Love Bade Me Welcome by Joan Smith Page A

master’s suite, with the door between on the latch. I did not want to invade Homer’s lair, but obviously the window had no bars. A quick peep told me that. I was about to leave when I noticed the other door. It was not obvious at a glance, as the door had been covered in the flowered paper, a strange conceit. The frame was painted, however. I don’t mean to say the door opening had been papered over.
    I went to it and tried the knob. It was locked. I was curious enough that I went out to the garden to see if the window did have bars, but it had not. It was one of Millie’s imaginings. A dressing room very likely, though it was odd it was locked. It was also odd it did not open to the hallway, but was a private chamber after all. Likely Lady Blythe had not wanted to be disturbed at her toilette.
    It was a long day to get in, with the heavy weather making a walk ineligible. Soon I would have gathered my creature comforts about me like the others. Embroidery, knitting, sewing, reading, and a little painting. Mr. Dickens’ book lent me by Thal was too sad for my present mood. I would go instead to the library and look for a lighter one. As I went along to it, I saw Homer had returned from his work and was being fed alone in the morning parlor, with one of the servants hopping attendance on him. It was one I had not seen before. The woman looked at me with interest, and Homer beckoned me in.
    “I am having a late lunch. Will you share this fresh pot of tea with me, Davinia?” he invited.
    It was an overture of friendliness, and in the interest of smooth relations I accepted it. “This is our cook, Mrs. Soper,” he added. She was a broad woman with a high complexion. She smiled and curtsied, and I expressed my appreciation for the fine meals she had been serving us.
    A cup was put on the table for me, but her main interest and pleasure was to serve Sir Homer. She doted on him like a mother; you could see her love in the way she hovered about, proffering chutney and pickles to spice his cold meat, while her eyes scanned the table to see what else she might give him. When his plate was heaped, she left, but reluctantly.
    “You have an admirer there,” I said in a light vein.
    “Mrs. Soper lives under the illusion I saved her son’s life. He fell in front of a horse and I had the wits, as any adult man would, to shove him out of the animal’s way before he was trampled. Since that time several years ago she is mine to do with as I please,” he admitted with a dismissing smile. She was not the attractive sort of woman about whom this statement would have any overtones of misbehaving.
    “A cook is a good woman to have under your thumb,” I said.
    “She’ll kill me with kindness yet. And when she goes to the bother of baking up my special foods, I haven’t the heart to confess I am full, but must just try the gingerbread, or shortcakes, or whatever she has made.”
    “She is a good cook. We will all have to watch our waistline here,” I said, never thinking how my own would grow willy-nilly.
    “How do you pass the morning?” he asked.
    “By talking, and snooping about the house, coming to know it a little. Millie told me one of her peculiar tales, all imagining I’m sure, about Norman’s mother having been locked away behind bars. I did notice though that the dressing room adjoining her chamber is locked. Is there any reason for it?”
    Why this should send his brow lifting an inch intrigued me. His lips too took on their pinched, angry look. “Were you planning to move into it? As events have transpired, my moving into the master suite is premature, but I hope you will wait till I have my belongings removed before you take up occupancy of the adjoining chamber.”
    “Homer, that’s not why I... It never so much as occurred to me. I am not in such an almighty rush as that to assume mistress-ship of the place. Naturally we must wait to see whether you are the heir or not. In the meanwhile, there is nothing