Johnson snorted. “Mrs. Hobart, she calls herself. A proper dragon, that one. Always demanding this and that for her mistress, running the innkeeper ragged with her orders.”
“Precisely my point,” Darcy said. “Would she do so if it were not on the lady’s orders?”
“Ah, but here is the thing, sir,” Anders said, warming to his subject. “From what we have heard, the princess keeps trying tostopMrs. Hobart. Quietly, mind you. Sends her off on errands so she can speak with the innkeeper herself. Asked him not to strip the other rooms bare on her account. The old fellow who tends the fires says she actually apologised to him for the trouble her companion was causing.”
Darcy frowned. “You seem remarkably well informed about the affairs of a guest you have not met.”
“Servants talk, sir,” Anders said with a shrug. “We hear things. And what we hear is that while the companion demands enough wood to heat a manor house, the young lady has been giving most of it away. The old couple in the room next to hers near froze at night, until someone sent them extra blankets and had wood delivered to their chamber.”
“The innkeeper’s man told me his master was responsible for the improvements to my own chamber,” Darcy said slowly.
Anders met his gaze with an expression that was entirely too knowing. “Did he, sir?”
Darcy said nothing.
“The way I see it,” Anders continued, “she acts as a princess ought to act. Sees to the comfort of those around her, uses her position to benefit others, does not trumpet her charity from the rooftops. Whether she has royal blood or not does not much matter. She behaves with more nobility than most of the titled folk I have had the misfortune to hear of.”
Johnson nodded his agreement. “Too right. And she is kind to the maid, which says something. You can tell a great deal about quality folk by how they treat their servants.”
Darcy found himself without a ready response. He had been so certain of Miss Bennet’s duplicity, so convinced that her apparent kindness was merely another layer of deception. But Darcy trusted Anders’s judgement more than that of his own titled relations. Could he have been wrong?
No.He would not be swayed by gossip. A few kind acts did not erase the fundamental absurdity of her claims. She was still masquerading as royalty, still deceiving the innkeeper and his wife, still taking advantage of their credulity.
“If the weather holds,” he said abruptly, “we remove the day after tomorrow. See that everything is in readiness.”
“Very good, sir.”
Darcy turned to make his way back to the inn but paused at the stable door. “Anders. This princess. Have you seen her yourself?”
“Caught a glimpse yesterday, sir, when she came to the stable yard to check on her own coachman. Wanted to be certain he was properly provided for.”
“And?”
Anders permitted himself a small smile. “She has kind eyes.”
Darcy stepped out into the cold without another word, though Anders’s observation followed him across the yard like an unwelcome companion. Kind eyes. He had noticed that himself, despite his determination not to. But those eyes might belong to a woman engaged in an elaborate deception.
By evening, Darcy was thoroughly out of humour with the world in general and his current situation in particular.
Chapter Seven
Elizabeth had endured many trials in her eighteen years. She had survived Lydia and Kitty’s theatrical declarations of eternal boredom during long country evenings. She had weathered Mary’s moral lectures with patience. She had even managed to smile through her mother’s theories about how to make the most of her looks, which, while nothing to Jane’s, were not at all bad.
But Mrs. Hobart, Elizabeth was beginning to suspect, might be the death of her.
“The tea was barely warm this morning,” Mrs. Hobart announced from her position by the fire, where she had arranged herself with all the grandeur of a queen holding court. “Lukewarm tea is an affront. I have told the innkeeper’s wife that it simply will not do.”
Elizabeth set down her teacup with a clink. “Mrs. Hobart, the woman has been accommodating us with remarkable attention. Perhaps we might show equal forbearance when the kitchen is overwhelmed.”
“Forbearance?” Mrs. Hobart’s eyebrows climbed towards her lace cap. “My dear Princess Elizabeth, you mistake the nature of your position. It is not forbearance butcondescensionthat is required, and even that should becarefully measured. The lower orders are elevated by serving those above them. To deny them that opportunity is to deny them their proper place in the natural order.”
Elizabeth had heard variations of this speech no fewer than seventeen times since departing Longbourn, and her tolerance for it had worn thinner with each repetition. She wished Sir Reginald were here to stop her companion from declaring her title. Given the situation, it felt . . . unseemly. “I am not certain the natural order requires quite so many pillows.”
“The pillows are essential. Your posture must be properly supported.” Mrs. Hobart gestured to the mountain of cushions that had accumulated on the settee, each one deemed crucial to Elizabeth’s comfort and, by extension, her dignity. “And we must have more wood for the fire. This room grows cold far too quickly.”
“The room is perfectly warm.” Elizabeth resisted the urge to point out that it had been, in fact, uncomfortably warm before. “And we have already requisitioned more than our fair share of the inn’s supply.”
Mrs. Hobart sniffed, a sound that conveyed both superiority and suffering. “If the inn cannot adequately provide for its guests, perhaps it should not accept them.”