The elder woman sat rocking in her chair by the hearth, not a single dark hair out of place, not even the few greying ones. Her knitting needles worked rhythmically in time with her rocking. Click, click. Click, click.
"So did you stop by the jail and acquaint yourself with the Watchers as your father bid you before he left? You know that if there's any trouble, you go straight to them." Miss Charlotte raised a thin eyebrow, regarding the younger woman across from her.
"Of course. There was an Officer Carrver and Officer Cranford there. They seemed nice, but they looked at me odd because I didn't come to report some crime it seems." Ellany quirked her lips thoughtfully.
Miss Charlotte looked on affectionately. Already she could see how the young lass' new lifestyle at home invigorated her. She always knew some stability and routine would be good for her. Trampling about in a wagon to all sorts of foreign towns was no way to raise a young lady!
"...and so I've convinced Muirenn to let Barliman sell some of her tarts. It'll improve business for both of them. And I just know they'll sell quick once people start trying them." Ellany was in the middle of some story, her green eyes lively. "So you see, Barliman will have to order more from Muirenn and tell all his patrons where he gets them!" Ellany leaned back in her seat, looking at her housekeeper expectantly.
Miss Charlotte grinned. "Now isn't that a lovely idea! You must've picked up a thing or two from your father," she said, her knitting needles not missing a beat. The elderly housekeeper grumbled inwardly to herself. Well, she supposed the lass' time on the road hadn't been entirely for naught. She had clearly picked up her father's knack for business and saw more of the world than most girls her age. That kind of learning wasn't found in books and she figured it had to count for something.
"...Oh you should have seen them, Miss Charlotte! They were absolutely despicable the way they treated the woman!"
Miss Charlotte looked up from her thoughts to see Ellany's expression transformed into one of indignation. "Who, my dear?"
Ellany rubbed her lower lip in concentration. "Some men named Mister Hog and Mister Shemm." Her green eyes flashed. "They treated her like some servant they owned." She paused here. "No, worse."
The housekeeper clicked her tongue. "Tsk. There's all sorts of unseemly fellows. You stay clear of them. They're a bad influence, if not altogether dangerous." Suddenly, Miss Charlotte's mind filled with doubts, rising like the flames in the hearth. Was she right to let the young girl go about on her own in town? Sure, she had made some friends, but there were bound to be all sorts of wicked fellows, too...No, but Ellany had seen twenty summers after all. She couldn't very well go around leading her by the hand for the rest of her life...Oh, but she had been constantly under the safe vigilance of her parents those twenty years! What could she possibly know?
In the midst of her contrary opinions, Miss Charlotte's eyes caught Ellany's staring back at her. "Are you listening, Miss Charlotte?"
"Yes, yes, of course, dearie!" The responding pout of Ellany's lower lip revealed that she knew the truth of the matter as she sat resignedly back in her seat.
Miss Charlotte cleared her throat. "Ahem, well what kept you out so late yesterday evening?" she asked, diverting the conversation.
It was Ellany's turn to look flustered. A quick blush crept into her cheeks, a tell-tale sign of her embarrassment. Miss Charlotte's eyebrow was quick to arch upward towards her hairline as she regarded Ellany with assessing grey eyes. Under that fixed gaze, Ellany grew quiet and turned away towards the fire. "I w-went to the jail to tell the Watchers that Muirenn's book had been found. You know, so they wouldn't keep looking for it. But there was an injured man there...so I had to stay and help the healer." Pleased with the way her answer had formed itself, the tension left Ellany's shoulders and she nodded once matter-of-factly.
"Was the man unclothed?"
"W-what?" The heat flushed into her cheeks again as she snapped her attention back to Miss Charlotte. "N-no! Why would...?"
The dark-haired lady shrugged noncommittally. "I don't know. You seem mighty embarrassed about the whole ordeal."
Ellany blinked and then shook her head. "N-no! It wasn't anything...I'm not..." An exasperated sigh left her as she leaned back into her chair.
Miss Charlotte's mind turned itself over. To press the matter, or not press the matter. Oh, confound it, she didn't know much of anything about parenting! Sure, with little ones, you just press them this way and that until they let out the truth, but with a grown young woman? Wasn't Ellany entitled to keep matters to herself if she liked? ...But what if she was getting herself into trouble? Then wouldn't she, as Ellany's guardian while her father was away, feel terribly guilty about the consequences? Healing a man, eh? Now what could be so embarrassing about that? Miss Charlotte examined the matter, looking at it from all angles. Suppose it was her first time in a room with a man by herself? ...No, Ellany had said there was a healer there...Aha, perhaps the healer was a man, too? Or perhaps they had crude mouths and said something unseemly in front of delicate Miss Ellany? Or one of them was a wicked, dashing fellow that caught her eye? Oh, there was no helping the matter. The possibilities were endless if she didn't get more information.
Miss Charlotte cleared her throat again and began in an even, calm voice, "So who was there? Just the injured man and the healer?" Asked in this way, she hoped that Ellany would provide more details about the two suspects.
Ellany blushed again, pulling her legs onto the chair, retreating into herself. "Y-yes. A Mister Bill and the healer." She paused hesitantly. "A-and one of the Watchers," she finished, her voice lowering and the corner of her lip tilting upwards slightly.
Aha! There it was. Some Watcher fellow. A dastardly villain with ill intentions toward her Miss Ellany? Most likely using his charms on the innocent girl! Did he take her hand and kiss her knuckles perhaps? Whisper something unseemly in her ear? What else could cause that flush on Miss Ellany's cheeks?
The late Missis Cadien could never help the blushing in her cheeks either. One could always tell if she was embarrassed about something. Though, she was a serene woman, whose emotions were rarely as flustered as Ellany's. No, that particular attribute came from her father. Anyhow, perhaps as some sort of recompense for taking Missis Cadien from this earth so early in her life, nature had shaped Ellany in the likeness of her mother - the same golden waves, fair skin, and deep green eyes. In short, she was the jewel of Master Cadien's eye, and he would be extremely displeased to return to his home and hear that some ill-mannered, licentious man was pressing his attentions on sweet Miss Ellany.
And for the rest of the evening, Miss Charlotte's imagination ran wild with assumptions based on a single blush.
