“How is that lowering herself?”
“There’s a chain of command. Surely you must know that.”
“Yes, but how else does a lady talk with the staff?”
“The cook, or the housekeeper, meets with her elsewhere, in a parlor somewhere. Do you see? They go to her, and not the other way around.”
“Wouldn’t she want to know what’s going on in her own kitchen?”
“I’m confident my grandmother hasn’t set foot there in years. If ever. I’m sure the same was true of my mother.”
She frowned at him. “It seems silly. How can you know what’s going on unless you see it with your own eyes? Isn’t the mistress of the house responsible for the welfare of her servants?”
He was now feeling decidedly less mellow. “I take it you frequently visited the kitchen in your former abode?”
“Well, no,” she admitted, flushing.
“May I ask, then, why this sudden crusade on your part?”
“Well, I . . . I wasn’t the mistress there. And—and this feels . . . different somehow.”
“Different in what way?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I suppose it’s because I somehow feel responsible for them.”
“Yes, of course, as one should. But you’ll make a smoother transition into your future role if you abide by the established rules. And spare yourself a good deal of embarrassment as a consequence.”
“Embarrassment? What does that have to do with it? Your grandmother has allowed herself to come under the sway of that ridiculous Dr. Wendeburgen, and so the servants must suffer because of it?”
He frowned back at her. “What my grandmother chooses to do under her own roof is entirely her own business. It’s hardly a concern of mine.”
“You refuse to get involved?”
“Why should I?”
“Why, you arrogant, high-handed . . .” She seemed to be searching for a suitable pejorative.
“Beast?” he supplied icily.
“Yes! Beast! Do you know what the servants are forced to do? They spend their wages on food! It’s dreadful! Why don’t you care?”
He saw that her green eyes, no longer languorous, were instead sparkling with indignation. Her chin was firmly set, and he also noticed that she had just a few tart crumbs on the bodice of her otherwise immaculate spencer, a handsome white silk, and for a rash, irrelevant few seconds he found himself wanting to brush them away, and possibly even allow his hand to linger on the soft curves there.
Oh, for God’s sake, you dolt, he told himself, look somewhere else. This is to be a marriage in name only. Out loud he said, “Speaking of kitchens, I have good news for you.”
She narrowed those sparkling eyes. “Are you changing the subject?”
“When one is bored, one often does.”
“Bored? You’re impossible! Do you know that? Do you have any idea just how genuinely impossible you are?”
He leaned forward. “And that, Miss Stuart, is precisely why everything is going to work out so well between us. You won’t be forced to endure my noxious presence. You see, I’ve decided that you, in due course, are going to be sent to Surmont Hall, where you’ll be its mistress and can spend all bloody day in the kitchen if you like.”
“Sent to Surmont Hall? Alone?”
“Yes, and I’m wondering why I’m not hearing a note of gratitude in your voice, either. It’s infinitely superior to that ramshackle Abbey of yours, and you’ll have plenty of pin-money to spend as you like.”
“I see,” she answered stonily. “Obviously you’ve got it all worked out. And your grandmother?”
“She’ll continue on in Bath, naturally.”
“Where will you be, may I ask?”
“Oh,” he said offhandedly, “I’ll live in London. Visit friends on their estates. Who knows? It’s certainly not your concern.” There. It was all out in the open; the future was now laid out to a nicety. And there wasn’t any point, of course, in discussing the indelicate subject of sexual needs; one had them, and they could easily be satisfied outside the marriage-bond, just as he’d been doing for quite some time as a bachelor. He certainly wouldn’t be the first husband among the ton to find his satisfactions elsewhere.
And everyone would be happy.
Perfectly happy.
And even as he was restored to a comfortable sense of his own control, he noticed that several people in the Phelps Tea Room were looking at them with a kind of interested avarice. Christ, he thought, bloody nosy Bath!
“You,” he said coolly to Livia, “must return to my grandmother.” He rose to his feet and looked down at her from his superior height. Her face was by now a fiery red. It clashed with her auburn hair, but nobly he refrained from pointing this out. “Shall we?”