"You may change your mind, sir. They might talk because I darkened the doorway." She took a bigger bite than was proper, but damn it, she was starving and she just hadn't realized it until the food was getting stuffed into her mouth. She chewed for a long time, her expression both perturbed and thoughtful. She stabbed into that poor potato once again. "I'm the former Pearl Carrington, you know. I've walked into a brothel, I eloped with my husband just about a month and a half ago, and my family is always splashed across the pages of the next scandal sheet." She lifted the fork, and the potato sort of half dangled there since it was cooked to tender and those tended to fall apart on one's fork. She began to gesture, not hard enough to flick missiles of the starchy root, but it did soon fall off the fork altogether without her notice. "I'm a hero to some, and a wretch to most."

She put the empty fork into her mouth, then froze, put the fork back down for a moment and folded her hands in her lap. She was a lady, damn it! "I am not sure what Hortencia Coggins wishes from a person like me. I'd make a terrible companion. I am the very scandal of all of Whitby right now."