“I do care for it,” she said.
“Then you should have some,” he said.
She nodded, again tightly. She headed over to the board, took up a plate, stared at the silver chafing dishes, and she seemed completely paralyzed.
“Cat?” he prompted.
At his voice, she jumped. Then she opened a dish, took a large spoon of eggs, placed them onto her plate, and then immediately went to the sausages and kippers. She placed both on her plate as well, and then tomatoes.
Her hands were shaking as she moved in a sort of restrained state.
And suddenly he realized that he had been remiss.
He felt sick, and a wave of fury rolled through him. “Has your brother left you completely uncared for?”
“I beg your pardon?” she queried over her shoulder.
She had heard him.
He knew it deep in his bones. She was buying time to find some sort of excuse. “Cat, are you and your sister in want of food?”
She turned to him, her face a mask of pain, but it was clear that her pride did not want her to admit the truth.
In that moment, he wished he’d shot Turnbridge through the heart instead of a limb. “You must tell me the truth,” he said gently, despite the rage coiling inside him. “Because if it is true, we need to send your sister food and possibly have her sent for and brought to London. If she cannot be cared for at your family estate, she should not be left there.”
Her hands began to shake as tears filled her usually stoic gaze. “But do you truly think that she should be in London, here with you?”
Garret drew in slow breaths, for the sight of those tears made him long to start off for Venice so that he could rip her brother’s arms off and beat him with them.
“I can have her put up at one of my smaller country estates or she could come and stay here.” He frowned. “It would be odd, but I would somehow find a way to make it acceptable. Especially since you don’t plan on her going onto the marriage mart.”
She swallowed back her tears and dashed them away with a free hand as she clutched her plate with the other. “I don’t truly wish Lily to be alone at that place, especially the way it is right now. There’s no one to take care of her. Only a few staff remain, but no one who is able to boil water. She barely knows how…”
“Your sister is boiling water,” Garret stated.
“Yes,” she said, looking away.
He hesitated, determined not to add to her shame. “It is an important skill to know. One I certainly learned, though most officers in the military cannot do so. They have someone do it for them, if you can believe it.”
“Oh, I can believe it,” she ground out. “Lords don’t like to do things like that as far as I can tell. I certainly only learned how to boil water in the last weeks. There is so much I don’t know how to do. It’s been terrible. We’ve survived on apples and cheese.”
“Apples and cheese,” he repeated. “I see.”
“This breakfast is a veritable banquet,” she said with a pained smile.
“Don’t make yourself sick,” he said because he had to. If she had not been eating much or rich foods, she could make herself ill.
“I won’t. But, Your Grace, can you please find a pleasant place away from London for Lily? I think that would be best,” she said. “I don’t want her to see—”
“I have a house at Kew,” he picked up, so that she wouldn’t have to explain. “And you can know that she is perfectly well, and you can exchange messages daily.”
She nodded, relieved. “I don’t wish her to come to London while I’m training to be a—”
“Courtesan?” he offered gently.
She nodded. “I don’t think she would understand. Not yet.”
“You’re worried she’ll be ashamed of you?”