Free Winter Wedding by Joan Smith

he was putting to the man, or what answers he received.
    “Has a young dark-haired gentleman been asking for Miss Muldoon?”
    “No, sir. No one has inquired for her at all.”
    “If he shows up I would like to be notified at once,” Allingcote said. “No matter what hour, wake me any hour of the night. And—ah—no need to let the gentleman know I have been inquiring.” He slipped a golden boy into the innkeeper’s hand and received a hearty, “Right you are, milord,” in reply, before returning to the ladies.
    They were no sooner shown into their rooms—fine, spacious, clean rooms—than Nel began finding fault. The bed was too hard. She couldn’t sleep on a hard bed. Clara offered to change, but hers was too soft. The rooms were cold and drafty with a dozen wrong things, but when all her complaints were uttered, Ben said flatly, “They’re the last empty rooms in the place. It’s here or the stable, Nel.”
    “Let me have your room, and you can have mine. I wager your bed has a good mattress.”
    “A charming idea, but it has slipped your notice that your room adjoins Miss Christopher’s, without benefit of door. Just the curtained archway, you see.”
    “Oh poo!” She tossed her curls, flung her bonnet on the dresser, and said. “You shan’t care about that.”
    “Miss Christopher shall, however. Unlike yourself, she has some sense of propriety. Go to bed now,” he said, and turned toward the door.
    “I’m hungry,” she called after him.
    “It is not two hours since dinner.”
    “Dinner was horrid. I didn’t eat a bite. I’m starved. I can never sleep when I’m hungry.”
    “Try, Nel.”
    “A bowl of gruel would not take long,” Clara suggested, to have done with it. “We could have it sent up.”
    Miss Muldoon stared at her as if she were insane. “Gruel!”
    “An excellent notion,” Allingcote grinned. “I shall ask to have a bowl of gruel sent up.”
    “I don’t want gruel. I hate gruel.”
    “You are not getting belowstairs tonight, Nel,” he said firmly. “I’ll order gruel if you think you’ll expire before morning, but it comes up. You don’t go down.”
    Nel threw off her pelisse and assumed a Stoic attitude. “In that case, I’ll go hungry.” She walked to the door and held it wide for Allingcote to leave.
    “That’ll teach me,” he said, chucking her chin, and with an apologetic shrug back at Clara, he left. Nel tried a little more wheedling on Clara, whom she judged to be made of softer stuff. Taking her cue from Allingcote, Clara was adamant and the subject was finally dropped.
    Nel next tried her hand at turning Clara into an abigail, and again she was thwarted. Clara limited her services to unfastening the back of the girl’s gown. Even when Nel kicked her good blue silk into a heap on the floor and left it there, Clara quelled the urge to pick it up. She suggested Nel do it, but did not insist.
    “If you wish to look as though you had slept in it, there was no point in taking it off” is all she said.
    “I am not accustomed to doing servants’ work” was the lofty rejoinder.
    “No more am I,” Clara retorted, and went through the curtain before she gave in to the impulse to pick the beautiful gown up. She had noticed that Nel’s lingerie was of the finest, too, all embroidered in silk. It seemed woefully unfair that one lady should have so much, especially when she was so unappreciative.
    She peeked once through the curtain at the gown on the floor. Such a beautiful gown! But she would not knuckle under to Nel Muldoon.
    Clara was soon in bed with her candle extinguished. Her own gold taffeta hung carefully on a hanger. She was tired, but in a strange room, sleep did not come easily. She had ample time to wonder why Miss Muldoon, a troublesome heiress, traveled without an abigail, and why she was so determined to get downstairs. Escape could not have been her aim. She did not mind if Allingcote went with her. Nor was hunger the reason. She refused