little girls to get into pillow fights here, thank goodness, but there was an old pianoforte shoved into a corner. The furnishings were no matter, anyway, it was the smell of the place that was tickling her throat and making her eyes water. Perfume, smoke, the spirits she’d just spattered, something else even more unfamiliar—
    “What is this room used for?” she asked Major MacDermott when he’d returned with the hamper. She was busy finding the jar wrapped in damp cloths and looking around for a glass. She decided to reuse the glass the liquor had been in, so missed the major’s wide-eyed start and his creative pause.
    “This room? Of course, ah, this room. Yes, why this is where the, ah, boarders can entertain guests.”
    “Of course, how foolish of me. One cannot expect the boarders to meet callers in their bedrooms, certainly, or transact business matters—Oh dear, don’t tell me you have caught my cold already? Here, have some of this lemonade, it’s just the thing for coughs.”
    The major waved away her offer. “Too kind. I’ll just help myself to something from the tray here. You did say you were Lord Harwood’s niece, didn’t you?” he asked while he poured.
    “His niece, yes. Uncle Charles was Papa’s older brother. My father was vicar to a small church near Bath, however, and they weren’t close,” she explained, thinking he had noticed her lack of mourning. Her everyday clothes were somber enough to attend graveside services, if she’d considered, but her conscience wouldn’t let her forget the lapse in conduct.
    MacDermott never got past “vicar” and “church.” He downed another glass. “And you say your uncle bequeathed you
this
place?”
    Now Cristabel didn’t want to lie to this attractive new acquaintance. Nor did she want to admit to him that her uncle had died a penniless wastrel, leaving nothing to be willed to anyone, if he even remembered that he had kin. It was hard to admit the facts to herself, much less to a warmhearted gentleman who had already professed Lord Harwood to be kind and generous. So she equivocated instead. “The property has been deeded to me, yes. The solicitors are drawing up the papers.”
    “Strange, I heard something about a young nobleman winning everything off the old bas—baron.”
    “That would be Captain Chase,” she supplied. He hadn’t seemed like much of a nobleman to her, or even a gentleman. Of course, Uncle Charles had a title, too, which just went to show. “The captain has taken possession of Harwood House,” was all she was willing to say about the situation, leaving MacDermott to infer a great deal