Pippa bit into her lower lip and looked away, a gesture indicative of her knowledge to the contrary but she was polite enough not to point that out to the good doctor. There was no way it was anything but an inconvenience to him, that was for sure and certain. She gave a nod at his next words.

When in the kitchen, she operated on memory, it seemed, for she looked on with practically unseeing eyes... First, she lit the fire in the stove with an ease of familiarity, then she moved to ready things... kettle... fill said kettle... place on the stove. In the meantime, he would probably notice the way she had arranged things in the kitchen in a way that not only made sense, but clean to the point of obsession. The point was, she didn't even have to look to grab any of the ingredients involved in making the tea.

She started to hum softly, a pretty tune. While she had the stove lit, she decided not to waste it on just tea. That was set on the back burner while she made crumpets from memory, cleaning up as she went along.