Simply Unforgettable Read Online Free PDF

they was gone. I don’t know about no double wages, but I do know about missus’s tongue. You can’t stay here the night and that’s flat.”
    â€œYour name?” Mr. Marshall asked.
    â€œWally.”
    â€œWally,
sir,
” Mr. Marshall said.
    â€œWally,
sir,
” the man repeated sullenly. “You can’t stay here, sir. The rooms ain’t ready and there ain’t no fires and there ain’t no cook here to cook no victuals.”
    All that was painfully apparent to Frances, who was about as deeply sunk into misery as it was possible to be. Her only consolation—the
only
one—was that she was at least alive and had solid ground beneath her feet.
    â€œI see that a fire is ready laid in the hearth here,” Mr. Marshall said. “You may light it while I go outside to bring in the rest of the baggage. Though first you will provide the lady with a shawl or blanket so that she may remain moderately warm until the fire catches. And then you will see about getting two rooms ready. As for food—”
    â€œI will step into the kitchen myself to reconnoiter,” Frances said. “I do not need to be treated like a delicate burden. I am no such thing. When you have finished lighting the fire in here, Wally, you may come and help me find what I will need to produce some sort of meal that will satisfy five people, yourself included.”
    Mr. Marshall looked at her with both eyebrows raised.
    â€œYou can cook?” he asked.
    â€œI do need food and utensils and a stove if I am to succeed,” she told him. “But I have been known to boil a kettle without causing the water to turn lumpy.”
    For the merest moment she thought that the gleam in his eyes might be amusement.
    â€œThat was
beef pie
in case you did not hear it the first time,” he said, “with plenty of onions and gravy—without lumps.”
    â€œYou may have to settle for a poached egg,” she said, “
if
there are any eggs.”
    â€œAt the moment,” he said, “that sounds like a worthy substitute.”
    â€œThere are eggs,” Wally said, his voice still sullen as he knelt to his task of lighting the fire in the taproom hearth. “They are supposed to be for me, but I don’t know what to do with them.”
    â€œOne would hope, then,” Mr. Marshall said, “that Miss Allard does know and is not merely indulging in idle boasting when she promises poached eggs.”
    Frances did not bother to reply. She pushed open the door that she guessed led to the kitchen while he went back out into the snow to help his coachman unload the carriage.
    The building was chilly and cheerless. The windows were small and let in very little light even though there was so much whiteness outside. Her feet inside her boots were wet and cold. The inn was not dirty, but neither was it sparkling clean. She dared not take off either her cloak or her bonnet lest she freeze. There was no one to see to her needs except for one slovenly, lazy serving man. There was no one to prepare a hot meal—or even a cold one for that matter. And she was alone here with one bad-tempered, ill-mannered gentleman and three crotchety menservants.
    The situation was decidedly grim.
    She was expected back at the school today. The girls would be returning for the new term the day after tomorrow. There was much work to do before then if she was to have her classes all ready for the following morning—she had deliberately not worked over Christmas. There was a pile of French essays by the senior class waiting to be marked and an even larger pile of stories—in English—from the junior girls.
    This whole turn of events with its resulting delay was more than grim. It was a total disaster.
    But as Frances first looked about the kitchen and then explored tentatively and then more boldly in drawers and cupboards and pantry, and finally went in search of Wally and ordered him into