She rushed back to the kitchen, searching quickly until she found the knives. She put a small one in her pocket. It might not do anything against him, but it still gave her comfort especially as he came back in. She made sure she was exactly where he’d left her.
“All right and tight,” he said, “and looking like I’d lost my mind. I wouldn’t put it past him to set up a whole commotion just to get me outside again to check on him. The beast is crotchety that way. But we’ve been together since the day he was born, and I can’t bring myself to discipline him as I ought. So, it’s my fault really.” He looked at her. “Did you get something to eat? You look like you’re about to blow away in a stiff wind.”
She smiled. “Yes, I ate some cheese. It was very delicious. Thank you.”
His brows rose as he studied her face, the table, his untouched hunk of cheese, then back to her eyes. “Miss Lina,” he said slowly, “I can ignore a lot of things. Mrs. Hocking takes from my larder every day. I’ve told her she could without knowing the woman eats as much as three horses. I got a man who tends the kitchen garden. He does a decent job though he spits and curses worse than any sailor I ever met. And he never bathes which is why I talk to him outside.”
He paused in his speech, and she nodded in response though she had no idea why he was telling her these things.
“What I can’t abide is a lie, especially if I ask you a direct question. Someone who lies in the little things will lie in the big ones, too. I can’t have that. Mrs. Dove-Lyon said you were more honest than any man of God. She said I’d never have cause to question you and that your work would be above reproach. Was she wrong?”
Bessie had little respect for men of God, so her comment was skating the edge of ridiculous. But the rest was true, and so Li-Na responded with a meek, “No, my lord.”
“And do you have any reason to think I would damn you for not eating?”
“No, my lord.” Should she ask? Should she tell him she knew he was the man who had tried to talk to her in Hyde Park?
“So…?”
Not yet. Not until she knew more. Not until he showed his true colors whatever they may be. She swallowed then gave him a serene smile. “I have eaten plenty, my lord. Thank you.”
His studied her, but then settled back down in his chair. “Suit yourself.” He picked up his meat pie and took another bite. It seemed he wanted to sit in silence now. She wondered if she should excuse herself to bed. Or perhaps hide somewhere else in this strange place. But she wasn’t given a chance as he pinned her with a dark glower.
“Did you truly hear Fool?”
“Fool?”
“My horse.” He shrugged. “I let my nephew name him.”
He’d named his horse Fool? Cornwall was a very strange place. “I heard something,” she said which wasn’texactlya lie. “Obviously, I was wrong.”
He chewed his food, his gaze heavy on her. Then he closed his eyes as he dropped his head on his chin. “I’m weary tonight and as cantankerous as my horse, thanks to that supercilious vicar.” He took another bite of his meat pie. “He called me boy,” he said as he glared down at the cheese. “I’ve been all over the continent, I’ve a gentleman’s education, and I’ve seen things most couldn’t imagine. Yet he thinks he can call me boy and tell me I don’t understand the way of things. Me. As if Cornwall is so different.”
It was different, as far as she could see. Night and day different from any place she’d ever been. But she didn’t say a word as he grumbled on.
“Do you know there are countries where the women manage the money? They hand it out to their men like a mother giving a treat to a child. And places where if a man hit a woman, he’d be whipped like a dog.” He lifted his chin as he stared off into the space over her left shoulder. “I’ve sat with women who would do the whipping themselves. Damned scary they were. Like Amazons. And yet he calls me boy and tells me to have patience. Women here don’t cast out their men, no matter how bad they are. He said I don’t know Cornwall, though I’ve lived here all my life.”
Obviously not if he’d traveled the world.
Lord Daniel leaned back on his stool. “Foreign ideas don’t hold here. That’s what he said.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Do you know what I said to that?”
She shook her head.
“That every idea is foreign if you don’t know it. Then when you do, you test it, you think about the logic of it. You see if it works. And if it does, then it isn’t a foreign idea, is it? It’s just an idea that worked.”
He finished off the last of the meat pie then lifted the cheese to tilt it in her direction.
“Last chance? Do you want any?”
She shook her head.
He grunted, then tossed it back into the basket as he pushed to his feet. “That’s it then,” he said. “I’m for bed.”
Her gut clenched in fear. She took a step backwards under the guise of giving him room to head for the door. But he didn’t cross before her. Instead, he held out a hand gesturing for her to go first.
“Don’t go wandering about at night,” he said. He held the lantern high while she grabbed her candle. She had the knife still in her pocket and the candle in her hand. Both could be used to hurt a man, though probably not stop him. “I’ve set the ledger out on the table. If you wake before me, you can start on it.”
“Do you want me to record accounts?”