“I understand some dancing is to happen?” he said, his attention on Ivy.
She stepped forward and said, “It’s not mandatory, of course, but like we have done for other Christmas Eves, we’d like it if you’d join us here in the hall for some music and dancing after your dinner.”
“Which is nearly ready, my lady,” the cook said.
“Thank you, Clara. Once the food has been delivered to the dining room for his lordship’s meal, there’s no need to continue to wait on us,” Ivy said. “Help yourselves to an early dinner, and we’ll assemble here in the hall afterwards. By then it should be comfortably warm in here,” she added, rubbing her hands over her arms.
The servants sounded their agreements at hearing the plans for the evening, hurrying off to the kitchen when the countess made shoo’ing motions with her hands.
Robert chuckled as he watched them go, pulling Ivy into his arms once they were alone. “They adore you,” he murmured.
“They are happy to be working foryou,” she countered.
“I don’t know why. Besides Graves, I don’t think I’ve met any of them before.”
Ivy gave him a quelling glance. “A few of them are new since you were last here,” she agreed. “But most have been here for a decade or more, and they have come to call Ritchfield Park their home.”
He stared down at her a moment, as if he was contemplating kissing her again. Noise from the direction of the kitchen had him releasing his hold on her, and his brows furrowed. “Are we changing for dinner?” he asked, his gazefollowing the line of servants bringing platters of food and bottles of wine into the dining room.
“We are not,” she said.
“Good, because I’m starving. All this work on the greenery… I seem to have developed an appetite.”
The look he aimed in her direction suggested he was referring to a different sort of appetite, but Ivy pretended not to notice.
