“Duty roster for the week. What each of us is responsible for.” He thrust the timetable he’d been working on all morning at her. With a scowl, she took it.
“Wash the laundry, polish the banisters, buy groceries, cook dinner. You forget, Mr. Asterly, that I’ve been in this house for two days now, and I can tell you, that banister has not been polished in recent memory. Don’t try to tell me that this roster of yours is common practice.”
Damn.He scrambled for an excuse. “You don’t feel that polished banisters are appropriate for a household led by a woman of your station?”
She climbed out of bed, pulling on an old robe of his that Mrs. Greenhill must have dug out from somewhere. The sight of her in his clothes did uncomfortable things to him.
She turned her pert little nose up, arms akimbo. “Of course they are. It would be an embarrassment to receive guests in that foyer.”
He gave her a wolfish smile. “Well, with an extra person added to the schedule, we can meet your lofty expectations.”
Benedict had more experience with steam and pressure than most people, and if Amelia were an engine, she’d be ready to explode. “What do we hire a maidanda housekeeper for, if not to polish the banister?”
He shrugged. “Mrs. Greenhill doesn’t clean. She’s too old.”
“She’s too old toclean?”
“Indeed. She is almost sixty.” It was an effort to keep a straight face. Her outraged expression was the first moment of joy he’d had since that blasted night he’d found her. Petty, perhaps, but Lady Amelia managed to bring out the worst in him.
“This is ridiculous. I am a married lady in charge of a household. I delegate. I do notdo. That’s what the lady of the house is for.”
At some point in the early hours of the morning while he’d been lying in bed thinking about her, he’d anticipated her response.
He took a step closer to her. “A married lady of the house does a whole host of other things.” He grazed her arm with the back of his hand, flinching as desire coursed through him. His cock throbbed as she shivered—a confounding sign that whatever this damnable feeling was, he wasn’t alone in it. He barely managed to perform his next line. “If you want to fill a traditional role, just give me the word. Otherwise, the roster is here.”
It was a bluff—but she didn’t know that. Her eyes widened in outrage. At him? Or how she felt? He let go of her, and she immediately stepped back.
“You are a cur.”
He winked, hopefully convincingly, and retrieved the package he’d left on her desk, handing it to her. “I found this book in the library.” That was a complete fabrication. He’d gone into town first thing to purchase a copy of Mrs. Baker’sCookery and Cleaning Guide for the Modern Household. “Enjoy your day being useful, my lady.”
As he turned and walked toward the door that separated their bedrooms, the book sailed past his ear, crashing into the wall.
“Would you like help?” Cassandra sat on the edge of the long bench that ran through the middle of the kitchen, swinging her legs and holding out a stain-covered cap.
Amelia shook her head. The ill-fitting, coarsely spun work dress Benedict had given her was bad enough; she wouldn’t stuff her curls into a filthy headpiece.
“I don’t need help, thank you very much.” Benedict had accused her of being useless, and goodness, it made her blood boil. “Good-for-nothing. Pointless. Of no worth other than the marriage I arranged.” Her father had thrown those insults at her time and time again. To have them echoed here, of all places, was intolerable.
So she would show him. She would prove him wrong. She would make the best blasted pie he had ever tasted, and he would realize that Lady Amelia Crofton—now Asterly—was the furthest thing from useless.
She stared at the pots hanging from the wall and wondered exactly what was meant by “medium to large.”
“Have you ever cooked a pie before?” Cassandra asked.
“No, but there are instructions. I can follow instructions.”
“It’s called a recipe.”
“I can follow a recipe.” With two hands, she lifted the cast-iron pot off its hook. The crash was loud as it fell to the benchtop. The darned thing was heavier than it looked.
She hefted it onto the stove top.Now what?
“You’ll need to add more wood to the stove,” Cassandra said.
Right. If it wasn’t bad enough that she had no idea what she was doing, there was a witness to her incompetence. Not that a lack of cooking skills was frowned on in her circles. But if she could avoid looking like a fool, she tended to take that option.
“Of course. I’m just checking to make sure the pot fits first.” The instructions didn’t include how to add wood to a stove. She surveyed the room, hands on her hips.
