Dot took another deep sustaining breath and exhaled.
“Mr. Pike cursed near the front door.”
Angelique and Delilah carefully refrained from meeting each other’s eyes.
“I see,” Angelique said gravely.
“It was the word that begins with a ‘b’ and ends with an ‘ucks,’” Dot expounded.
So... bollocks.
“Right beneath ourchandelier,” she pressed on, when they said nothing. She made it sound as though he’d urinated upon the holy sepulcher. The chandelier was, in fact, practically sacred as far as Dot was concerned. Below it, the words “The Grand Palace on the Thames” had first been uttered. Dot had been included in that magical moment and she never forgot it.
With great patience, Delilah suggested, “Did you perhaps step on Pike’s foot again, Dot?”
Dot hesitated. “His foot was the only part of him that arrived at the door before I did. I didn’t see it there when I arrived.”
She gazed innocently at them, which was no challenge for her as she’d come into the world equipped with eyes like dinner plates. She was blossoming in interesting ways since they’d all moved into The Grand Palace on the Thames. While they rather liked her emerging initiative and competitive streak, it was becoming clear they might need to guide and prune it the way one might coax roses over a trellis, before it ran amuck and sprouted into full-blown guile.
“He almost stepped on mine just the other day,” she defended, correctly interpreting their expressions again. “And he’s a good deal... taller.” The word “taller” drifted a little wistfully when she said it.
Pike was indeed tall. And fit. And probably anybody’s definition of handsome.
If only he wasn’t her nemesis, was the implication.
After the long and fruitless and frustrating search for a footman, Mr. Pike had been their reward at the end of a thrilling, harrowing episode at The Grand Palace on the Thames involving an earl’s runaway fiancée and a spymaster. And all the maids had been beside themselves with glee. Until Dot realized he would be competition.
“Dot, even fine, upstanding men might curse if trod upon in just the wrong place,” Delilah informed her.
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” Dot absorbed this information for a moment. “What is just the wrong place?”
“No. We’re not going to give you advice onhow to torment Mr. Pike,” Angelique said firmly. “You are the senior employee, he is new, and as such we should like you to arrive at a compromise with Mr. Pike whereby the door is answered promptly and politely and no one comes away from it limping.”
“Am I inchargeof Mr. Pike?” she breathed. Her face had gone radiant with possibility.
“No. But you are by way of a mentor. Someone who is kind enough to share their experience with a new person on staff.” Angelique, the former governess, was always a little stricter than Delilah, who never objected, as the two of their methods combined had proven to be effective.
“I see,” Dot replied, only a little deflated.
“Perhaps he’s still sore from the last time you trod upon him,” Delilah added. “Youmight even curse under such circumstances.”
“I wouldnever,” Dot vowed, after the fashion of a martyr.
“Good to know, Dot,” Delilah humored. “Thank you for telling us about Mr. Pike. Will you go and make tea for our potential new guests now, please?”
Dot bolted down the stairs again.
And when Dot vanished up the stairs, Daphne and his Lordship at last turned to look at each other in the light of the chandelier.
Whenever a surge of emotion tempted Daphne to avert her eyes from something, some stubborn, pilgrim quality of character compelled her to confront it with a steady gaze instead. She wantedto be brave. Permanently brave. She thought perhaps the more she worked at it, the braver she would become. It seemed the best way to ensure she was never frightened or hurt again.
“When you look at me like that, I feel like you can see into every crevice of my mind,” Henry had once told her with a little laugh.
She’d been warmed clear through. She’d thought he’d found it charming.
So even as she felt her every muscle contract against this man’s sheer sensory impact, she didn’t look away from him.
And he was fearsome.
