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He could’ve added that it was also Wofford’s duty to keep unwanted intruders out, but at that moment, his gaze caught Rayne’s, and he couldn’t bring himself to utter the harsh words. She’d been an unwanted intruder, and that had turned out very well indeed.
“It is indeed, sir.” Giving the duchess an indignant look, Wofford flicked his rumpled coattails to ensure they fell neatly into place. “Perhaps, if I may be so bold as to suggest, Your Grace, you might inform Her Grace that my name is not Pinheaded Penguin.”
Rayne gasped, clasping her free hand to her mouth. Her coppery brown eyes twinkled merrily, the little flecks of gold flashing, and a musical giggle escaped her.
At the feminine tinkle, Fletcher grinned. He’d never heard her giggle before, and he could no more keep the broad grin from wreathing his face than poor Wofford could’ve kept the duchess from barging in like an angry tempest.
“Wofford, I trust ye werena injured as a result of the mishap?” Fletcher said.
“Wofford?” Mother wrinkled her nose. “What an odd name.”
Out of all of their discourse, she chose to focus on the footman’s name?
“Only my pride, sir,” he pronounced in a dry monotone, sliding Fletcher’s mother another acrid glance. “As there were three gentlemen, two ladies, a nurse pushing a pram, a governess with her four charges, five carriages, and an equal number of horsemen nearby when I landed on my…posterior.”
His ears turned an impressive shade of scarlet.
Only a superbly observant servant would’ve noted such details while regaining his dignity and his feet. Wofford would make a splendid butler.
Rayne giggled again, and to Fletcher’s utter astonishment, Wofford winked at her. The most uptight, stodgy excuse for a manservant he’d ever encountered—and as a duke, he’d met a good deal of them—actually winked at Rayne.
It came as no surprise that the minx had won Wofford over at their first meeting. She’d done the same to him.
“Refreshments, Your Grace?” Wofford asked, never once looking in the maid’s direction. “Might I take the young lady to the kitchens as well?”
“Aye, both would be appreciated.”
The perplexed maid looked to Rayne, and at her nod of approval, meekly followed Wofford from the salon.
“Mother, do have a seat on the settee,” Fletcher encouraged.
“Not until you tell me why this young woman is here.” Turning her nose up, she thumped her lacy black parasol upon the faded carpet. She scraped a scathing, entirely disapproving glance over Rayne.
The picture of tranquility and decorum, Rayne regarded her impassively.
Fletcher wanted to applaud her for her equanimity. Many a man and woman from the lowest commoner to the most powerful peer had wilted under his mother’s fierce glare and condescending attitude. Yet Rayne stood there regal and serene. Queenly, even.
“No, Kincade, she won’t do. Not at all. She has freckles on her nose,” she whispered sotto voce.
Rayne remained remarkably unruffled at his mother’s horrid behavior.
“Oh, and on my cheeks, chest, and elsewhere, Your Grace,” Rayne said, a naughty gleam in her flashing bronze eyes.
“I ken she does, and I find them most captivatin’.” He glanced down at Rayne, giving her a warm, reassuring smile. She was an absolute marvel. He was particularly interested in the ginger marks on her chest and elsewhere.
She must’ve guessed his train of thought, for pink tinged her cheeks.
Fletcher faced his mother, his patience growing ever slimmer. “Again, I must ask, why are you here, Mother?”
She leveled Rayne a frosty, contemptuous stare. “I’d prefer not to discuss it in front of Miss Wellbrook.”
“She stays,” he said, flint edging the two words.
“You must know, Kincade,” his mother continued, cunningness slipping into her gaze and tenor. “It’s not the thing to entertain a young woman in a bachelor’s residence. I can only presume she’s your mistress?”
At the calculated slur, Rayne stiffened, her sharp intake of breath audible in the now silent room.
“She is no’ my mistress, Mother,” Fletcher bit out, fury resonating in each clipped syllable.
