Free A Divided Inheritance by Deborah Swift

did not want her cousin to realize how flustered she really was.
    But when she entered the great hall there was no sign of Zachary, and her father was pacing the floor.
    ‘Tell the kitchen to hold the meal,’ he snapped as the kitchen maid tottered in with a tray bearing three bowls of steaming leek soup. The maid hesitated a moment, unsure what to do.
‘For heaven’s sake. Put the tray down first, then go and tell them. I’ll send word to fetch the other courses up when my nephew is home.’
    She did as he bade her and retreated downstairs.
    ‘I thought he’d have been here by now,’ he mumbled to himself.
    ‘I’m sure he’ll be along any moment,’ Elspet said, to soothe him, repressing the shameful hope that he was lost somewhere and would never return.
    ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Time passed by and, despite Father’s walking up and down, they both heard the thin bell of the time-piece ping the quarter, and then the half.
    ‘Come, Father, let us eat anyway,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he will smell his food and arrive directly.’
    ‘Till the next bell,’ he said.
    ‘Pray heaven he is not caught up in any trouble.’ She voiced a concern for him that she did not really feel. The worry was for her father, not for Zachary. It had bothered her all
day, her father going to Mass. ‘It’s hardly safe for us Catholics to be abroad these days,’ she said.
    Father sat down on the dining chair, but then immediately stood up again, a crease of worry lodged between his eyebrows. ‘Bainbridge knows what he is doing.’
    She saw him chew his lip, and knew it was she who had sowed the seed of worry in him. She instantly regretted it.
    ‘I wonder if I should go to look for him?’ Father said.
    ‘I’m sorry. Take no heed of me. It was thoughtless of me.’ She hastened to comfort him. ‘I’m sure it is not anything to do with our faith. He’s safe,
I’m sure. Perhaps he has simply forgotten the time, as folk do when they are engaged in an activity that attracts them. Many a time I have forgotten the hour whilst making a new design for a
chair cover.’
    He looked at her as if her talk of chair covers was somehow an insult. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said.
    ‘What? What don’t I understand?’
    He sighed. ‘Nothing. It is not your fault, it is mine.’ Then, after a little rumination, he said, ‘You’re right, my dear. Let’s eat. I’ll send down to the
kitchen.’
    He shook the bell and the food was duly summoned. They left the soup, which had gone cold. When the hot platters arrived the beef was dry and the cabbage had disintegrated into greenish water in
the dish, but by that time Elspet was so hungry that she did not care. After a perfunctory grace she set to eating with relish.
    Father tutted. ‘Try to be a little more dainty, won’t you, Elspet? Hugh Bradstone will be expecting a lady of manners.’
    ‘And he will have one,’ she said pointedly, ‘provided that Cousin Zachary sees fit to keep good time, and does not keep the whole household waiting.’
    Father did not answer but pursed his lips and, with a gloomy expression, helped himself to more of the dripping cabbage. Their meal was finished in silence.
    Whenever there was a noise outside, Father kept jumping from his seat, and when there was still no sign of his errant nephew, he sat back down again. She said nothing, for to do so would be to
reproach him again, and the loud tick of the hall clock did that task well enough.
    She picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth and hands. ‘I will be in the oak chamber as usual,’ she said.
    He nodded impatiently, as though her voice interrupted his listening.
    So for another night she sat alone with her woolwork. A small part of her felt slightly pleased that Zachary was proving to be what she thought he was, a lazy good-for-nothing. The front door
banged shut, and she paused with her needle. Almost curfew time. Through a chink in the curtain she spied Father standing on the doorstep,