A Most Unconventional Courtship

She pulled the cauldron well clear of the fire on its hanging bracket and began to lift out the clothes and drop them into the rinsing water. She squeezed and wrung and worked her way down the mass of flimsy feminine items until she found a pair of uncompromisingly male stockings and Chance’s shirt. Her hands stilled on the fine cloth, then, with a shake of her head, she wrung them out vigorously and tossed them in with the rinsing.

When the whole lot was done and the laundry basket full, she dragged it to the foot of the stepladder that rose to a trap in the ceiling, tied the handles to the dangling rope and began to climb. As she emerged on to the flat roof high above the town she looped the rope around the pulley fixed to the parapet and hauled it up. The basket landed with a wet thump and she dragged it to the washing lines strung across the roof between the chimney stacks and the rickety vine arbour.

Doing washing was so much better in the summer, when there was hardly any smoke from the chimneys and the sun shone hot, drying and bleaching the white linens and lawns in a fraction of the time they took in the winter, dripping all over the living room.

Alessa hung out the load, then went down the ladder again for some bread and cheese and a jug of watered wine. She could spare time to rest up here in the shade and eat her luncheon. There was a shirt of Demetri’s with yet another missing button she should be mending and there was her accounts book to check through. The clock chimed, the bells only just above her level up here on the roof. Yes, she could spare an hour, then perhaps she would not feel quite so much on edge.

The sound of puffing and complaining jerked her out of her reverie. Kate Street emerged on to the roof, red-cheeked from negotiating the steep ladder. ‘Here you are! I met your two little ones on their way home and thought I’d drop in and see what you’d done with your handsome patient.’ The sound of the children drifted up from below. They were squabbling mildly over whose fault it was that there were none of the yeast buns left from yesterday.

‘Whatever time is it?’ Alessa jumped to her feet and looked round. ‘It must be past three!’

‘Half past,’ Kate confirmed, perching on the edge of the crumbling parapet with blithe unconcern for the drop beneath her. ‘And you’ve been sitting up here daydreaming for how long exactly?’

‘I haven’t been daydreaming—I’ve been eating and mending and doing my accounts.’ Alessa followed her friend’s gaze to take in the full mug with the fly floating on the surface, the cheese sweating in the sun, the shirt with the thread and loose button lying on top of it, the closed ledger. What have I been doing? ‘I must have dozed off, I’ve had a busy morning,’ she amended defensively.

Kate’s lips twitched, but all she said was, ‘His lordship’s been removed, then?’

‘Yes. The Residency staff collected him. And he is

a lord, in fact—Lord Blakeney.’

‘All the better. You charged him plenty for the trouble, I hope.’

‘Certainly not! How could I? One does not charge guests, however unwitting they may be.’

‘Honestly, Alessa, sometimes I think you are more Greek than the Greeks.’

‘I am Corfiot. What else is there for me to be?’ Affronted, Alessa stalked over to peer down into the room below. ‘Dora, Demetri! Have you had a good day? I will be down in a minute.’

Two round faces appeared, tipped up to smile at her. ‘Very good,’ Demetri announced. ‘Doctor Theo says my French story was incredible.’ Alessa kept her face straight.

‘And your English spelling?’

‘Not so incredible,’ the boy admitted.

‘And, Dora—are you coming up here?’

‘I had a good day too. The nuns have got new kittens. May we go and play?’

‘If you like. Take your hats—and stay in the courtyard.’

The thunder of feet heading for the door was all the answer she got. Kate watched over the parapet. ‘No hats—but then, they are born to it.’

‘Mmm,’ Alessa agreed absently. Getting either of the children to wear a sunhat was a lost cause. There was so much she should be getting on with—why did she feel at such a loose end?

‘So,’ Kate settled herself, ‘tell me all about him.’

He helped me with the soap, I asked him any number of impertinent questions, he thought I was selling myself, I can’t stop thinking about him, and now I do not know what he thinks about me. And that matters somehow.

‘Nothing to tell,’ she responded with shrug. ‘He rested, I worked on all the usual things, Mr Williams came with two footmen. His lordship was too proud to be carried downstairs and had to hop, so he is probably feeling very sore and sorry for himself as a result. But he is Dr Pyke’s problem now—I do not imagine he will be finding his way back here for some arnica lotion for his bruises.’

By the afternoon of the next day Chance was feeling not the slightest inclination to go anywhere. The Lord High Commissioner had announced that he must be accommodated within the Residency so that his personal physician could attend upon him, and as a result Roberts the footman had assisted him to a comfortable wicker chair in the shaded cloister of the inner courtyard.

With a footrest, a pile of cushions, a table at his side for journals and refreshments, a walking stick and a bell, Chance allowed himself to sink into unfamiliar indolence. He lazily considered that he probably resembled nothing so much as a valetudinarian colonel taking the spa waters at some resort, but really could not summon the energy to care.

Doctor Pyke assured him it was simply the after-effects of a blow to the head. Chance thought it more likely to be the reaction to a halt to his travels for the first time in months. His every need was being taken care of, there were no decisions to be made, no unfamiliar cities or uncertain modes of transport to be negotiated, no servants to hire.

He had set out four months previously, suddenly restless at the realisation that, with the war with France at last over, this was the moment to travel before doing his duty, finding a suitable wife and settling down. Not that he had been leading a life of irresponsibility and excess. Chance was used to hearing himself described by his various fond female relatives as a paragon of domestic virtues, an ideal son and a wonderful brother.