Carla Kelly by One Good Turn Read Free Book Online Page A

idea that her expression told him anything of the kind. “As you say, sir. At this nasty turn of affairs, I would recommend tea.”
    “For him or me?” he asked quickly, then smiled at her. “There I go again!”
    “Actually, sir, I think
you
should have the tea,” she replied, mystified by his quickness of mind, something she did not expect from one who seemed so proud. “I have been long enough in the company of English to observe that it cures all ills, real and imaginary.”
    “Except chicken pox, eh?” he asked, and she knew he was joking this time. “Shall we give’um a good gargle of calamine lotion and direct that they take up their beds and walk?” He seemed to hesitate. “Miss Valencia, I must continue to throw myself upon your mercy. Would you help me with my niece
and
my butler?”
    He did mystify her. “I told you last night that I would help. Adding another patient does not require a new contract,” she assured him. “I will insist that you help me.”
    “
Claro que si, dama.
Only command me. Huddersfield can wait, although I am puzzled why such a town is an attraction.”
    I need employment, she thought. Have you never . . . well, no, I suppose you have not. “It can wait,” she agreed. “Please summon the landlord and request tea and toast for the sufferers, and how did you say? Plenty of calamine lotion to gargle.”
    ***
    I will have to write to Tony and Libby and tell them that I continue to lead a charmed life, he thought later that afternoon as he sat beside Luster’s bed—he had given him his own—watching his butler. I am a man most fortunate to have fallen into the clutches of a woman born to command.
    He had always thought his skills in command constituted his only virtue, but after a fruitless waste of time in trying to convince Luster to abandon the cot in the dressing room for the more comfortable bed, he had whined to Liria, who was giving his niece a sponge bath. “He won’t do as I request,” he complained.
    “Oh, he will not?” she murmured. She worked swiftly, patting Sophie dry, applying more lotion, then whisking her back between clean sheets that the landlord’s wife had furnished. Does this woman command us all?
    “I will see Senor Luster now,” Liria declared. When Sophie started to whimper, she turned back to the bed. “My dear, your uncle will sit with you for a few minutes and then I will return,” she said, and touched her forehead to Sophie’s.
    “Your forehead is pink now,” he said as she turned around. With a slight smile, she pulled up the corner of her apron and wiped her face. “My butler is wondrously stubborn, Miss Valencia,” he warned her.
    She merely looked at him, her eyes open no wider, her expression scarcely altered. Maybe it was the way she raised her chin, or that barely perceptible squaring of her shoulders, but he decided not to waste his breath. “I will sit with my niece,” he said hastily, and felt a momentary pity for Luster. Serves you right, you stubborn old man. He nodded to Juan, who sat on the floor and drew in what appeared to be an artillery ledger book. “Do
you
ever argue with her, lad?”
    Juan gave him a sunny smile and returned to his drawing. Nez glanced at the page. “My carriage?” he asked, and Juan nodded.
    He leaned close to Sophie. “Chicken pox doesn’t last forever, Empress,” he said. “Soon we’ll be at Knare, and they’ll be on their way to Huddersfield . . . oh, now, why the tears?” He wanted to leap up and drag Liria back to his niece’s bedside.
    “Uncle, she is so good to us,” Sophie said, and then sniffed back her tears. “We do not wish her to leave our presence.”
    Well, at least you have some of your humor back, he thought. “But I think Miss Valencia is rather a martinet, Your Spotted Highness,” he replied.
    Sophie nodded, and then smiled, which amused him, because her face was so dotted with calamine. She indicated that he lean closer. “She touches us, and we