“My necklace was stolen!” Norah said stubbornly, the trace of her usual pout back on her face.
“Your mother’s necklace!” Sir Elston reminded her in a biting tone.
“Well, if that’s all it is, then who cares?” Lady Manning said with a titter of laughter. “It’s an ugly old thing—I never wear it.”
Her husband rounded on her. “The diamonds just happened to be the most valuable things in this household,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “And if they’re lost, then we’re lost.”
“Don’t be absurd, Elston.” His wife dismissed his statement with an airy wave of her beringed hand. “We’re hardly wanting for the elegancies of life. Now apologize to Rafferty and we’ll go back upstairs and finish our dinner. I can’t imagine why you insisted on dragging us all away on such a ridiculous pretext. Rafferty has done nothing but take very good care of us—he’d hardly want to steal from us, now would you, Rafferty?”
“No, ma’am,” he said politely.
“I’m not apologizing to some damned butler!” Sir Elston grumbled. “Not even Rafferty.” He stomped from the room.
“I think you’re horrid!” Georgie whispered to her sister.
“You’re a stupid baby!” Norah hissed back. And then she met Rafferty’s bland eyes, and there was a real threat in their magnificent depths.
He was so tempted to reply with a smug smile, but he wasn’t about to give in to temptation. He’d perfected his butler’s expression, and he kept it in place as he ushered them out of his wrecked rooms, back to the dinner table. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Fifteen
Rafferty had had better nights. The Mannings were cantankerous as they finished their interrupted meal—Georgie kept casting dagger eyes at the beauty, who remained supremely confident despite the look of worry in her fine eyes. Sir Elston grumbled and grouched and made the occasional dark, enigmatic statement, while his wife fluttered and tried to engage everyone in civil conversation. It was an abject failure.
Neddy drank. When it came time for the ladies to depart, his head was down on the table, and Sir Elston faced his family with disgust on his florid face.
“Bring the brandy into my library, Rafferty,” he ordered, pushing back from the table. “I’ve had enough time with this lot.”
Georgie’s head jerked up, hurt in her eyes, and he wanted to rap Sir Elston over the head. Of all the irksome Mannings, Georgie was an innocent, and she didn’t need to be tarred with the same brush as the rest of her family.
“I’m going up to bed!” Norah announced in a strident tone, glaring at Rafferty.
“Good idea,” her father said.
“I’m going up too,” Georgie announced, but he controlled himself and didn’t look her way. It would just lead to trouble.
“Goodness, what’s wrong with all of you?” Lady Manning demanded. “Rollo is giving a poetry reading tonight at the Pettigrews—we should all go.”
“I’ve heard your protégé’s poetry before,” Norah said nastily. “I can happily skip this time.”
“And don’t bring him back to the house,” Manning thundered on the way out the door, “or I’ll have Rafferty throw him out.”
Lady Manning burst into noisy tears, but her husband had already left, and no one else seemed interested in her plight. Neddy moaned and shifted his head on the snowy white damask, and Rafferty sincerely hoped he wouldn’t spew all over it. It was going to be another night of putting him to bed once he got the rest of them sorted out.
But they sorted themselves well enough, the women, including Lady Manning, departing to their various rooms in a huff, while Neddy snored on, oblivious to the family drama.
It was late when he finished in the kitchen. There was no way he was leaving Bertha with such a huge amount to clean up, and the new scullery maid could only do so much. He didn’t mind the work—in fact, there was something almost soothing about seeing to the running of this house, carrying the firewood and the hot water and such, but it couldn’t go on for long. Stiles’s reappearance had changed everything. If he didn’t find Belding’s cache soon, then Billy was going to take a hand, and God knew what brutality the man was capable of. He’d promised Stiles he’d find it, but it was taking far too long, and Rafferty was beginning to think the money didn’t exist. At least, not in this house.
He headed back out to the now-stripped dining room. He’d managed to remove the tablecloth from beneath Neddy’s head, all without waking him, and he still lay there, snoring softly, drunk as an owl. To his surprise, Martina was there, leaning over the young man.
“He’s a mess,” she said, looking up at him.
“Indeed.” He sighed. “After I get him in bed, I’m done for the day.”
“You’re done for the day now,” Martina said firmly. “I heard about the raid on your room. You didn’t take her bloody diamonds, did you?”
“Do you have to ask?” he said, affronted.
“Well, you are a thief,” she said apologetically. “It wouldn’t be that unusual.”
