Chapter 4 #2
A footman was leaning against the sideboard in full livery, his arms crossed over his chest. He was young and handsome, and Ivy knew that at least two of the maids were having affairs with him, unbeknownst to each other.
“That is saying something. Two weeks ago she slapped Earnest right across the face, she did.”
Eliza turned to him and paused, smoothing her apron and pasting a soft smile on her face. “I did not see you there, Thomas.”
“What did the dowager do?” another maid prompted.
Eliza’s misty expression dissolved. “She has been snapping orders at me and the other maids all day. I do not think she has taken a single breath in between demands. ’Twas almost better when she was in a fog. She is plotting something, the lady is. I know it by the look in her eye.”
Interesting, Ivy thought, but she kept her head down and pushed a slice of chicken across her plate with a fork, discreetly breathing in the mouthwatering scents of the roasted lamb and mint that were warming for the guests.
Perspiration gathered on her spine, and she did not know how the cook and her helpers were able to tolerate such heat all day, especially in the summer.
“Do you think she is scheming to marry the viscount?” the footman asked.
“She had best not be.” Eliza was about to say more when the head housekeeper swept in. At once the servants snapped straight and scurried off, including the footman.
Mrs. Akers’s sharp eyes scanned the kitchen and landed on Ivy. “Miss Bennett, I thought I might find you here.”
Ivy gulped and straightened in her chair. Even though she did not answer to Mrs. Akers, she found the woman intimidating, with her tightly knotted hair and no-nonsense mouth.
“Lord Brackley has requested that you join the family for supper tonight.”
Ivy’s lips parted. “Are you… are you certain? I do not think the dowager would want—”
“It is the lord’s house and his decision,” Mrs. Akers interrupted. “I suggest you hurry. The first course begins in half an hour.”
Half an hour was not nearly enough time!
Ivy yelped and raced to her chamber, sorting through her gowns in her mind.
She typically wore serviceable dresses for teaching, since she so often ended the day covered in chalk and any other matter of art material, but she had brought with her an entire trunk of much nicer gowns—mostly as a ploy to smuggle in her piles of breeches and fighting clothes.
Now she was grateful she had, even if most of them were last season’s designs.
She doubted anyone would notice, except perhaps for the viscountess.
It was a miracle Ivy was able to find a gown that did not need steaming. She dressed herself and did her hair in record time, cursing the viscount’s last-minute invitation as she pulled a rope of braided silver over her neck and tucked the enameled pendant into her gown.
She took a moment to study herself in the looking glass atop her chiffonier.
Not for the first time, she lamented her body type.
She was not tall and willowy, and she did not possess the delicate wrists and idle fingers of a high-born lady.
Her cheeks had seen too much sun, and she was healthy from regular exercise.
Her body shape was as unfashionable as the sunny yellow gown she was wearing, with the tiny red butterflies sewn onto the tulle overlay of the skirt.
She lifted her chin. Unfashionable, yes, but her body was capable of amazing things, and she must not forget that.
The gong rang, and Ivy made her way down the stairs, marveling at the number of repairs that were already being made to the house.
The banister had been stabilized and shined with a new coat of lacquer.
The peeling and stained wallpaper in the main rooms was slowly being stripped and replaced with fresh paint.
The chipped brick facades were being mended by masons, and the floors were being buffed and the rotted boards replaced.
For a man who had done nothing but growl about the role he had been handed, Lord Brackley was jumping into the task of restoring Brackley Estate with a commitment that surprised her.
Ivy slipped into the parlor, where the guests were already enjoying drinks.
Although slightly shabby in the daylight, in the evening the formal parlor held an air of old glamour.
Flames flickered in sconces and in candelabras, while a fire roared in a limestone fireplace.
The soft lighting gilded oil paintings and danced across the tiny rosebud pattern on the wall.
Lady Pithins was seated on a scalloped-back settee, a cup of tea in hand and her lips pursed so tightly she looked as if she wished to whistle.
She was a dignified woman with graying hair and a sour countenance that was only rivaled by her husband’s.
The Baron and Lady Pithins lived on a small estate across town, and were notoriously conservative.
Ivy had met them twice in passing and had disliked them immensely.
Lord Pithins was a snob, and his wife was nearly puritanical.
They would not take pleasure in dining with children, of that Ivy was certain.
The dowager countess sat across from Lady and Lord Pithins, a drink in her finely trembling hand.
She flinched as one of the girls shrieked and shoved her sister, all while Ophelia played the piano, her off-key notes adding to the chaos.
The girls were dressed and curled and buffed to within an inch of their lives, but they had not been taught how to behave in formal company, something Ivy realized she would have to remedy immediately if the viscount intended to keep his word about having them for weekly suppers.
“You came.”
Ivy startled at the sound of Lord Brackley’s voice behind her shoulder.
She had not heard him arrive, which meant he was either light of foot, or she was losing her touch.
After a childhood suffering under the pranks of six older brothers, Ivy had long ago learned to keep an unconscious ear out for sounds behind her.
Ivy spun to face him, and not for the first time was reminded of the nearly foot of height difference between them.
His curly brown hair was tousled as if he had just come in from a ride, his green eyes piercing beneath thick brows.
His nose was unbroken—a marvel considering his line of work—and his mouth was surprisingly soft and sensuous.
It appeared he had finally allowed his valet to shave him, revealing a strong jaw and a wide throat that was not fully concealed by his cravat.
He smelled of the shaving cream, something spicy and warm.
Ivy continued her discreet perusal, taking in the expensive coat that stretched over his broad shoulders, the intaglio pin he had slipped through a buttonhole, and the trousers that hugged muscled thighs.
Her gaze snagged on his lax hand, the blunt and calloused fingers slightly curled into his palm.
Could this man, with his work-roughened hands and love of his sisters, truly have something to do with the hysterics in London? Why had he been visiting the women who had gone mad? Had they been his lovers? Or had he been there for business dealings with their fathers?
Ivy did not know how she was to discover the answers to those questions, but the Dove had asked her to spend as much time with the viscount as possible and to collect as much information as she could, so she said, “You summoned. I came.”
He inhaled slightly, but sharply enough that she noticed.
“Is that your family crest?” she asked, nodding to his pin.
Owen tore his widened pupils from her face and flattened his hand against the pin. “No. Well, in a manner of speaking. It was my mother’s.”
Before she could think of further prying questions, he said in a low voice that pulled shivers from her skin, “I am hoping you will be able to ameliorate some of the dowager’s sharpness with my sisters over supper.
” He glanced at the gaggle of girls and the drawn face of Lady Pithins. “And perhaps do some shepherding.”
Ivy had assumed that was why she had been summoned, and she nodded without speaking.
Owen’s deep voice had cast her back to the scene in the corridor earlier that day.
The way he had asked her if she knew how to take orders had made her feel shivery and strange in a way she could not quite understand.
Ivy was adept at thwarting orders—with six interfering brothers, a meek mother, and a father who wanted to marry her off to the nastiest man he could find, Ivy had perfected the art of getting what she wanted under all manner of circumstances.
And yet when he had asked her if she knew how to take orders, she had felt the strangest, most incomprehensible desire to do just that—for him.
“I shall do my best,” she said. “See, I can take orders.”
Some emotion she could not name flickered in his gaze. “I suspect, Miss Bennett, you only take orders that please you.”
She grinned, because he was absolutely right.
A sharp voice cut into their quiet and intimate conversation. “What is she doing here?”