“Do you hear that, Cassidy? ‘Denuded.’ ‘Enchantress.’ ‘Heirs.’” He said this grimly, as though it were instead a list of criminals scheduled to be hung. “Told you she was like one of them goddesses.”
A dozen disparate thoughts and impressions beset Hugh: those paragraphs werehilariouslyflorid, and deserved to be roundly mocked at once, and yet all of his words seems to be lodged in a lumpen mass in his throat; the ridiculous cost of hothouse roses; the utter absurdity that she occupied a world in which a paragraph featuring the words “enchantress” and “bewitched” would be written and published about her; the probable bald truth of the “enchantress” bit; the fact that every bit of it, from the hyperbole to the ball, was foreign and possibly antithetical to his experience and everything he believed in; her blush as she’d watched him remove her gloves. The word “raccoon.”
The quick little despairing hand over her eyes today as she stared at her blank sketchbook, as though he’d pressed a wound with his question.
Her eyes fixed on him as if she was drinking in his description of his land in the Hudson River Valley.
The fact that he’d tried to avoid her and she had somehow found him here in this dark pub, anyway.
He was motionless.
“I can tell from your expression that she’s gotten under your skin, too, Cassidy.” Delacorte held up his hand for another round, and the pretty waitress beamed at them and raced over in the hopes that the big blue-eyed man would finally look her full in the face.
Hugh’s jaw set. She was a bored debutante confined in a boarding house near the docks, and naturally she’d found a diversion in him, and he was here because Woodley had entrusted him to bring his daughter home.
He would leave for Surrey the minute he’d finished building the stage.
“I hope The Grand Palace on the Thames doesn’t become one of those duke and earl places,” Delacorte added.
“Clearly those are the worst places,” Hugh said casually. He startled Delacorte by scraping his chair roughly back, standing abruptly, and striding over to hurl that gossipy scrap of newspaper on the fire.
“I’ll have another of the dark, darling,” he told the waitress when he returned. And with a smile he looked her full in the face.
“That’s the way it was done at the Stevens Hotel. I would do errands for the guests, like.”
The maids were still going about the business of lovingly waking up The Grand Palace on theThames with fires and scones and coffee when Mr. James Barton, the latest candidate for footman, arrived, and now Delilah and Angelique sat in the kitchen across from him at the kitchen table, while behind them Helga pummeled bread dough and eavesdropped.
It was unlikely that odes would be written to Mr. Barton’s thighs, but he was tall and appeared sturdy and clean. He’d demonstrated manners and a decent command of the English language, and claimed to possess experience and letters of reference from the Stevens Hotel. If they were not bowled over by his charm they could not find fault with his manners.
“Why are you seeking a new position, Mr. Barton?” Delilah asked.
“I thought a smaller establishment might be a bit cozier, you see, and the guests more exclusive.”
This was meant to flatter them and it did, though they weren’t credulous. The word “exclusive” whistled a bit through the little gap between his front teeth. The fact that he was able to produce a word with three syllables nearly had Delilah and Angelique reaching for each other’s hands to squeeze in hopeful disbelief.
“And Mr. Barton, are you able to read?” Delilah thought it best to make sure. Their footman would need to carry and deliver messages on occasion and find the directions of vendors.
“I can, indeed. If you would like to see my references...”
He reached into his coat and pushed across two letters. Delilah and Angelique each took custody of one and read them quickly. Written on stationery from the Stevens Hotel, they did not immediately appear to be forgeries. Though one never knew. They would of course investigate.
“Well, thank you for coming this morning, Mr. Barton. We’ll write to you at your direction once we’ve reviewed your references.”
They stood up to allow him to move around the table. And as he passed them he dragged his hand across Angelique’s hindquarters so deliberately one would think he’d gotten up so early to do precisely that.
Helga growled and hoisted her rolling pin like a cricket bat, and James Barton felt the wind of her swing in his flying coat tails as he fled at a run, Helga on his heels.
Angelique and Delilah were so surprised they couldn’t say a word.
They heard the front door slam, and the thunder of Helga’s footsteps heading back up the stairs. She was shaking her head.
“They do not think with theirbrains,” is all she said.
Not one them was a fragile flower or prone to hysterics. It was hardly the worst thing to happen to any of them.
Buthonestly.
“What a pity. At least he seems fit,” Angelique said finally.