The Counterfeit Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee

Author:Rebecca Hagan Lee [Lee, Rebecca Hagan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939541642
Publisher: Teresa Medeiros

CHAPTER 18

If Noah was annoyed with her for her inability to perform the simplest of wifely tasks when he returned to the kitchen, he didn’t show it.

Cassie wished she could say the same.

She’d found the copper tea kettle and was seated at the kitchen table drinking a cup of Grey’s Tea and feeling strangely out of sorts when Noah came back downstairs freshly shaved and fully dressed, wearing a waistcoat, jacket, and tie over his white shirt, socks and tall boots on his feet. Although she was looking forward to the trip to the Chester Hotel Café, she was disappointed as well. Not in Noah. In herself.

Her last coherent thought before she’d fallen asleep last night had been the romantic notion that on the first morning of her married life, she’d make coffee and a hearty breakfast for her new husband. Cassie had dreamed about it all during the night and the dream was perfect. She’d made a lovely breakfast of fresh eggs and sugar-cured Virginia ham, light, fluffy, biscuits and coffee just the way he liked it.

Then she’d come downstairs and encountered obstacles. The most daunting of which was the empty icebox and larder. And the fact that she was a novice cook who had failed to locate the one thing she could make—Noah’s coffee. And after retrieving the coffee for her to brew, Noah had decided he would wait and order his coffee when he took her to the Chester Hotel Café for breakfast. She refused to allow that.

Cassie started to rise when Noah returned to the kitchen, but Noah motioned for her to keep her seat.

“Don’t get up,” he told her. “Finish your tea. Please. There’s no hurry. It’s still early. The storekeepers haven’t opened for business yet.”

“The coffee is ready,” she told him.

“There was no need for you to go to the trouble,” he said. “I planned to order some with breakfast at the Chester.” He glanced over at her. “The bathing room is warm if you want to freshen up before we leave. I left hot water in the kettle on the heater for you.” Noah picked up the cup and saucer she had set out for him, then walked to the stove and filled his cup from the enameled pot.

“Thank you. I’ll go up and make myself presentable as soon as I finish my tea.”

Noah carried his cup of coffee back to the table. “Do you mind if I join you until then?”

“Why should I mind?” Cassie asked. “A man’s home is his castle. It’s your castle.”

“It’s our castle.” He sat down beside her, then made a show of glancing around the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would anything be wrong?” She knew it was illogical, but she was irritable and cross with Noah for no reason. Cassie didn’t know how it had happened or why, but sometime between the time he’d gone upstairs to put on his socks and boots and when he’d re-entered the kitchen, she’d grown increasingly out of sorts and although he hadn’t done anything to cause it, Noah was the reason for it.

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