Chapter Five #2
He managed a chuckle, realizing he had walked in riled and taken it out on her when she had done nothing to deserve it…yet. “Then what are you going to do?”
“With your permission, I would like to sit with Mrs. Albright and review the menu for tomorrow’s tea.” She let out a breath. “Your footman delivered Lady Frampton’s invitation this morning.”
“You sent him out in this miserable weather?”
She stared down into her tea. “Yes, but it wasn’t raining hard at the time and he was back here by the time it started pouring.
Still, I apologized profusely for sending him out in the rain.
I suppose that still does not make it right, but I did not want to give you the chance to countermand the invitation.
” She now looked up and met his gaze with one of defiance.
“I saw no reason to cancel it, and where’s the harm in ladies having a friendly chat over tea?
Let’s see how my afternoon with Lady Frampton goes before we worry about what to do next. ”
“We? I love how I am now dragged into your assignment.”
“You don’t have to be. You are the one who insists on inserting himself. And before you puff up like a…like a big, puffing bird… Oh, what is that look now? Why are you rolling your eyes?”
“A puffing bird? This from the chairwoman of Lower Bramble’s notorious ornithological society? You might have said like a grouse or robin, or a thrush. They puff up to keep warm or as a sign of aggression to ward off rivals.”
“Oh, good grief. I am trying to make a point here.”
He leaned forward so that their noses were almost touching. “So am I. If you are going to take on a disguise, you had better master it, or else you will be found out and shot.”
“Well, no one is going to shoot me except Frampton, and I’ll do my best to avoid that.”
“How? He’s already shot at you several times, and last night was meant to send you another message.
” He sank back in his chair. “Or do those shots he fired at you yesterday not count because you fell out of a tree and they flew over your head? Had he realized you had fallen and landed on me, he would have aimed lower and killed both of us.”
“Stop being angry with me. I liked you much better when you were kissing me.”
He glanced around, hoping no one on his staff was listening. But they happened to be alone in the dining room. No one but Timmons was anywhere near, and he was standing at his post by the front door, too far away to hear what they were saying.
Edgar and Alvin were the footmen who usually attended the dining room at mealtimes, but he saw no reason to require their presence when those two had been up all night guarding the house, and he and Florence were competent enough to pour their own tea or coffee from a pot.
He would attend to Hermia if she chose to join them, although he suspected she was like most ladies of a certain age who preferred their breakfast served in bed. Would she even bother to get out of bed at all today?
“Will you ever kiss me again?” Florence asked, her expression turning soft and dreamy.
“I don’t know,” he grumbled, never mind that he was absolutely going to do this, assuming one of them did not die of gunshot wounds first.
“Well, you have my permission if ever you decide to tolerate me again.”
Tolerate her?
He wanted to toss her onto his bed and ravish her, which only proved he was going mad and probably already delusional.
Well, he was hungry and she looked delicious.
Really luscious. She wasn’t even trying to look tempting, not with that serviceable gown of dark-green muslin that was buttoned to her throat.
And her hair. Dear heaven. She must have done it up herself, because the pins were not going to hold that lovely mass much longer.
The slightest breeze would have those silken curls spilling down her back.
“What would you like for breakfast?” He rose, grabbed her plate, and marched over to the salvers atop the buffet.
Her eyes widened and she cast him another endearing smile. “That is quite gentlemanly of you. Just some eggs and a slice of ham will do.”
“What else have you planned for today, besides preparing a menu that will take you all of three minutes to complete?” he asked while piling eggs onto her plate, and knowing he had to stop growling at her before she had even done anything to deserve it.
Well, she had gotten that invitation out to Lady Frampton.
He turned and scowled at her.
“Did I just call you a gentleman?” She sighed. “I take it back. You are being impossibly cantankerous again.”
He piled more eggs onto her plate.
“I tend to be a morning person,” she said, no doubt trying to engage in polite conversation, which might have worked were he not already worrying about what the day would bring. “I wake up cheerful and smiling. You will find me most pleasant company at the breakfast table.”
“I prefer to have my coffee in peace and quiet.”
“Well, that is not going to happen with me around, is it? Does your surliness also extend to a ban on any smiles before noon?”
He arched an eyebrow. “That is not a bad idea. I’ll add it to the house rules.”
She sighed again. “If you have no plans for us, seeing as going on a picnic or taking a hike is out of the question in this rainstorm, I could have Mrs. Albright show me around the house and introduce me to your staff. It would be expected, since I am currently betrothed to you.”
That was actually a good idea.
“Then you would be free to attend to Weymouth business matters while I am safely occupied elsewhere in the house.”
“What about your aunt?”
“She won’t rise for hours yet. We can plan an outing if the weather clears, or I could entertain you this afternoon with songs.”
“What?”
“I sing,” she said with a grin. “And I can also play the pianoforte. I know you have one in your house.”
“Oh, dear Lord. You aren’t one of those deluded fribbles who will break my eardrums as you screech out a high note, are you?”
She laughed heartily. “No, I can really sing. Although I will not rule out purposely screeching or singing flat if you irritate me. Gad, you are such a bear in the morning.”
“And you are as annoyingly chirpy as a chirping bird,” he said with a chuckle.
“A chirping bird? Seriously? This from the man who just admonished me for describing birds who puff up as puffing birds? Well, I can tell you what birds chirp in the morning.”
“Go ahead, enlighten me.”
“A robin or a wren. How’s that for two?”
He arched an eyebrow. “So you think this makes you an expert on birds?”
“I merely claimed to be chairwoman, never to actually know what I was talking about,” she said with another endearing smile that threatened to put him in good humor.
Florence could be surprisingly lovable when she put her mind to it.
He set her plate before her, then grabbed his and piled eggs, kippers, sausages, and whatever else was to be found under those salvers onto his plate.
Florence watched him as he sat and began to eat.
He glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing. I am enjoying sitting here with you. It feels nice, even though you are remarkably grumpy. But it is in an endearingly bearish way.”
“Are you going to stop talking and let me eat in peace?”
She nodded and mimicked buttoning her lip.
He smiled despite not wanting to be coaxed into good humor. It surprised him that she looked happy just seated beside him. In truth, it felt nice to be beside her, too.
As though they felt right together.
He would not mind looking at her pretty face each morning. Despite the gray weather, there was a lovely pink blush to her cheeks.
He did not even mind her chirpiness because she was not silly or dithering. Florence had a keen intelligence that he liked very much.
He was just about to agree to hearing her sing later when there was a commotion at the front door.
He quickly rose and was about to reach for the pistol in his boot when the strains of laughter reached his ears. “My cousins have arrived,” he said as the tension rushed out of him. “Care to meet them?”
He held out his hand to Florence, only afterward realizing how natural this intimate gesture felt to him. But it must have felt right to Florence as well, for she did not hesitate before entwining her fingers in his.
Well, they were into this betrothal ruse up to their eyeballs. Why not go along with it?
He kept Florence’s hand in his as they walked out to greet his cousins, who were soaked to the teeth, but at least their boots were not muddied, although wet leather was never comfortable.
He should have ordered them to enter through the kitchen, but their boots were merely wet and not filthy, so they were not going to track mud through the house.
Yes, he was getting to be an old curmudgeon, and he wasn’t even nearing forty yet.
But Gull Hall was a magnificent house that his granduncle had left in pristine condition. He hated to be the doltish duke who ruined it.
While Timmons efficiently had his footmen bring in the bags and tote them up to the rooms that had been readied, Trajan introduced Florence to his cousins, who were rudely staring at her.
“Lady Florence and I are recently betrothed. Her aunt is with us, too. But yesterday was a bit harrowing for them, and her aunt is still abed.”
“Betrothed!” the eldest, Andrew, exclaimed.
“I thought you would never…” He swallowed his next words, which were probably going to be a remark about his unrequited love for Eden and how, in a fit of idiocy induced by too much brandy, Trajan had once proclaimed he would never get over his love for her.
He felt rather foolish about it now. Especially since he had met Florence shortly after that drunken jag, and she had been the lady on his mind from then on.
That was last year, and he hadn’t thought about Eden all that much since. Which proved he had not truly been in love with her.