When she was done, they gathered up the dishes and he followed her into the kitchen. She poured hot water from the stove’s reservoir into the two large wash pans in the sink. After adding soap flakes to one, she placed the first batch of the dirty dishes inside. “Do you know how to dry?”
He smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I do. Why would I not?”
“Servants,” she said, washing up a few plates before sticking them in the clean water to rinse.
“Ah.” Using the dish towel she’d given him, he began drying. “There are no servants on seavoyages. Dish cleanup was one of my many duties.”
She’d forgotten about his cabin boy story. Glad to know he would be helpful and not just in the way, she kept washing.
“Have I earned the right to ask about your Miss Ezra?”
She washed the bowl her mother had placed the scrambled eggs in. “Depends on what you want to know.” She put it in the rinse pan.
“Do you pretend to be her often?”
“Your definition ofoftenand mine may differ, so let’s say she comes out to play when needed.”
“And she was needed this morning?”
“Yes.” She paused and assessed him. The reason behind the morning visit affected him as much as it did her, so she debated whether to share the whys. She thought back on her pledge to meet him halfway and decided to act on that and throw him a bone. “We didn’t want Welch to show up without warning today and demand we go to the train station, because we aren’t ready. So Miss Ezra paid her a call and brought her breakfast.”
Puzzlement filled his tone. “How would breakfast delay our leaving?”
“If it’s mixed with a purgative it will.”
His eyes went as wide as the plate in his hand.
Raven washed a coffee mug. “She’ll be spending her day running back and forth to the privy. She’ll not have time to pay us a visit.”
“Ah. That’s what your mother meant?”
Raven nodded.
He studied her, and she saw the many questions he was struggling to form.
“And you just waltzed in and gave her the food?”
“I did. Sometimes things don’t line up perfectly but in this case they did.”
She explained what took place.
“But what if she’d been at the landlady’s table already?”
“I would’ve told the landlady I was looking for someone else and had the wrong address and left. Welch wouldn’t have recognized Miss Ezra, so there was no chance of her realizing it was me. And if she had shown up today, I suppose we’d be on our way to Charleston.”
“That’s a pretty novel solution.”
Raven shrugged. “True, plus she needs to be taught a lesson for her being so insulting and insufferable. I know people who’d’ve slipped a poison in the food and been done with her altogether. At least she’s still alive.”
The level of intrigue made his head spin. “How and when did you find out where she was staying?”
“One of my cousins who owns a hack showed the sketch around to some of the other drivers and found the one who’d brought the three of you here yesterday. He was the same driver who waited outside and dropped her off at theboardinghouse. My cousin stopped by early this morning to let Mama know what he’d learned.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I’m impressed you know how to dry dishes.”
“We really must do something about that sassy mouth of yours.”