This Side of Heaven by Karen Robards

Author:Karen Robards [Robards, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-80135-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

24

“Well, hello there, Mary. Did you bring my niece to visit me, then neglect to carry her upstairs?”

Matt looked up to spy them in the doorway. He seemed completely unembarrassed to be caught sipping broth from a visitor’s spoon. Considering the fact that he had insisted to Caroline from the very day after he was injured that he was perfectly capable of feeding himself, she could only suppose that he was quite without shame.

“ ’Tis good to see you, Matt, although I actually came to further my acquaintance with Mistress Wetherby and cannot stay longer even to allow you to visit with Hope. James will be getting hungry this evening as usual, I fear, so I must hurry home. Ladies, ’tis time we were going. The afternoon grows advanced.”

It was probably as well, Caroline decided, that this exchange between Matt and Mary took place without so much as a glance being cast at her. Caroline, biting her lip, barely managed to keep her tongue still as it was. If Matt had spoken to her in terms that had required an answer, she couldn’t have been held responsible for what she said. Though why she should feel so outraged by the scene she and Mary had interrupted she couldn’t imagine. She certainly had no claim on Matt! Nor, she told herself vehemently, did she wish to have a claim on him!

“Oh!” In response to Mary’s words, Hannah looked around with a trilling little laugh. “I had not realized how the time was passing. When I saw that Mr. Mathieson was not eating, I just had to see if I could not coax him to take a bite or two. He must keep up his strength, you know, if he is to heal.”

“Mr. Mathieson said the broth tasted much better when Sister wielded the spoon.” Patience got to her feet from where she had been sitting in the high-back chair near the bed, decorously playing propriety.

“I am sure it does,” Caroline answered sweetly, for the remark had been directed to her. Nobly she refrained from giving into the impulse to cast a dagger look at Matt, who at last turned his eyes toward her. He frowned at something he apparently saw in her face, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Before he could get the words out he was silenced when Hannah, with commendable dexterity, slid a spoonful of broth between his parted lips.

“Hannah? If you are quite ready …?” Mary lifted her eyebrows at her friend while Matt swallowed.

“Oh, yes. I don’t believe that even my help can get any more of this down him. It’s been allowed to grow quite cold. But he’s taken a good bit—and may have some of my apple pie for dessert,” Hannah concluded, getting to her feet as she addressed the latter with a smile to Matt. She placed the spoon in the bowl, set the bowl on the bedside table, and turned to survey Matt with a proprietary air that made Caroline, for no reason that she could think of except that the woman plain irked her, want to stomp her feet.

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