“She is not interrupting anything.”
“Miss Hosmer.” His voice was even, to a terrifying degree. “I asked not to be interrupted.”
Temperance picked up her teacup and he held her gaze for a moment longer, apparently concluded that she was not going to say anything further, and continued.
“I arrived last night to a house I have not yet fully assessed, but what I have seen thus far suggests that the management of this estate has been irregular, at best, for some time.” He said, as if stating an established fact, “The accounts I have reviewed from my solicitors indicate that several matters of maintenance have been deferred. The staff appear to be operating without clear direction on a number of points. And the household arrangements, from what I have already observed, are not what one would call structured.”
“We are very comfortable,” Albina said mildly. Which was fair.Things had been running just fine without him.
“I am sure you are, comfort is not the issue. The issue is order and reputation. The fact that my name, which is now also the name attached to this estate has the chance to appear in thescandal sheets with a frequency that I find, to put it plainly, unacceptable.”
Albina sipped her tea but no one said anything for a while.
“Which scandal sheets specifically?” she asked, with genuine interest. “Because the Mayfair Whisper has been covering me for simply ages, but I had a very nice mention in the Gentlemen’s Circular last spring that I thought was rather fair…”
“All of them,” Harper said. “Seven times in the Mayfair Whisper alone in the last four months. The trousers, Lady Wilmington.”
“They were very fine trousers.”
“They were the subject of three separate published accounts.”
“Four,” Albina corrected, and then appeared to consider whether this had been wise.
Harper turned to Temperance.
“And you,” he said. “The papers refer to you as the spinster at her side. The pair of you, it seems, make quite the subject for public entertainment. This household, Miss Hosmer, has become something thetonwatches for amusement. That ends now.”
“I see,” she said. “And what, exactly, does ends now look like, in your estimation?”
“It looks like order,” he said. “A proper schedule. Lady Wilmington conducting herself with the discretion expected of a woman of her rank.” He moved on with the air of a man working through a list. “The animals will be housed appropriately. Outside, or in the stables.”
“And you,” Harper said, turning back to Temperance, “will marry.”
The word landed on the table between them like something dropped from a considerable height. Temperance heard her mother go very still across from her.
Then Albina let out a laugh and pressed her hand over her mouth. Temperance felt her own lips twitch, despite everything.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You will ensure my mother behaves, and that I will marry?”
“Yes.”
“Those are your intentions?”
“Those are the arrangements I intend to put in place, yes.”
Temperance looked at him for a long moment. Across the table, Albina had recovered herself and was now watching the exchange with great interest. Joseph, beside his father, had gone very still.
“My mother,” Temperance said, “is a grown woman. She is forty-six years old. She has survived thirty years of marriage to a man who….” She stopped as she had not intended to go there in front of a stranger and a child, and she pulled herself back. “She does not require anyone to ensure she behaves, instead she requires to be left in peace.”
“What she requires,” Harper said, “is guidance. The scandal sheets are not…”
“The scandal sheets,” Temperance said, “are written by people with nothing better to do than reduce a woman to two column inches. My mother wore trousers to a ball. She did not hurt anyone, nor did she did not do anything that warranted…”
“It is not about what she deserves,” he said, and there was something in his tone now that reminded her of a door closing. “It is about what is. The world is as it is, Miss Hosmer. And the practical consequence of Lady Wilmington’s behavior is that this family’s reputation suffers, and that affects this estate, and this title, and my name. Which I intend to protect.”
Temperance looked at him, annoyed.
He looked back at her, and she had the infuriating sense that he considered the matter settled, since he had explained hisposition clearly and reasonably and was now simply waiting for her to arrive at the same conclusion he had reached, as though it were only a matter of time.
