A Matchmaking Mismatch (Romance Retold #3)

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

R uth Hawthorn’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as she summed the numbers in the neat column on the paper before her. She squinted harder to block out the sound of little feet clomping and creaking on the wooden floor outside the room she shared with her sisters. She didn’t even look up as she dipped the quill, wiped the excess on the edge of the ink pot, and brought it back to the paper before her, scratching the sum at the bottom of the column.

She sat back with a sinking heart. “It seems impossible, but I am quite sure it is correct.” She looked up at the maid beside her, who leaned over, frowning at the paper as well. Ellen had been with the family when they had entertained every family in the neighborhood—and now, when they could barely feed themselves. She was one of just two servants they had been able to keep on since the death of Ruth’s father just over a year ago. If things continued as they were, they might be obliged to let Ellen and Lucy go, too.

Ellen stood straight, setting her hands on her wide hips and jutting out her lips in a determined gesture. “I shan’t buy any meat for this week, miss. That will save a good amount, though I know how Master Christopher loves his mutton.”

Ruth hurriedly checked the numbers again, but it was no use. The sum was correct.

She set the quill back in its stand. They had hardly any money left and still far too much time until more would come at quarter day—the small amount from the jointure Ruth’s mother received. Thank heaven her father hadn’t managed to lose that too. Ruth knew too well how much he had regretted his well-intended investment scheme to feel any anger toward him. She could manage a life of poverty better if he were still here.

Ruth’s stomach writhed with guilt as she stared at the drying number on the paper. She wasn’t accustomed to managing finances, and certainly not in the way they were now obliged to do, stretching every last farthing. She rubbed her forehead harshly, staring at the paper, as if she could will the numbers to change by looking at them.

Ellen put a soft hand on Ruth’s shoulder. “Let me go see what we still have in the kitchen, miss. Perhaps we can make do for the rest of this week without buying the usual things.”

Ruth nodded absently. As Ellen opened the door to leave, the volume of children’s voices heightened, only to fall again as the door shut with a loud creak.

But it hadn’t even been a full minute when the door opened again and the chaos of running children erupted in the room. Ruth continued to stare at the paper before her, hardly flinching when two children bumped up against her, one wrapping her arms around her leg, the other tugging on her arm as their urgent voices complained in disharmony. She tried to focus, but the voices became louder, pressing in on her thoughts.

“Stop!” Ruth cried, sliding the chair back and rising so that both children were obliged to unhand her. She put a finger to her temple and shut her eyes, forcing herself to draw in a deep breath. She looked down at her five-year-old sister Joanna, who looked stricken at Ruth’s outburst, tears beginning to fill her sweet eyes. George’s chin was trembling, his lower lip sticking out in a way that made her forget for a moment that he was three years old—his crying face had wrung her heart ever since he was an infant, and now more than ever, as he tried in vain to control it.

She sat back down, heart aching fiercely, and put out her arms. “Come, my loves. I am sorry for yelling.” Both George and Joanna walked into her arms, and she pulled them to her tightly, planting a kiss on both heads. She loved all of her siblings dearly, but these two had come to depend upon her since their father’s death in a way that had earned them a particularly warm corner of her heart. “Will you forgive me?”

George sniffed, but the corner of his mouth turned up in the beginnings of a smile—one that still struggled against his quivering chin. “’Course,” he said. Joanna nodded with a smile more sure than her brother’s.

“I’m hungry, Ruthie.” George cast his large eyes up at her pitifully. The water from his unspilt tears still hovered precariously in the wells of his wide brown eyes.

“Come, Georgie,” Joanna said, tugging on his arm. “You know we have to wait till dinner.”

Ruth swallowed down the emotion in her throat at the thought of George’s hunger. “What do you say we make some banana muffins? I saw an overripe one in the corner by the pots.”

Both George and Joanna’s mouths split into smiles, and they nodded vigorously.

“Go tell your brothers and sisters,” Ruth said. “I only need five more minutes, and I shall come help.”

The two children skipped out of the room, Joanna holding onto George’s hand.

Ruth let out a breath as the two of them disappeared, her smile fading with their voices. She would have to tell her mother of their circumstances, but she dreaded it. Her mother wasn’t meant for such a hand-to-mouth existence as they were now leading. None of them were, in truth. But her mother had married a gentleman and, as much as she tried to accept their new situation with equanimity, it was obvious that she was unhappy. It was no wonder. Losing a husband and a fortune in one blow was more than anyone should have to bear.

Ruth stood from her chair and looked around the room for her apron. She was still wearing it. Of course. Where was her mind going?

She brushed impatiently at the hairs escaping the simple, loose knot in her long hair—she had never been good at doing it herself, and she hadn’t the time to devote to it now anyway—and put a smile on her face to go make banana muffins with the children.

T he windows that let onto the street were open, bringing in the sounds of the bustling town of Marsbrooke, and releasing both the warmth from the stove and the scent of fresh banana muffins. Ruth’s younger siblings—all but Topher, though he would take issue with the word younger —munched contentedly on the treats, while her mother was lying down for a rest upstairs in the relative quiet that reigned when all her children’s mouths were at work. She was always so tired nowadays, as if when they had lost the money, she had lost her energy along with it.

Ruth and Ellen declined to take muffins for themselves. Ruth’s stomach grumbled, but she could wait to eat until dinner.

The door opened, and Ruth’s twin brother Topher walked in, his soft golden curls ruffling slightly with the breeze that blew in with him. For siblings who had shared so much of their existence, the two of them shared little in common by appearance.

Topher shut his eyes, breathing in the smell in the kitchen. “I thought I smelled your banana muffins from halfway down the street, Ellen.” He strode over to the basket, unfurling a pair of spectacles, which he set on his nose before taking the last muffin in hand. He bit into it with a sigh of pleasure.

“You’ve got glasses!” eight-year-old Sarah cried, stating the obvious.

Topher tipped the glasses down his nose to stare at her through them teasingly. Ruth snatched them off his nose, inspecting them. Her first impulse was to chastise him for such a purchase, but she knew his eyes had been bothering him for some time now when he read, and she didn’t want to discuss it in front of the children.

“And where have you been?” Ruth asked, handing the glasses back to him. Joanna reached for them, though, and set them on her face with delighted giggles.

Topher wagged his eyebrows at Ruth, swallowing down a mouthful of muffin. Topher was always energetic and good-humored, but he seemed to be in an especially happy mood today. He reached into his neat blue coat—conspicuously out of place in their humble kitchen—and pulled out a small bag of jingling coins, dropping it onto the wooden table, which sat unevenly on the floor below. “My best go of it yet!”

Ruth’s eyes widened, and she plucked the bag from the table, yanking her brother’s arm and pulling him into the small parlor that led off the kitchen. She shut the door behind them. “You can’t be serious, Topher,” she hissed. “Is that smuggling money?”

He nodded, wiping at the crumbs around his mouth. Smuggling was Topher’s way of putting off the unpalatable task of choosing what occupation to pursue. She couldn’t blame him too much. All his life, he had believed he would be inheriting Dunburn.

“You know we need it,” he said.

“Yes, but the last thing I want is for Charlie to get wind of it. You know how he idolizes you, and who knows what mischief he would get up to if he found out. He thinks himself fair grown, for all he’s only thirteen.”

Topher seemed to sober at that. “You’re right. I shan’t speak of it in front of him again. We will simply tell him it’s money from the Swan.”

Ruth sighed. “That’s hardly better.” She thumbed the coins through the rough burlap. “And we certainly don’t make this much from the Swan.”

“Ah,” Topher said, reaching into his coat. “Speaking of which, we have some post.”

Ruth’s lips drew into a thin line at the sight of his waistcoat. “Is that new?”

He pulled out three letters and glanced down at his waistcoat, a bright blue satin with embroidered green clocks. “I thought my success worth a little splurge.” There was a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

“Well, it is hideous.” She tugged the letters from his hand and brushed her flour-speckled hair away from her face. “You cannot continue to dress as though we still lived at Dunburn, Topher. We barely have enough to eat, let alone to waste on foppishness.” She tried to soften her words with a teasing glance as she broke the seal on one of the letters.

“Allow me.” He straightened his spectacles and took the letter back, walking over to the light of the window. “He thanks the Swan for his ”—Topher sent her a smirk—“helpful advice on the topic of gaining an introduction to a woman and begs us to address in the following column how a man might go about wooing a woman whose heart is already given to another.” He grimaced at Ruth.

She folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “Apparently he is not a careful reader of the column, or he would already know our answer to such a question. We are not in the business of stealing hearts—only—”

“—cultivating love in hearts that are unattached. Yes, I know,” he said impatiently, taking the other two letters from her. He opened the second one. “This fellow wishes to express his profound thanks, feeling that he owes a great part of his success to the Swan, having lately become betrothed to a lady who will go unnamed out of respect to her privacy. Signed, J. McQ.”

Ruth smiled. “I love those ones.”

Topher narrowed his eyes at the last one, rubbing a finger along the crimson wax seal on the back. “Very fine indeed.”

Ruth walked over and peered over her brother’s shoulder. The seal was an ornate crest with a large O in the middle. Topher glanced up at her in annoyance. “A man’s sister shouldn’t be able to see so easily over his shoulder.”

“Even an older sister?”

He scoffed and tore open the letter. “Older by all of five minutes.”

“An inch for every minute,” she teased.

He sent her an annoyed glance. “You are not five inches taller.”

She smiled and stepped away so she could listen as he read the letter, chewing absently on the tip of her thumbnail.

His eyebrows knit together, and he held the letter up, staring at Ruth. “He wants an in-person consultation.”

Ruth stared back. “What?” She took the letter from him and ran her eyes over the masculine but neat script. Her eyes widened. “Twenty pounds? He’s offering twenty pounds for an hour?”

Topher’s shoulders lifted, and his lip quirked at the side. “Can’t put a price on love, can you?” He watched her, and she returned her eyes to the letter. “We shall accept the request, of course,” he said.

Ruth looked up. “Of course? Of course not .”

“What? Why not? Twenty pounds, Ruth! We need it. And it’s only an hour.”

Ruth stared at her brother incredulously. “Yes. In person! No doubt it has escaped your notice, but I am not a man, and I think that should become very apparent over the course of an entire hour.”

“Would it, Henry ?”

She punched her brother in the arm. Every now and again, he called her by the name their parents had chosen for what they had hoped would be twin boys. Her larger-than-average height did nothing but add fuel to the fire of his teasing, but she knew he resented being the shorter of the two.

Ruth had never explicitly stated that the Swan was a man, but she hadn’t been terribly disappointed when people made the assumption. It was better for business, after all. And it was why, even when she accompanied him to the newspaper office, she always had Topher deal with the owner, Mr. Jolley. But she wondered whether the man had his suspicions.

Topher rubbed his arm. “Of course this ‘O’ fellow would see you were a woman, but what if it wasn’t you who went?”

Ruth laughed. “What, you ?”

“Why not?”

She folded up the letter and handed it to him, directing a baleful stare at him. “There’s a reason I write the advice and not you, Topher. I am the one Papa taught. I am the one whose advice keeps The Weekly paying for the column. I am the one whose counsel creates success stories like that of this McQ.” She nodded at the second letter.

“And I merely handle the correspondence,” he said in a childish voice. “I know . But it’s only for an hour, Ruth. Surely you could teach me enough of the basics to give good account of myself to Mr. O. Just think—twenty pounds for a mere hour!”

Twenty pounds was a significant amount. She imagined how it would change the sum on the paper upstairs and chewed on her lip. How much were her scruples worth? “But it feels so…so…vulgar.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sister, but”—he motioned to the bare parlor—“we are vulgar now.”

“Topher!” she cried. “Not vulgar. We may be poor, but it is not the same thing at all.”

He shrugged. “Fact is, we need money—and we need it sharpish. If you won’t respond to the fellow, I will.”

Ruth’s eyes widened. She wasn’t entirely proud of her venture as the Swan, but neither did she want to trust Topher with the reputation she had taken care to cultivate.

He noted her reaction and grinned. “What? You don’t believe me capable? Think I don’t know how to win over hearts?”

Ruth gripped her lips together and took the letter from his hand. She ran her fingers over the broken seal, feeling a fluttering of nerves at the thought of agreeing to something so new for the Swan. It was so easy to write a weekly column, hiding behind paper. This was uncharted territory. “How should I know what you’re capable of when you refuse to talk to me at all about your own romantic ventures?”

“I tell you as much as you tell me.” He sat on the chaise longue and rested one ankle over the other. The elegant piece of furniture belonged in the low-ceilinged room as much as Topher’s waistcoat did. It was one of the few pieces they’d brought with them from Dunburn. Ruth would have preferred two wooden chairs, honestly. She hated the unwelcome reminder—comfortable as it was—of all they’d had to leave behind.

“That is only because I have no romantic ventures to speak of,” she said. “And don’t even begin to pretend the same is true for you. I am not stupid.”

She had dreamed of romance. But that had been before all of this. The prospect of her own love story was yet another thing she’d had to leave behind at Dunburn. Love was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Now she merely helped other people find it.

A knock sounded on the parlor door, and Ellen appeared in the doorway. “Shall I reheat last night’s soup, miss? If we wish for something else, I will just need to make a short trip to the market before dinner.”

Ruth didn’t respond right away, keeping her eyes on the maid. This would be the third night in a row they’d had the soup. She could already hear George’s whining. She glanced at Topher, who indicated the coin bag on the parlor table with a significant raising of an eyebrow.

“Give her one of the coins.” Ruth swallowed as Topher obediently took a coin from the bag and handed it to the maid. “See what you can find with that, Ellen.”

The maid nodded and disappeared.

Ruth stared at the door for a moment then sat down in the seat at the escritoire. “Let’s respond to this ‘O’ gentleman, then.”

The Hawthorn children wouldn’t have soup five nights a week if Ruth had anything to say to the matter.