Dear Lady Disdain. Paula Marshall

hunger gnawed at her. Pride as well as etiquette said, No, it is not possible for you to sit here, the lone woman among a pack of men, all but one your social inferiors, and tope with him and Hal and the rest; it wouldn’t be proper. They had already unwillingly dragged themselves to their feet on her arrival.

      ‘Sit, sit,’ she said imperiously, meaning to tell them that no, of course she wanted nothing.

      Then he said mockingly, ‘I think that the fare here is too coarse for m’lady, perhaps.’

      Was it, indeed? And was she to starve because she was too finicking to sit down with them on the worst night of the year, and please him by starving herself?

      ‘No, indeed,’ she shot back. ‘I find myself ravenous, and ale and bread and cheese, after a day spent in the snow, seem just the thing!’ She sat down by the amused Jeb and stretched out a hand for the loaf and cheese, to cut herself a good share of them and place them on one of the pewter plates which Matt had set out.

      And if that broke up their damned masculine drinking-party, so much the better. They would have clearer heads in the morning, when, with luck, the storm would have abated, the coach and their possessions would be rescued from the ditch, and she could be on her way again.

      A pewter pot of ale was pushed in front of her by Jeb, who, she could see, now that she was close to him, was quite a personable man despite his strange accent and even stranger clothes. She took a defiant swig from the pot and said, as though she were conversing at dinner with Lord Melbourne himself, or perhaps the Duke of Wellington, with both of whom she was on terms of friendship, ‘Pray tell me, sir, how do you find England after the United States?’

      Jeb nearly choked into his ale at the sound of such ineffable condescension. He surfaced to say, ‘Cold, ma’am, damned cold. Nigh as bad as a Virginia winter, eh, Matt?’

      Matt drawled, his lion’s eyes hard on her, ‘Oh, I don’t think that Miss Berriman really wishes to know about the States, Jeb. She is merely making dinner-party small talk, to put you at your ease.’

      His man—or whatever he was—considered this unlikely possibility solemnly. Since Jeb was always at ease, whatever the company, high or low, the notion of a spinster lady putting him there seemed rather odd. He was about to reply, but was unable to do so, for Stacy put down her pot of ale with a defiant bang and threw loudly down the table in Matt’s direction, ‘When did you take up mind-reading, sir? Recently, I hope, if your present failure to perform it correctly is any guide. I am most intensely interested in…Jeb’s…impressions of his ancestors’ country.’

      ‘So there’, would have been a nice ending to that piece of defiance, but Louisa had long cured her of that trick. Now let him trump that ace, if he could!

      But of course he could. He threw back his head and laughed, and damn him, why did he have to look exactly as she had imagined the dashing hero of every delightful Minerva Press novel which she had ever read, when she disliked him so? ‘Tell her why your ancestors found themselves in Virginia, Jeb, and then Miss Berriman will understand why your impressions of the old country are hardly likely to be favourable ones!’

      Ever willing to oblige, and putting on his best smile, Jeb offered a trifle tentatively—for, while he was not ashamed of his ancestors’ behaviour, he was not exactly proud of it either— ‘Why, Great-granfer Priestley was transported to Virginia as a convict, ma’am, having taken part in the Monmouth Rising, when his sentence of hanging was transmuted to penal service in the colonies.’

      Stacy, overcome by what she had provoked, and angry with herself as well as with Matt, said as firmly as she could, ‘Well, Mr Priestley—’ for she now knew his name ‘—a man is not to blame for what his ancestors did. I own that if I had to answer for my own great-grandfather’s actions I should be hard put to it to excuse them. And Mr Falconer should not have compelled you to answer me thus, but that doesn’t surprise me, since he obviously gave up the pretence of being a gentleman long ago.’

      Matt, who was a little surprised by this generous offering to Jeb from someone whom he had thought was steeped in pride of birth, still could not prevent himself from asking, ‘And what, pray, Miss Berriman, did your ancestor do which was so scurvy? Entertain us, please.’

      She had entertained them enough, Stacy thought. She had behaved like a vicious termagant in the stews or in an alehouse, and in front of her own servants too! What Louisa would have thought of her sitting at a kitchen table with a gang of men swilling drink she couldn’t imagine. At least she had avoided the port, of which Louisa always spoke in shuddering horror as the corrupter of men. But she had drunk heavily from the pot which Jeb had mischievously refilled several times, and the effects of the ale, tiredness, and the increasing warmth of the kitchen were beginning to overcome her.

      ‘Certainly not,’ she told him firmly. ‘I will now retire.’ And she stood up, to find the room going around her. Her face paled, and Matt Falconer, moved by an impulse he refused to recognise, swore to himself and as swiftly as he could ran round the table to catch her and prevent her from falling. Cold bitch she might be, but she had had a hell of a day, and behind the autocratic and imperious manner was a woman with a lot of guts—he had to grant her that. She had cared for the welfare of all her people before she had so much as sat down herself.

      He picked her up, to find her strangely light for such a tall female, said softly, ‘Allow me, madam. I think that you are not accustomed to drinking strong ale,’ and carried her, unprotesting and already half asleep, to her bed, which was made up between those of the sleeping Polly and Louisa.

      Stacy, unaware of anything but that she was in someone’s strong arms, was back in her childhood again, being carried to bed by her father. Without thinking, eyes closed, she kissed the man carrying her, on the cheek which she had earlier struck, murmuring drowsily, ‘Goodnight, Papa,’ and by the time the surprised Matt had lowered her to the bed she was soundly and sweetly asleep.