“Yes, indeed. Now here is another horror too terrible to behold: a young lady, half undressed in nightclothes, no shoes, hair sticking out wildly in all directions, roaming about the corridor. Not at night, no. But in stark daylight, accosting innocent people with her presence. It is truly a terrifying sight.”
“…truly a terrifying sight,” she repeated as she scribbled. Then she paused, frowned, and tilted her head sideways. “You mean me.”
“Of course I mean you,” he growled. “Now kindly,kindlyhave the decency to dress yourself and appear halfway civilised before terrorising people in corridors. Some of us were raised with a modicum of propriety.” He stepped around her and tugged on his neckcloth. “You are a menace to the entire household.”
A puce-coloured flush crept into her cheeks. Her eyes flashed. “I apologise if you find my appearance offensive, but then one could not imagine you’d ever do otherwise, prepossessing prig that you are.”
“I am not a prepossessing prig?—”
She wagged her pencil in front of his nose. “Oh yes you are, and what is worse, you have no sense of humour at all. Not a single drop.” She paused, then added in a barely audible murmur, “even if you have fey eyes.”
He may have misheard the latter part. But what she’d said about him lacking humour, that stung. Of course he had a sense of humour; George would have attested to it. But when it concerned that woman, his wit seemed to abandon him entirely.
And what was worse, he was having a full-fledged row with her in the middle of the corridor, with the curious servants poking their heads out to see what the matter was.
Rawlinson lifted his head to study the woodwork on the ceiling as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
A footman stepped up to them timidly.
“I apologise for interrupting, sir, but your grandmother would like to speak to you.”
“Very well.” He gave her a curt nod and strode past her and the gaping domestics.
The best thing to do,he decided, was to avoid her company.
Except that was not so easy. For a while it worked that whenever she entered a room, he left it. He also avoided her at breakfast. It was unfortunate that they both had the habit of rising early. When he reached out for the door of the breakfast room one morning, and he heard her blithe voice chattering away with Rawlinson, he dropped his hand, pivoted on his heel and marched out through the entrance and straight to the stables, telling himself he’d prefer to ride before breakfast.
To clear his head. Besides, exercising before breakfast was healthy. Or so they said. It was cold and windy, and he did not enjoy the ride, particularly as his stomach growled. When he finally appeared in the breakfast room, tired, peevish, and put out, she had already left. Thankfully.
Then there were other days when there was simply no escaping her. When the weather outside was so bad that leaving the house was not possible.
One afternoon, she wandered into the drawing room with one pencil behind her ear, a second in one hand and a notebook in the other, muttering to herself, and plopped down next to him on the sofa before he could get up and leave.
He was trapped.
Only a minute later she got up again, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, she brushed past him, settled on the floor, right next to him, crossed her legs, propped her elbows on the low table before the sofa and continued scribbling.
Thoroughly put out, he barely lifted his head to nod at her curtly.
If he moved his legs, he would brush against her.
She continued scribbling.
He continued reading.
Except an hour passed, maybe two, and he was still on the same page. He’d been staring at his book for hours on end,discovering in the end that he had not read as much as a single sentence.
It was growing entirely too hot in the room, and he cursed Hawkins inwardly for having tied his neckcloth too tightly.
She, too, gradually seemed to lose her concentration as her scribbling slowed down, the pauses became more frequent, and she cast increasingly furtive looks in his direction.
He pretended not to notice and kept his nose buried in his book.
She cleared her throat.
He turned a page.
She cleared her throat again, this time louder.
