“Best shave I’ve had in weeks,” Sir Elston said. “And he’ll work without wages.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—the man is a hoodlum,” Norah said. “He assaulted me!”
“Assaulted you?” Sir Elston raised his voice. “When?”
“He didn’t assault her,” Georgie said patiently. “He merely scared her and she tripped.”
“We can’t have the butler scaring us!” Liliane said. “What would our visitors think?”
“He wasn’t our butler when he scared her. She was being awful, and he merely?—”
“That’s right, make excuses for him,” Norah cut her off. “Can’t you see she’s half in love with him already? You know how Georgie gets these crushes—two years ago it was the French master.”
“That was just a crush, and I was a child. And besides, I am not in love with him,” she defended herself.
Her mother frowned. “In love with the butler? How absurd—nobody falls in love with a butler. I could understand it with a footman—a matched pair can be quite striking,” she went on. “But there’s something pathetic about falling in love with one’s butler. As if one couldn’t reach any higher.”
“I’m not in love with anyone,” Georgie blurted out. “He’s my protégé.”
There was a deafening silence in the room, as the three other members of her family looked anywhere but at each other. “You can’t have a protégé,” Sir Elston said finally. “It’s not done.”
“Why not? Mother has protégés.”
“Enough of that,” Liliane interfered, unruffled. “Where is this new butler of ours? I want to meet him.”
Sir Elston sighed. “He’s a good-looking chap. You’ll like him.”
“Then why keep him around?” Norah demanded.
“I’ve learned to pick my battles,” he said. “There are some things I can do nothing about, and that includes your mother’s little pets. If I can get a good shave out of the bargain, I’ll count it worthwhile.”
But Liliane Manning was ignoring him, a contemplative expression on her ageless face. “What’s the man’s name?”
“Rafferty,” Georgie supplied, feeling a combination of hope and despair. “And he’s my protégé, not yours.”
“Oh, I don’t like Rafferty. It sounds so...raffish. Couldn’t we come up with something a bit more English?”
“We can’t allow him to stay!” Norah protested, incensed.
“Oh, I tend to agree with your father. We badly need a butler, and it sounds as if he’s perfectly presentable. I think we should take him on.”
Georgie knew that expression on her mother’s face, and her heart sank. It was slightly predatory, if truth be told, and it would end with father shouting and her mother weeping and Rafferty out the door...
“We’ll be murdered in our beds!” Norah said.
“You wish!” Georgie shot back, albeit illogically. “He’s mine and I’m not sharing.”
Liliane shrugged. “It is nice to see you take an interest in something, dearest Georgie, and heaven knows I’ve never been terribly gifted at household management. I have too much of an artistic temperament to bother myself with these matters. If you’ve found a presentable butler, then so be it. And Norah, you should be glad there’s someone to answer the door when your Lord Felton calls.”
“I’ve decided against Lord Felton,” Norah announced. “He smells of the shop.”
“That’s why he has so much money, my dear,” Sir Elston said. “And you’ve become a little too exacting in your demands. I’ve had three offers for your hand and you’ve rejected them all. The next time some poor fool asks me, I’m going to say yes.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Norah seethed.
“Watch me.”
She flounced out of the room, much to Georgie’s relief, quickly followed by Liliane who was making cooing noises at her adored elder daughter. “Precious, your father didn’t mean it...”
