Something in Lucy snapped. “But what do you do when you have more than one chambermaid called Mary?” Thankfully, she’d found her tongue again.
“I do not understand your question, Miss Bell. What does it matter if there is one, or many?” Lady Louisa took a dainty sip from her porcelain cup.
“Do you call them Mary One, Mary Two and Mary Three?” Lucy found a perverse pleasure in challenging her. “Mary Three, bring me my pelisse. Mary Two, not the pink walking shoes but the green ones. Mary One, a cup of hot chocolate, if you please. Wait. Actually, I meant Mary Two, after she finishes with my wardrobe. Or was it Mary Three I meant?”
“Jolly good, heheheh.” Blackmore chortled.
Lady Louisa gave her a look of intense dislike. “I just call them all plain Mary. Or most of the time, nothing at all. What does it matter? I do not see where the issue lies. How shocking to be conversing with domestics to begin with.” She helped herself to a pink meringue, which she held daintily between two fingers. She’d eat it without dropping a single crumb.
“Yonder footman over there. Can you attach a name to him?” Lucy pointed at the footman who stood at attention by the door. She stared hard at the duke. “Your Grace?”
The duke looked at the footman perplexed, as if only now aware of his presence. “What is your name?”
“John, Your Grace,” he replied with a bow.
“Very sensible name,” Lady Louisa approved.
“Your realname,” Lucy insisted.
“Felix Xaver Zornmann, Your Grace.”
“There. You see?” Lady Louisa pulled a face. “It is entirely unpronounceable. Besides, you can’t possibly call a footman Felix Xaver.”
“‘Tis not the thing,” agreed Blackmore.
“Are you of German origin, Felix?” the Dowager Duchess asked.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Aha! Now we know two things about our first footman, Ashmore. His name is Felix, and his parents are from Prussia.” The dowager leaned back, satisfied.
“Really, Grandmamma. Why this unanticipated interest in the identity of our domestics?” Ashmore crossed his arms.
“Because it amuses me. Besides, we’re to show more attentiveness towards our fellow human beings. By tomorrow, Ashmore, you’re to rattle off the correct appellations of all our hundred or so domestics and assign the right faces to them. Including the stable boy. No exception.”
“Undoubtedly I have nothing better to do with my time.” A shadow of annoyance crossed his face. “Any other recommendation from that indomitable source of information as tohow I should run my house and estate?”
“Raise their salaries.” It popped out of Lucy’s mouth before she could help herself. She quickly took a big gulp of tea, emitting an unladylike slurp.
The dowager cackled.
Lady Louisa looked shocked.
Felix Xavier’s face brightened.
“Not at all the thing, not at all the thing,” quipped Blackmore.
The duke pressed his lips together in a disapproving, humourless line. Heaven help her. Only a day ago she’d kissed those lips!
He narrowed his eyes. “Pray what are you clutching in your hands, Miss Bell?” he asked.
“Er. Nothing.” She gave him a wide-eyed look.
“This nothing seems to emit crunching noises,” the duke observed.
That was because Lucy’s hands were sweaty and her crushing grip on the marbles caused them to shift about with a crunching noise. There again, a crunch.
He lifted an eyebrow.
