Miranda Jarrett by The Golden Lord

Author:The Golden Lord
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Very well, then,” he said, a bit surprised himself. “Have your hen chatter. Besides, I’m sure Tway is already lying in wait for me. Mrs. Potter, good day.”

And as quick as that, he was gone, and Jenny was left standing squarely before Mrs. Potter, face-to-face. The charming smile was much harder to maintain now without Brant there to inspire her; she’d always done much better with gentlemen than other women, anyway.

But how hard could this be? she asked herself. She had seen so much more of the world—she had visited all the grandest cities and sights of the Continent!—than this country parson’s wife that she must surely be more clever, more quick. She’d been raised a lady, hadn’t she? She could judge fine wines and French suppers, good paintings from bad. Her skin was flawlessly pale, her hair curled into ringlets on its own, and she was wearing an elegant new gown, given her by a duke, that likely cost more than Mrs. Potter’s entire functional wardrobe, and her husband’s, too. If all that wasn’t enough to give her confidence, why, then she wasn’t worthy of being Miss Jenny Dell?

“So, ma’am,” she began briskly. She didn’t sit, for she’d no intention of lingering here any longer than was absolutely necessary. “As you can see, His Grace has been the kindest of hosts to me in my—in my confusion. You know he found me himself, when I was lying insensible beneath a tree. I owe him my very life, Mrs. Potter, and I’d never—”

“What favors has he asked of you in return, miss?” asked Mrs. Potter earnestly. “How has he expected you to pay back what you owe him?”

Jenny had expected that question, though the righteous condemnation she’d expected, too, was missing. “His Grace has asked for no favors in exchange for his generosity.”

“Likely that is true, now that I consider it,” said the other woman slowly. “Being a great lord and all. Likely, His Grace doesn’t have to ask for much, does he?”

“No, ma’am,” said Jenny cautiously. “I expect in London he has his pick of the ladies.”

“Oh, I expect he does,” agreed Mrs. Potter quickly. “I expect you do, too, wherever you’ve come from, a fair young lady like you. How hard it must be for you, forgetting everything like you have, your poor head empty as a broken eggshell!”

A broken eggshell was certainly not the analogy that Jenny would have chosen herself, but as she looked down at the other woman’s work-roughened hands, she could easily imagine those same hands cracking and beating the eggs for a yellow cake, a treat to grace her husband’s dinner, a cozy time for the two of them alone before their hearth fire. No, for their children, too, for surely Mrs. Potter had earned her thickened waist honorably. How many in the Potter family? wondered Jenny. Boys or girls or both?

Where is your mind wandering, Jenny, my girl? You’ve never been one to coo over babies, or long to wipe the gruel and pudding from their sticky chins.

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