“Miss Hosmer.” His voice had changed. “Are you going to look at me at some point during this conversation?”
“I’m reading,” she said.
“It is rather rude to be so engrossed in a book when you have company present,” he said, and his tone was offended.
Finally, she looked up.
He was standing beside the desk with his arms at his sides and he looked at her steadily. She looked back at him with the pleasant, unrevealing expression she had been using for three days.
“Thursday at eight,” she said. “Lord Fenwick, and the repairs that are happening. Is there anything else?”
“You’re angry,” he said.
“No, I would not assume that. I’m simply reading,” she said, “which is a beloved past time of mine, and you are cutting into it.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
“No,” she agreed. “But only one of them is happening.”
She looked back at her book, her eyes glazing over the text and registering nothing. She could feel him looking at her with the focused, assessing attention he brought to problems he had not yet solved, and she kept her eyes on the page and her face composed and let him look.
“What I said,” he began.
“Was perfectly clear,” she said. “I understood you perfectly, and there is nothing to revisit.”
“I may have been….”
“Your Grace.” She kept her voice even, pleasant, and entirely closed. “There is genuinely nothing to discuss. You told me what you thought. I heard you, and now we can move on.”
“I don’t think we have moved on,” he said. “I think you are sitting in that chair being extremely agreeable and that it is the least agreeable you have ever been.”
She almost smiled but suppressed it with considerable effort and turned a page.
“Thursday at eight,” she said. “I’ll be ready.”
Harper opened his mouth but before any words could come out, the library door burst open.
Joseph came through, pulling up short when he saw his father, and then looked at Temperance.
“Miss Hosmer,” he said, slightly out of breath, “Biscuit has found something in the garden. I think it might be a hedgehog. I thought you might want to,” he stopped as he looked between his father and then a look of realization appeared on his face, “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Temperance said, but at the same moment Harper said, “Yes.”
Joseph looked between the two of them, confused.
Temperance set her book down and looked at Joseph with a smile that was genuine, “I’m not in the mood for the garden today, I’m afraid.”
Joseph’s face showed he was absorbing a disappointment and trying not to show it, which he was not quite as good at as he believed. “Oh,” he said. “All right.”
“Another time,” she said. “I promise, and Thursday, Your Grace.”
She stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked out of the library.
The library was very quiet when Temperance walked away. Harper stood beside the desk, in the same position he had been in, and looked at the door. Then he looked at his son, who was looking at the door with a confused expression.
“Was she upset?” Joseph said.
“She was perfectly fine,” Harper said, dismissively. “It is not something that you need to think about.”
