Chapter 1 #2
Genny snapped to attention. Her shoulders squared. Her fingers smoothed a wrinkle from her glove that did not exist. Her pulse, traitorous creature, had already begun to beat faster. Harrison Jones was approaching a disordered room, and disorder never fared well in his presence.
She knew him already, of course. He was Esme’s brother.
The formidable Viscount Woodmere. The man who had once, according to Esme, attempted to improve a flower arrangement by symmetry and had nearly driven an entire footman staff to despair.
Genny had met him often enough at dinners, musicales, and the occasional dreadful family gathering where he had stood near his mother with the air of a man privately revising the world.
He had always been handsome in that severe, maddening fashion of his. Until now, Genny had been sensible enough not to linger over the fact.
She smoothed the front of her gown, tucked a loosened curl behind one ear, and turned toward the door just as he entered.
Viscount Woodmere was tall, broad-shouldered, and impeccably put together.
His coat was dark blue, his linen snowy, his boots polished to a stern and unforgiving shine.
He wore order as other men wore linen: crisp, exacting, and without apology.
Yet for all that there was nothing delicate or ornamental about him.
He looked capable, controlled, and entirely too sure of his own competence, which was perhaps why so many people immediately deferred when he entered a room.
His face was striking rather than classically handsome, all clean lines and thoughtful restraint.
His mouth looked as though it had not smiled at folly in years, though Genny had once or twice suspected that he smiled more than people supposed, only privately, and never where fools might take encouragement.
His gray eyes swept the room once and took in everything: the disordered lists, the flower crates, Mrs. Wexley’s distress, and Genny standing amid it all with ink on one glove and a reputation for helpful interference arriving in advance of her.
Lord Penworth, pink of face and a little breathless from his entrance, spread his hands in apology. “A slight confusion, Jones. Nothing of consequence.”
Woodmere’s gaze rested briefly on the lemon-cake order lying atop the subscription papers.
“Indeed?” he said, his voice deep, even, and very dry.
The servants stiffened. Mrs. Wexley straightened. Even Lord Penworth seemed to stand a little taller.
Genny, perversely, wanted to provoke him.
Then his eyes found hers, sharpened with recognition, and something low in her stomach gave an absurd little leap. Annoyance, she told herself at once. It was merely annoyance, though annoyance had never before made her aware of every inch of her own skin.
“A temporary confusion,” she said brightly, with the courage of a woman who had already lost the right to a full explanation.
“Miss Moreland.”
Recognition lay in his voice, along with resignation and possible reproach.
Genny dipped into a curtsy that managed to be proper while conceding nothing. “My lord. How pleasant to know Esme’s warnings regarding your powers of reform were not exaggerated.”
Louisa coughed delicately into her hand.
Woodmere noticed. Of course he noticed.
“An assistant,” he said, his gaze shifting to the disordered papers.
“Yes,” Genny said. “Though I begin to suspect the role may prove underappreciated.”
“Undoubtedly,” he said.
There it was. That almost-smile again, so fleeting she might have imagined it.
The suspicion of amusement altered his face just enough to make her wish, quite irrationally, to see what he would look like if he ever laughed without restraint.
It was a foolish wish and therefore exactly the sort she ought not indulge.
“Mrs. Wexley,” he said, turning with efficient calm, “perhaps someone will be kind enough to explain why the florist has received the musicale order, the secretary’s clerk has gone in search of lemon cakes, and Lord Penworth’s account papers appear to have been annotated in two different hands.”
Mrs. Wexley looked toward Genny with such helpless accusation that Genny took pity on her and stepped forward.
“That would be my doing,” she said.
Louisa actually closed her eyes this time.
Woodmere regarded Genny in silence. The silence was distinctly organized.
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because I confess I do not entirely,” Genny admitted. “I began with the excellent intention of preventing Lady Dorring from going to war over strawberries, and from there events took on rather more momentum than one might have wished.”
Lord Penworth made an odd choking sound and turned it into a cough.
Niall, damn him, had the look of a man receiving an evening’s entertainment free of charge.
Woodmere said, “You altered the packets yourself?”
Genny folded her hands before her. “I did.”
“Without first confirming their recipients?”
“That is, in retrospect, a cruelly reasonable question, which makes it all the more objectionable.”
Something bright flashed in his eyes, not quite amusement, but the awareness of it. “Miss Moreland, in my experience, any system improves when one knows what it is meant to do before changing it.”
Genny felt the softest flare of temper. It was not that he was wrong.
It was that he was right in exactly the calm, tidy, exasperating manner she most wished to resist. Worse, a secret little part of her hated how swiftly his competence made her feel juvenile, colorful, and unnecessary, as though she were forever destined to be charming at the edges while other people handled what mattered.
“In my experience,” she said, “systems frequently require changing.”
Alexandra made a tiny sound that meant stop. Louisa’s expression said oh, dear. Niall looked delighted enough to be unbearable.
But Woodmere only studied her with that steady gray gaze that always made her feel he had noticed three things she had not intended to reveal.
“An interesting philosophy.”
“One that has merit.”
“One that, at present, has also led to Lord Penworth’s man of business attempting to purchase pastries on behalf of the committee.”
“That,” Genny said with dignity, “is not entirely my fault.”
“No?”
“No. It is partly the fault of everyone who left matters unattended long enough for me to improve them.”
This time there was no missing the twitch at the corner of his mouth. It altered his entire face for the briefest instant and did something wholly inconvenient to Genny’s composure.
He turned to the table. “The corrected list?”
She handed it over, and his fingers brushed hers.
The contact was no more than a brush through the thin fabric of her glove, yet she felt it sharply. Genny snatched her hand back much too quickly and immediately wished she had not. Woodmere glanced at her once, sharply, as if he had noticed that too.
Of course he had.
He read through the top page with terrifying speed. “Lady Dorring to the flower pavilion,” he said. “Mrs. Vale to the strawberry tables.”
Genny lifted her chin. “That part was clever.”
“That part,” he conceded, “was not without merit.”
The slight approval struck absurdly deep. Genny disliked that very much, and disliked even more that she knew why. When a person spent enough years being adored for sparkle and laughter, praise for competence struck deeper.
Woodmere continued reviewing the lists, issuing calm instructions as he went.
“Send a groom after Bellamy. Have the florists redirected to the east terrace. Inform Lady Penworth’s secretary that the musicale order has been amended.
And someone must retrieve the original subscription packet before Lord Penworth’s man of business begins itemizing sponge cakes under charitable expenditures. ”
The room sprang into movement. Servants scattered. Mrs. Wexley revived under the firm influence of competence. Lord Penworth looked ready to embrace Woodmere on the spot.
Genny ought to have been relieved. Instead she found herself annoyed.
He had been in the room only a few minutes and had done what he always seemed to do when matters became difficult.
He’d taken over beautifully and left everyone else feeling less competent by comparison.
It was unfair, since the room clearly needed rescuing, and true enough to sting.
Worse, she suspected he had not meant to make her feel childish.
He had merely done what came naturally, and the ease of it made her feel worse.
Woodmere turned back to her. “Miss Moreland.”
She lifted her brows. “My lord?”
“If I may offer a suggestion.”
“By all means. Men with orderly cravats are seldom capable of refraining, and yours looks positively sermonizing.”
Louisa made a strangled sound into her sleeve.