He stood before either could answer him, dropping his notes on the chair where he’d been sitting, and left so quickly that Elias had to wonder if he’d somehow chased the man out.
He looked back to Hattie, wondering if she felt the same, but she’d already splayed the damp compress back over her face and was smiling softly to herself, her fingers laced over her chest.
“Three,” she muttered happily, under her breath.
Chapter Eight
It took Mr.Harcourt an unseemly long time to pour a few cups of coffee. Hattie began to wonder if perhaps he’d gotten waylaid.
She lay there, hiding under her compress, even though her head had stopped throbbing some time ago, because it was sufficient shelter from the gaze of Elias Selwyn.
The Russian prince who’d gifted her this dressing gown had told her he’d chosen it for her because she reminded him of a tigress, but Hattie couldn’t have felt less fearsome in that moment if she’d tried. If anything, the marigold and obsidian stripes likely made her look more like a crushed bumblebee than a prowling predator.
“Is there no cook already?” Elias asked suddenly, startling her. “Where did all that food in the dining room come from if there isn’t one?”
“What?” she said, grappling for the compress and pulling it down over one eye to peep at him. “What are you asking?”
“You said we needed to hire a cook,” he reminded her, watching her with a faintly bemused air and something that might have been a smile. Was he laughing at her dishevelment? “If we don’t have one, who prepared breakfast?”
“Oh,” she said, releasing a little sigh of relief at the fact that she knew the answer to his question. “Mr. Harcourt hired someone temporarily from town, but I believe that person made it clear that she is not available on a permanent basis.”
“I see,” he replied, leaning onto his elbow and rubbing his fingers over his mouth, like he was attempting not to laugh at her. “Harriet, are you still drunk?”
She considered it, frowning. “Yes, I might be. A little. You see, I have been drinking a distilled alcohol made of fermented potatoes for the last year or so back in Russia and I thought, well, I assumed, that a spot of ale would be nothing at all in comparison. But I think perhaps I misjudged the quantity, or perhaps I misjudged the amount one is able to imbibe of a drink that does not burn on the way down.”
“Alas,” he replied, his lips twitching. “A tragic mistake.”
“Go ahead and laugh, Elias,” she said sourly. “I know that you want to.”
And so he did, though at least it was understated.
She glared, anyway.
“I am sorry,” he said, holding his hands up in apology. “I have simply never seen you compromised in such a way before. You are usually so… so…”
“Dignified?” she suggested.
“Rigid,” he decided, tittering again. “I don’t mind it.”
“Elias,” she said again, sinking back onto the chaise and dropping the compress onto her scalp rather than her eyes. “I have always liked your name. Do you know why?”
“Because it has three syllables?” he guessed, those bright-blue eyes watching her attempt to find a comfortable position. “And three pleases you so very much?”
“Oh, it does, doesn’t it?” she exclaimed, blinking. “But no. No, it is because of its shape. It is serpentine, isn’t it? Smooth and equally bent on all sides.”
“I don’t know what that means, Harriet,” he said, still sounding rather amused. “It isn’t because I am minty and candied due to my syllables? ‘Chimes,’ you said?”
“You? No, never,” she said, wrinkling her brow. “You are nothing like three. No, it is the shape of the thing. Syllables are important too, of course, and the more you have, I suppose the more detailed the feeling of a word. Do you know which country has the most marvelous multi-syllabic names?”
“Russia?” he guessed, resigning himself to lean on his hand.
“Oh, Russia is a very good guess,” she said, smiling to herself. “Did you know I’ve just come from Russia? I met a Prince Kontarovsky while I was there. He gave me this dressing gown. Kontarovsky. Isn’t that lovely? It sounds like a bouncing ball.”
“Does it?”
“It is the Greeks, however,” she continued. “The Greeks have the most delicious names. Fiorentinos, like sap dripping in a spiral down a tree. Papadopoulos, like a child blowing bubbles from under a bath full of warm water. Konstantinidis, like a handful of marbles falling down a tall, wooden staircase. So much color and texture and flavor. I love it.”
“I can see that you do,” he answered, though his expression had changed. He almost looked displeased now. “A prince gave you negligee?”
