Lady Sherry and the Highwayman by Maggie MacKeever

effort Sherry made to turn him up sweet. Nor would he be moved by threats and pleas. Ned was sure he was very sorry to see her ladyship in a pucker, but he was very needful of getting his hands on some of the ready-and-rhino and there was nothing else for it but that she must knuckle down.
    The conversation, entirely too distressing to repeat here in its entirety, continued for some few moments. At its end, Sherry conceded reluctantly that she would be granted no reprieve. She abruptly left the stables before she fell prey to a violent impulse to wreak bodily damage on her groom with the pitchfork that leaned against one wall.
    Sherry made her way back to the house and into the kitchen, where she requested a tray to take with her to the book room as a midmorning snack. A pot of tea and a plate of seedcakes, a large serving of cold green-goose pie—she recalled that she was providing this repast for a gentleman not in the pink of health and additionally requested that the cook provide her with some of the excellent restorative that she always kept on hand. Cook agreed that Lady Sherry was looking a mite peaked and immediately put a large teacupful of her calf’s-feet jelly into a saucepan along with a half-glass of sweet wine, a little sugar, and nutmeg.
    Lady Sherry watched the cook beat in the yolk of an egg and a bit of butter, then grate into the concoction a portion of fresh lemon peel. “I’ll take it up myself.” She grasped the tray and walked out of the kitchen, leaving the servants to agree among themselves that this was a very queer household. Lady Childe was the highest of sticklers and could not be pleased, but at least with Lady Childe one knew where one stood. Lady Sherry, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know her proper place.
    The cook had the final word on the subject. “Lady Sherry is neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring!” she announced with a shake of her head.
    Sherry was aware that her brother’s servants didn’t approve of her country manners, and could not bring herself to greatly care. At this moment, as she continued down the hallway, Sherry was far more concerned about her own servant and his unexpected perfidy. How could Ned be so very unreasonable as to expect her to produce five hundred pounds in the winking of an eye? Even given an entire year, she had no notion how she might produce so much. Sherry supposed she would have to follow Daffodil’s suggestion, since she could think of none of her own. She had not forgotten that Daffodil’s clever notions were to a degree responsible for this wretched predicament.
    Sherry detested the idea of prevaricating about a matter so serious as her own nuptials. And what was she to say to her brother when tradesmen failed to arrive with boxes containing the trousseau she had supposedly bought? For that matter, what was she to say to her prospective bridegroom, who had no notion that a trousseau was indicated posthaste? Unlikely that Chris could be persuaded to refrain from mentioning the matter to Andrew.
    “Oh, what a tangled web we weave!” Sherry murmured, greatly startling a young housemaid passing by her in the hallway. Deep in thought, Sherry continued on up the stairs and flung open the door to the book room, causing Prinny to leap alert and growling to his feet and Micah to come awake abruptly with a curse and a groan for his sore leg.
    Some moments later, order had been restored. Prinny had been persuaded against savaging the intruder, and Micah from crawling across the room to retrieve his gun from its hiding place on the library shelf. “Oh, do hush!” snapped Sherry to the pair of them as she set the tray down on the little table by the bed and dropped into her writing chair.
    Micah regarded her with some perplexity. The females of his acquaintance did not generally walk into a room, plop down into a chair, then prop their elbows on a table and drop their head upon their hands, without so much as a word of greeting exchanged.