"Baron Craigh McTavish?" he groaned to the empty room. "That's the most invented name I've ever heard of!" It only grew worse as he thumbed ahead and groaned again. The writing was bald and artificial. Hair brushing or descending a set of stairs were overwrought melodramas. Patrick held the book away to put space between him and the flowery prose, and when the baron '…expressed his passion with hands devoted to her bosom', he snapped it shut and dropped it to the tabletop. Awful, utterly awful. No wonder Amelia was caught up in an imaginary adventure; mad ideas had been hammered into her by a heavy-handed author too ashamed to put her name on such a purple-tinged work. "By A Lady," he muttered, snorting, and pushed the book further from him. Amelia seemed plenty intelligent, but someone had to talk sense into her before she wound up with pneumonia from reading hilltop poetry in the rain.
The door scraped and creaked open by inches, and Amelia poked her head in. "Oh, you're awake!" She poured over the threshold like a dam breaking, arms cradling a disobedient mountain of brown wrapped parcels. "And you've been reading!" she exclaimed, smiling. Her shoulders jumped, he guessed in place of her usual hand clap, and she lost one of her twine-wrapped parcels. Her smile was beatific, and she was clearly pleased that he'd examined the book. He got up and retrieved her bundle, withholding his opinions on A Patient Heart.
"What's all this?" he asked as a distraction while she dumped her burden onto the table.
"Porridge." She made an awful face and tugged off her bonnet, while he stared at what was clearly not porridge. "Mrs. Gaveston has porridge for the evening meal, with so many of the villagers away." She fell into her chair on a whoosh and whisper of silk, and then slouched back looking limp. It occurred to Patrick that she had come as far as he on the last leg of their journey, and had yet to rest. He reached out a hand and claimed her bonnet and gloves so she didn't have to get up again.
"Grandfather was very fond of porridge, for his health and his stomach troubles, and because it was very hard for us to keep a proper staff. Mrs. Veers thought the chemical odors from his research were hazardous, and after Grandfather caught the lab on fire - it was the tiniest blaze, really - Mrs. Peters quit on the spot."
Amelia sighed and closed her eyes. "We ate it oftener than is good for anybody, and I've had enough porridge to hold me for a lifetime." She sat up with effort and swept a hand over her haul. "Anyhow, I walked out to the Lady Day market and there were plenty of delicious things to be had!" She poked at each packet in turn. "Sausages and mince pies; boiled eggs and boiled potatoes, and pasties." She clasped her hands and closed her eyes, and sighed. "Strawberry tarts."