Page 14 of Adeline

Emily once again entered the room, placing a tray of sliced meat on the table.

Adeline smiled at the servant, gaining enough of a pause from the woman for Adeline to speak before she rushed from the room once more.

“Will Lord Ailesbury and his family be joining me soon?” she ventured to ask.

The servant drew back from the table, keeping her stare focused on the floor in front of her with her hands clasped at her waist. “Ye should eat afore ye meal grows cold, miss.”

“It would be impolite to begin before my host arrives—or perhaps his family I have yet to meet.” Adeline spoke softly, not wanting to frighten the girl with her inquiries. “I am not so famished that I cannot wait awhile for others to join me.”

The woman cleared her throat, glancing over her shoulder at the door she’d entered through. “Ummm, well, miss…”

“Is all as it should be?” Adeline asked, a shiver of foreboding traveling down her back.

“No one be join’n ye.”

“But this is an awfully significant amount of food for only me.” Adeline laughed. “Lord Ailesbury must be about, at the very least.”

Emily hesitantly peeked over her shoulder once more as she slowly backed from the room. “M’lord ate afore first light. And there be no one else in residence.”

“No one else in all of Faversham Abbey?”

“Except us servants, no, miss.”

“But who will eat all this food?” Adeline gestured toward the overloaded table, fairly straining under the weight of all the dishes.

“It is for ye, Miss Adeline,” Emily mumbled. “M’lord not be know’n what ye favored in the morn. Enjoy ye meal.”

Adeline watched in stunned silence as the servant fled the room, her footsteps louder due to her haste.

The scents of the fresh bread and sliced meat mingled with the smell of oats and honey from the porridge. Her stomach let out a loud growl of hunger. If no one were joining her, it would be foolish to let the dishes grow cold. A proper meal before she inquired about the damage done to her carriage was welcome. For all Adeline knew, her conveyance could be repaired and ready to depart within the hour, and it would be nightfall before she arrived in London.

* * *

“Is she enjoying the fare?” Jasper asked when Emily departed the dining hall once more. “The pheasant…was enough prepared? Is there a fruit she prefers more than the berries I collected this morning?”

“M’lord,” Emily squealed in surprise, her hand going to her heart. “If’n ye want ta know, go in and speak with her.”

“You know I cannot do that,” Jasper said in a hushed tone, afraid his voice would carry through the thick, wooden door and into the dining hall beyond. “But I wish to know if she is pleased with her repast.”

“She has yet ta touch anythin’.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Is she ill from her time in the storm? I will call Doc Hobston to come round.”

“No, m’lord.” Emily shook her head, a pitying expression overtaking her normally serene face. “She be wait’n for ye—or ye family—to join her.”

“What did you tell her?” Jasper shoved his hands deep into his pockets to keep from grasping the servant and demanding more information. “I should have donned my cloak and hood.”

“And that would not have appeared peculiar at all, my lord,” Abbington said.

Jasper pivoted to face his butler. “Where did you come from?”

The man only nodded to the door behind Jasper: the butler’s pantry.

Jasper sighed, resigned to the fact that not all of his servants lay in wait to listen to his private conversations. Not that Abbington was just another servant. He was one of Jasper’s trusted staff, a friend more often than not.

“Can I return to me duties, m’lord?” Emily asked.

Duties? What other duties could the woman think more important than making certain Miss Adeline Price had everything she desired?