Temperance looked at all of this. Then she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, which read twenty-nine minutes past nine.
“You are late,” Harper said, without looking up from his letter.
Temperance pulled out her chair and sat down.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Breakfast is at nine o’clock.”
“Breakfast,” Temperance said, accepting the cup that the footman materialized to pour for her, “has historically been whenever one arrives at the table and is hungry. Good morning, Joseph.”
“Good morning, Miss Hosmer,” Joseph said, very correctly. He was watching her carefully.
“The historical arrangements of this household,” Harper said, finally setting down his letter and looking at her, “are precisely what I am here to address. Nine o’clock, every morning.”
“I will take that under consideration,” Temperance said pleasantly, though she was irked greatly that he was already ordering her around.
Who does he think he is?
A silence fell between them. He looked at her as she buttered her toast with complete composure.
“It was not a suggestion, Miss Hosmer.”
“No, I gathered it wasn’t.”
She could feel his gaze on the side of her face. But before he could answer, the door opened again.
Albina swept in.
She was wearing a house robe of deep rose silk and was carrying Soot.
“Good morning, good morning,” she announced to the room at large, depositing Soot on the empty chair beside Temperance and settling into her own seat.
Her gaze swept the table, registered Harper at its head, registered Joseph beside him and landed back on Temperance with an expression that communicated, in the span of half a second, several things at once.
“You must be the heir,” she said to Harper, reaching for the teapot.
“The Duke of Sedgewick,” Harper said. His gaze moved from her silk robe to Soot, “Yes.”
“Albina Hosmer,” her mother said. “Dowager Viscountess. Though I expect you know that already.”
Of course she did. Temperance had already briefed her about everything.
Albina poured herself a cup of tea and looked at him over the rim as though she found him genuinely fascinating regardless.
“I would like to speak to you both,” the duke said. “As I have a great deal to address, I would ask that you allow me to do so without interruption.”
“Already?” Albina muttered. “But we have barely made introductions. I should like to know what my husband found so special about you that he decided to leave his fortunes to you.”
“There will be plenty of time for that later,” the duke replied, “I believe that first it's important to lay down some rules.”
“Rules?” Albina said, scoffing.
“The animals,” he said, “will not be in the breakfast room.”
“Soot is not on the table, she is on the chair,” Temperance said quickly.
“She is on a chair at the breakfast table, which is not…”
