“Good morning, Mrs. Tucker. You are looking well. I am glad you’ve prepared my breakfast as usual. Please don’t forget the strawberry jam.
It will be a lovely day, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, yes, of course, Lady Arabella, I am quite well and lovely. Well, the day will be lovely, that is.” Mrs. Tucker’s two chins wobbled a bit above her ruched white collar. She twitched her nose to keep her spectacles from sliding off. “You are feeling better this morning? I must say that I don’t like those scratches on your poor little cheek. The cheek on your face, naturally. As for your dear little chin, it is scuffed up like your knees were when you were a little girl, but naturally it is still a dear chin.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Tucker, truly, chin and all.” She smiled at the housekeeper. She couldn’t help it. Mrs. Tucker had been in her mother’s life before Arabella had even come into the world. She was also used to the way she spoke. The local vicar, however, was not. His eyes glazed over when Mrs. Tucker managed to corner him.
Arabella pushed the door open and stepped aside to allow Mrs. Tucker into the breakfast parlor first. She didn’t want her to spill that coffee or drop that toast. Arabella would kill for some coffee.
She turned to follow her through the open doorway, looked up, and froze where she stood, so surprised her normally agile tongue was lead in her mouth. The new earl sat at the head of the table, in her father’s chair, platters of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a haunch of rare beef arrayed in front of him and on both sides of him, his eyes upon a London newspaper.
He glanced up at the sound of a sharp intake of breath, saw that Arabella had turned into a stone at the unwelcome sight of him and rose. He said politely, “Thank you, Mrs. Tucker, that will be all for now. Please compliment Cook on the beef. It is cooked—or rather left uncooked—to perfection.”
“Yes, my lord.” Mrs. Tucker achieved a fairly creditable curtsy, fluttered her sausage fingers about her netted cap, and retreated from the room, patting Arabella’s shoulder as she passed her. Arabella called after her, “Please don’t forget my strawberry jam.”
“Will you join me, Lady Arabella? May I call you that yet?”
“No.”
“Very well, ma’am. Would you care to sit here?” He pulled out a chair beside his own at the table. “No, from the look on your face, I daresay you would rather take your breakfast and eat in the stable. Anywhere but near me. However, I would appreciate it if you remained. I believe there are some subjects that are of immediate interest to both of us, as loathsome as these subjects might be to you.” She sat down. She had no choice. She wanted to be churlish, but there wasn’t any benefit in it, as far as she could see. She would have to marry him.
She might as well speak to him. She would have to sooner or later. “Do you always eat breakfast so early? It is very early, you know, earlier than most people would even deem early. Perhaps you usually eat later in the morning? Perhaps this is just a very special day that sees you up and about so very early?”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I am always early. Do sit down. My beef is getting cold.” He grinned, noting her riding habit, and said, “Not only do I eat early, I always like to ride early as well. Just after my breakfast. It would seem, ma’am, that you are in the same habit. Does that, perhaps, presage good things for the future? For us, I mean.” No way around it. “Probably so,” she said. She accepted his assistance into her chair and began to dish eggs and bacon onto her plate before he had again eased back into his place. Her strawberry jam sat beside her plate. But how did Mrs. Tucker know where she would be sitting? Ah, he’d told her, naturally. She began to spread the jam on her toast.
“Don’t you think it would be a mite more polite if you were to contain your enthusiasm for eating until your host was seated?” Her hand tightened involuntarily about the handle of her spreading knife.
Host? Surely the fork would slide easily into his heart. No, he didn’t deserve for her to kill him for that bit of gloating. No, stabbing him in the arm would be the appropriate thing. “You really aren’t the host, sir,” she said finally. “You just happen to be the lucky male who was born of the right parents at the right time. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“As were you, ma’am.”
“But I don’t claim to be the hostess. I am merely the poor sacrifice, tossed onto the marital altar by my own esteemed father.” He was, he supposed, pleased to hear some wit from her rather than curses rained down upon his head. “In that case,” he said, seeing her fork halfway between her plate and her mouth, “wait a moment while I take a bite of my toast. There, now continue with your eggs. Ah, you do like that jam, don’t you? Is it special?”
“Very. Cook began making it when I was a child. I used to sneak into the kitchen and she would spread it on scones, on cucumber biscuits, on anything in sight.”
He ate a thick slice of the rare beef, picked up his paper, and lowered his head.
“Would you please pass the coffee?”
The earl looked up from the newspaper.
“If, of course, a host does such things.”
“Certainly, ma’am. I begin to believe that a host does everything to keep the ship afloat. Now, I wonder if you will also consider me the master?
Here you are.”
The master? Curse his gray eyes, that
