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genuine one, just the lemon-sucking version that was nothing more than barely restrained disdain. Loads of fun at parties, I guessed, he was not.
     
    Then there was Ezra. I couldn’t deny I liked his looks just as much as he’d appreciated mine. Clean-shaven, he wore his brown hair short at the nape, longer hair at the front curling over his forehead. He had regular and some might say ordinary features: straight nose, angular jaw, slim but firm-lipped mouth. It was a mouth quick to smile, which left the impression he hadn’t a care in the world, but I sensed otherwise. Of course, being gay in the nineteenth century had to come under the heading of pretty dark secret, but instinct told me it was more than that. He’d flirted, subtly maybe, but he had. He didn’t guard that particular inclination as closely as he guarded other things. What other things, I didn’t care that much about finding out.
     
    Then Kathleen directed a question across the table. “How are the arrangements for the wedding proceeding?”
     
    It was enough to plunge the kitchen into profound silence. I looked around curiously, to see all eyes on Ezra. He was the one getting married? Okay, maybe my profiling skills needed a little work.
     
    Ezra poked a spoon around in his soup, then cleared his throat. “The arrangements are—proceeding.”
     
    Or maybe it was time for that promotion the boss kept putting off. I’d never seen a guy look less pleased at the prospect of impending nuptials. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
     
    At my blithe inquiry, a smile quirked his mouth, forced if ever I saw one. “Her name is Charlotte Blanchard. We expect to be wed in the spring.” Said with all the cheer of a man announcing his own death sentence.
     
    Derry came to the rescue. “And you, Mr. Nash? Will you be returning to a wife and little ones? Or are you a confirmed old bachelor like some of the fellows here at Farbridge?”
     
    Before I could answer, footsteps just outside trod fast but light. There was a kid living here—in a houseful of single men? The kitchen door burst open and said kid stopped inside the doorway, a cake box cradled in her arms. Her gaze darted to me and she froze like a frightened rabbit. Under the dirt on her face, her skin was pale and freckled and the fringe of hair showing under her white cap was the bright copper of a new penny. Her apron was even dirtier than her face and the blue dress under it looked a size too small. She couldn’t be more than twelve, and I wondered to whom she belonged.
     
    “Hannah,” Kathleen said with exasperation. “Have a care or you’ll crush it.”
     
    “Yes, miss.” The whisper barely carried across the room. Hannah crept toward us, eyes on me the entire time, and set her box beside the soup tureen. I gave her a grin and she scrambled to Kathleen’s side.
     
    “This is Mr. Nash,” Kathleen told the girl. “He’ll be staying tonight.”
     
    “Yes, miss.” There was another door leading to a room off the kitchen and the little girl vanished into it.
     
    “Isn’t she going to have some supper?” I couldn’t help asking. The kid looked so thin.
     
    Kathleen’s eyebrows lifted. “She’s had her supper.” Rising from her chair, she began to clear the table, and I got up to help her. That earned me an even more suspicious look. “There’s no need for that,” she said, scooping up a platter protectively. “You’ve paid for a night’s lodgings and that will do.”
     
    I started to tell her it was a long-ago chore my mother had expected me to do without question, and now and again I still did it automatically. But Ezra shook his head gently, motioning me to follow him out of the kitchen. I offered a good night to the others and a thank you to Kathleen, who acknowledged it with a curt nod. On the way out, Ezra opened the box Hannah had brought and took something out of it. He turned to me and asked, “Would you like one? They’re quite good. Mrs. Nisbet across the way