Read Online Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) by Donna Lea Simpson - Free Book Online Page B

has gone home to her family already.”
    Scandalized, Arabella said, “But I need hot water, and someone to brush my hair, and who will help me undress? And I am absolutely famished . I was going to ring for a little tray of cakes to tide me over until morning.”
    “If you had eaten your dinner you would not now be hungry,” True pointed out, reasonably. She tossed the hairbrush on the vanity table. If there was an edge to her voice, she hoped her cousin would not hear it, but it made her angry that the cousin she grew up with, the child who willingly put up with the Spartan living conditions of the vicarage—Spartan compared with Swinley Manor, anyway—to be with her cousins, was now so spoiled.
    “But I wasn’t hungry then. I am now,” Arabella fretted crossly. She glanced sideways at her cousin and her expression softened. “Will you go down and get me something, True?”
    Her tone had changed to wheedling, and True knew she would end up doing it. She sighed. “Look, I will go down and get a tray and bring a pitcher of hot water, but you must brush your own hair and don your own nightrail. And no more complaints!”
    “All right,” Arabella said, satisfied. She began to pull the pins out of her hair even as True headed for the door. True smiled at the flashes of the happy child she used to be, the child who had followed her cousin True like a shadow. If only Arabella would show that sunny side more often! But it did not seem to injure her credit in London that she was petulant and pouting at times. If all the gentlemen were like Lord Conroy, it was not surprising that young ladies were indulged and spoiled. That gentleman seemed to think a female was a delicate flower, incapable of doing the slightest thing for herself. True shuddered. She did not think she could stand to be treated that way, like a Staffordshire shepherdess, likely to shatter at the merest bump.
    The halls were dark as True ventured down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Lincoln bustled around in a voluminous white apron, setting pans of bread dough to proof by the fire while a scullery maid scrubbed pots at the huge sink. The landlady glanced up and dropped a swift curtsey. “And what service may I do for ya, miss?” she said.
    “I dislike bothering you, Mrs. Lincoln, but if it would not be too much trouble, may I get a pitcher of hot water for our room?”
    “Certainly, miss.” She wrapped a towel around the handle of a kettle hanging on a hook over the fire and poured steaming water into an ewer. “Woulda done this myself, if I had known you was finished with the card playing and were wishin’ to retire. Is there anything else?”
    True flushed. How to say this? “I wonder if we might, that is, if I could ask . . . could we trouble you for a plate of biscuits, or bread and jam? We . . . my cousin and I . . . are just the slightest bit—”
    “Ah, lass, do not think to cozen me,” the woman said with a smirk. “That beanpole you say is your cousin is nigh unto famished, as she didna have the courtesy to eat what was set before her. And good sturdy food it were, too, naught wrong with it. Miss High-an’-Mighty stuck her nose in th’air, an’ now her belly be growlin’.”
    True shrugged and nodded. She would not conceal nor try to put a good face on Arabella’s petulance.
    “For you, I will do this, because you had the goodness to come down an’ ask, pretty-like, unlike Miss Nose-in-the-Air.” She cut some slices of soft bread and slathered butter out of a crockery dish, then coated the pieces with apricot preserves. She cut the bread into triangles and arranged them on a plate. “And if the missy does not like our plain country fare, then she can expect no breakfast in the morn! You tell her that, lass! I’ll send her off starvin’ afore she says nay to my cookin’ another time. I’ll not give her another chance to slight me kitchen! Do you need a hand taking that up?”
    “No, Mrs. Lincoln,” True said, grinning. “I