A Night with the Bride(8)
With that, he was gone, leaving her alone to mull over his ridiculous, oddly brilliant plan. No, not brilliant. What was she thinking? She could not, would not, slap a duke of the realm—tempting as it was. It wasn’t even worth considering. She would have to find some other way to get his attention.
Just as she was slathering butter on her toast, someone slid into the empty chair beside her. The solid frame and spicy male scent could only belong to one person.
Somerset.
Did the man have no sense of self-preservation?
After the way he’d snapped at her last night, he was fortunate she didn’t spear him with her butter knife. Though one could not rule such things out entirely. The morning was still young.
Gabriella glanced at him. “Oh, look who it is. The Duke of Mean…ness.” She winced at her own bungled insult. There was just something about this man that threw her completely off kilter. Perhaps it was his stern, calculating stare or his smooth, enigmatic charm. Whatever it was, it scrambled her thinking and set her pulse racing.
He stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. “You will forgive me for last night.”
“I don’t see why I should. First, you used me like a human abacus, then erupted into anger—at me—in front of everyone.”
“You have my sincerest apologies,” he said. When she didn’t look at him, he hooked one finger beneath her chin and tilted it up. “I am in earnest. I wasn’t myself. Please forgive me.”
Despite herself, her resolve melted at the sincerity in his voice. She believed he was sorry, but that still didn’t make it right. “I’ll think about forgiving you, if you tell me what caused you to lose your countenance. What were you doing?”
A male servant she didn’t recognize slid a plate in front of Somerset. The food was arranged carefully, in precise triangles on the plate, none of it touching. How very tidy.
“Thank you, Larson.”
As the man moved away, Gabriella asked, “Who is that?”
Somerset tucked into his eggs, careful not to disturb the other items on his plate. “My valet.”
“Your valet serves you breakfast?”
Was there anything conventional about this man?
“I like the way he arranges the plate. He’s the only one who can do it just so. Even I cannot manage it.”
She watched him curiously as he ate, seeming to count the number of times he chewed each bite. He didn’t notice her scrutiny, or if he did, he made no show of it. “What were you doing last night when I approached you?”
He set down his fork and stared at her intensely. “I apologized, Miss Weatherfield, and that’s where my courtesy ends. Do not pry into matters that do not concern you.”
A sensitive subject, clearly. Which made her all the more determined to pry.
The words were spoken harshly, a reminder that he was a duke and would be obeyed in all things. She smirked. A shame for him, then, that she’d never been particularly obedient.
She tilted her head to the side, not at all chagrined. “Is this another setdown, Your Grace?”
“It’s a warning,” he said.
“Then you’ve underestimated my stubbornness.”
He placed his napkin on the table and pushed back in his chair, then bushed the crumbs from his lap. He paused, uttered a curse under his breath, then brushed his thighs off again, and again—always in the same manner, from the top of his thighs, down, then repeat.
She watched him for several long moments, then said, “I’d venture to say your breeches are clean.”
That only served to frustrate him more as he cursed again and continued to brush off his breeches in clipped, agitated movements—as though there were an invisible something he couldn’t manage to brush away.
“You understand you look quite insane when you do that, don’t you?”
He didn’t respond. Indeed, she hadn’t any clue if he’d even heard her, so absorbed was he in his odd task. Suspicion slowly started to dawn. A distant uncle of hers had been obsessed with counting, with the number of times actions were performed, or the particular arrangement of items. Disruption of the order would drive him mad, and his only solace was restoration of that order.
Jaw set, lips pressed into a hard line, Somerset repeated the clipped movements over and over. Gabriella felt a pang of sympathy for the strong, virile man beside her. Finally, after five minutes had passed, Somerset stood abruptly and bowed. “Good morning, Miss Weatherfield.”
And with that, he was gone.
She hadn’t even gotten to slap him.
* * *
That afternoon, a knock sounded on the library door. Nicholas looked up from his papers scattered across the cherrywood desk and cursed. He’d expressly requested no one disturb him. Business matters pressed on him urgently, and not even a day of rest could be spared.