A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Page B

completely dry. Pushing it back, her fingers tangled in it. She had no need to glance in a shiny pot bottom to see herself. Her hair had become one great knot at home on two or three occasions, and it had taken hours of eye-watering effort from her mother to return all to smoothness. “I hope I shall be able to get the knots out without cutting it,” she said to herself.
    She thought about getting up to brush her hair, to sponge her dress back into respectability, and again to pull on the uncongenial boots. But she felt too boneless to move. When the cook removed a dish of baked apples from a side compartment of the stove and laid it on the table, Camilla couldn’t even muster the energy to ask for one. Actually, after two cups of the cook’s chocolate, she felt as a South American boa constrictor must feel after swallowing a small pig, but the scent of cinnamon, clove, and apple would have tempted a monk sworn to austerity to climb down from his pillar to demand a taste.
    It brought Sir Philip instead. He opened one side of the double doors at the far end of the kitchen. Camilla caught a glimpse of a passageway made of glossy beige bricks behind him. He must have hung his greatcoat up in the passage, but snow still crusted his boots. He stamped twice upon the mat to remove it.
    “What’s that smell?” he asked, sniffing the air like a hound catching a scent. “Baked apples? I adore ‘em.”
    “They’re for the nursery tea,” the cook said.
    “What, all of them? Are we feeding children or baby elephants?” Then he saw Camilla, and a bright smile took over his face, replaced an instant later by concern as he walked up to her. His cheeks were red from cold. “Miss Twainsbury, you look all in. Hasn’t anyone in all this great house offered you a place to lie down?”
    She noticed that both Merridew and Mavis had become very busy with his entrance. Merridew was scraping up all the dominoes and replacing them in their rosewood box. Mavis had seized a mop and immediately attacked the wet footprints Sir Philip had made.
    “I’m very well, thank you. Everyone has been so kind. Nanny Mallow is resting. Mrs. Duke is with her.”
    “Yes, the doctor has gone upstairs. I simply came in this way after seeing to the horses.”
    “Eh?” Merridew interjected. “What’s that?”
    “They’re well bedded down for the night. Now for you, Miss Twainsbury....”
    “I should be glad of a stable,” she admitted. ‘Though your cook has taken excellent care of me, as indeed everyone has.”
    “Mum’s likely got the other room ready for you, miss.”
    As no one seemed to notice her bare feet or her reluctance to move, Camilla felt it incumbent upon her to make an effort. Anything was better than sitting here helpless while Sir Philip stood over her. He had praised her courage, which had been unexpectedly sweet. She didn’t want to endanger that good opinion, since everyone else seemed to be reserving judgment.
    “Mavis,” the cook said. “Show Miss Twainsbury upstairs, then come right back, mind.”
    “I’ll show Miss Twainsbury the way,” Sir Philip said. “You’ve work to do.”
    “She can do it,” the cook urged.
    “ ‘At’s right,” Merridew added. “Lazy little thing. Do ‘er some good t’trot up them stairs.”
    “I don’t mind, Sir Philip, ‘deed I don’t.”
    He held up his hand. “Nonsense. It’s my pleasure.” He bent his arm and offered it to Camilla. Surprised by the eagerness the servants had shown to assist her, she wondered if accepting her host’s arm was some breech of etiquette. Nevertheless, she took it.
    “Thank you. I am rather tired.”
    “Not surprisingly so,” he said, leading her toward the kitchen door. A frown contracted his brows. “Pardon the personal suggestion, but... Have you shrunk, Miss Twainsbury?”
    “In the wet?” she asked, laughing. “No, I don’t think so.”
    He glanced down at her bare toes. Foolish to blush but she couldn’t help it. The hot blood