Whatever awkwardness they'd experienced last night seemed to have passed. Mr. Burnham seemed affable enough, for him. He accepted their paltry breakfast well enough considering he was most likely used to a large table with beef and sausages. Oh, and eggs! She was making herself hungrier just considering what sort of breakfast he might have at his family's home. She felt extravagant when breakfast included fresh bread from the baker, she couldn't imagine selecting from a sideboard every day.

The only time she'd seen a breakfast like that was in Derbyshire. Not at her cousin's house, for the Walters were far more modest of means. But one of Jack's friends had them spend the night, and that girl's father was a Viscount. It was the first time Francie had ever understood why one could say the table was groaning under the weight of the food. But she'd been so shy that she'd only had toast and some scrumptious eggs coddled in cream that a footman placed in front of her. The two sons of the house had eaten enough to feed an army, or so she'd thought at the time. Looking at Mr. Burnham she thought he could eat a similar breakfast without ill effects.

"I'm sure the pub will be open before too much longer if you're hungry for something more than this," she said, worried that she was starving him.

"I'd best be careful with my funds until I know how much longer I'll be in residence," he said. "I've written to my brother with a request, but that is no guarantee he will see it in time."

"Oh, well, I could-"

He held his hand up. "It's not your responsibility to feed me, Miss Walters. I appreciate the hospitality you do show me, as you have your shop and cousins to worry about."

She smiled. "We are well used to our modest means, but there is enough saved back for at least a bit more hospitality." She dabbed up the biscuit crumbs from her plate. "Perhaps today I can get eggs or even some sausages from the butcher."

He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. "What if you get the eggs and I will get the sausages?"

"Fair enough, I suppose."

He smiled at her and damn her susceptible self, she felt a flutter in her tummy in response. He was dangerous to her, clearly. She'd been mostly a practical girl growing up, but she had her moments when danger drew her. She remembered a particular incident where she clambered up on a wall to look at the significant drop on the other side. It hadn't frightened her at all, but her mother had been petrified. Mama had coaxed her off the wall, but then almost crushed her in a tight hug while crying. Francie had to promise over and over not to climb on the wall again before her mother would let her go.

That was the majority of the reason she'd never really told her mother everything she'd done in Derbyshire. She'd spent a good deal of her summers there for a few years after Papa died. In retrospect she realized it gave her mother an opportunity to focus on her work, and it had been a tremendous distraction for a young girl. She'd taken to her cousins Jack and Sam immediately, and they spent their summers riding horses and practicing with guns, swords, and bows. Jack had loved the bow, the Viscounts daughter Sabre loved the sword, but Francie always preferred the gun. One day she'd spent hours practicing and was quite proud of herself, but then Sabre's brother Robert watched her for less than a minute before frowning and giving her nearly an hour of instruction. Any chance her 11-year-old heart had of developing a tendre for Robert had been crushed by every few minutes hearing a sigh followed by, "No, not like that." By the end of that summer her aim was stellar, but her affection for dark-haired well-born men was non-existent. She'd spent two more summers there. By the end she didn't feel as much a part of the group. The rest of the families not only spent their summers together in Derbyshire, but much of the year together in London. The girls were blooming into ton débutantes while Francie remained a country bumpkin. The last week she was there the only one she truly felt comfortable with was George, simply because George didn't care for any of the frivolity of their class. Francie was very much aware that she held to the edge of respectability by her fingernails, but George didn't care about any of that. Flaunted a hatred of Society in fact. To Francie that made George some combination of hero and confidant. Because although she was sure Jack loved her, it didn't seem like her cousin really understood her. That her challenges home in Cleadon were far different than anything Jack faced in Derbyshire or London. Jack had an entire library of books to read, a horse to ride, and a cabinet bursting with fashionable clothes. Oddly, George had all those things, too, but seemed far less affected by them.

She would admit that Mr. Burnham also seemed less affected by his advantages than one might expect. He had no complaints about his humble surroundings. She'd not even caught him sneering at any of it, which honestly if he could dash off a note to his brother and expect money to arrive he lived in a vastly different world than she did. How would she react to his world, she wondered. He lived the life of a Naval officer, but that wasn't all. He had a wealthy family. She'd certainly been impressed with Sabre's family. Was Mr. Burnham's anything like that?

She realized suddenly that she'd been wool gathering. "Shall we visit the shops before I have to open for the day?"

He set his mug aside. "Sounds splendid."

 

***

 

In his circle it was common for men to complain about women shopping. The worst of all was when a woman made you go shopping with them. Just now, watching Miss Walters dance with the butcher's toddler daughter, Reggie wondered what the bloody hell his circle was complaining about. The little girl's pet chicken joined the frivolity and it was all sunny smiles, laughter, and a few red feathers floating through the air. If this was a hell he was supposedly consigned to, then bless him but he would sin again.

Miss Walters scooped up the child and handed her over to her mother before joining him again where he chatted with the butcher. "I love these sunny days!" she exclaimed and the butcher returned, "Aye."

Sunny? If she'd seen Bermuda she would consider these dull days indeed. There was barely enough warmth in Cleadon to encourage removing one's jacket. Today on Irish Island would easily be twenty degrees warmer, and the sun would make you think twice about wearing more than a white shirt. She would have no need for those gloves she favored, that was for certain.

He tucked her hand in his arm for their stroll back to the dress shop. Every few steps she called out a greeting to someone on the street. Her greetings were cheerfully enough returned, but he supposed it was not this class of people who could afford to frequent her shop. These were the people she lived with. Who understood the challenges of being a young woman alone in the world. He wasn't helping her respectability at all, he knew, but that wasn't to be helped. If he had to choose between her safety and reputation then it wasn't even a contest. Anyone who couldn't understand that would receive short shrift from him.

Of course, he himself had only this morning been thinking that he wouldn't be around for long. How could he upbraid anyone disrespecting her if he wasn't around to do so? It made him wish that things were different somehow, although he wasn't sure quite how. It seemed beyond the pale to consider hying her off to the islands just to help her avoid some small town censure. Perhaps one of his sisters could take her in? He thought on it for a bit and rejected it. They would treat her like a servant and she most definitely was not that. Better to let her have her independence, sink or swim, than attempt to coddle her while inevitably crushing her spirit. He should know how it weighed on you, the way you were treated. He'd gone from being a privileged school boy to a swab. As he'd realized quickly that using his father's name to escape service would only leave his friends trapped without him, he'd suffered every indignity they did without complaint. And even though he'd known he was the son of viscount, the confidence of that knowledge had slipped away under the daily privation and abuse of their situation. It had taken years to regain his sense of self. They had all worked their way up to being noncommissioned officers. Harry for his facility with healing, Wally for his bravery in battle, and Reggie for his cleverness in assisting the engineers. Reggie could have bought a commission, but then where would that leave Harry and Wally? Not that it mattered now, he supposed. Wally was gone and Harry was going to medical school in Scotland. Perhaps he should purchase a commission. It provided a swath of benefits that he'd not been privy to before. And a certain respect that his naval career had been lacking thus far.

He released her hand, perhaps a bit reluctantly, so she could open the door to the dress shop. He saw the ruffians still lingered down the street. It amazed him that the constable hadn't encouraged the men to move along by now. If his shoulder would heal a bit more then he would encourage them himself. Rather than grow used to their presence he found it more and more irritating. Mostly because he imagined more specifically what could happen to Miss Walters, and he'd grown fond enough of her to want to protect her personally rather than some anonymous woman. Anonymous woman with a good aim, no less.

"I'll put the sausages on to cook," she said, locking the door behind them. "And we will just open a bit late today."

She took her bonnet off and set it aside on the main counter. The counter she'd been crouching behind when she'd shot him that first day. Hearing her half-boots spring lightly up the stairs he took a moment to pick up her bonnet and stare at it. Certainly less frivolous than anything his sisters would wear, but somehow all the more enchanting for it. Simple straw and ribbons. He set the hat back down and frowned. If he was mooning over the work of her milliner that it was possible he really was done for.

He went to the back room that had become his de facto bedroom to remove his jacket. The motion made him hiss in pain again. Damn, but the bloody stitches caused most of the problem. He wondered if he could convince her to cut them out. Every time he moved his arm too far they pulled something awful. Which undoubtedly meant it would be weeks, not days, before he could give those men on the street the thrashing they deserved.

"Mr. Burnham, I- oh! You're bleeding!"

Reggie turned to see Miss Walters coming toward him, a look of concern in her eyes.

"Turn around," she ordered. "And lift your shirt."

He endeavored to do so without pulling at the stitches again, but it proved a delicate task. She grew tired of his slowness and pulled it up over his shoulder on her own.

"You've torn two stitches out," she said in a distracted tone. Her fingers delicately probed the area. "I'm not sure that I should replace them. The bleeding is from where you tore them, not the original wound."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," he said, trying to ease his shirt back in place.

"Let me check the other side," she said. "Sit down."

It was that efficient tone again that brooked no argument. He was tempted to bite back at her but instead simply followed her instruction and submitted to having her pull his shirt the rest of the way off. He leaned back while she inspected his healing flesh, probing it delicately with her fingertips.

"You seem to be healing well," she announced. "We can have those stitches out in a few more days."

"Why not now?" he asked.

She stood up and rocked back on her heels as though she'd just realized how close she was to him. "We'd best not risk having you open the wound up again."