wrong with butlers, is there?’ gritted Matt, his own eyes shooting fire as he immediately forgot the resolution which he had just made, that he would be unfailingly polite to this icy hellcat—could hellcats be icy?—and giving her what his old nurse had used to call ‘what for’ again. ‘Unconsidered serfs, are they? I had sooner be a good butler than a bad nobleman any day.’
‘And, of course, being who you are,’ Stacy shot back, all discretion, all decency gone, now completely the true descendant of the rampantly outrageous pedlar who had made the Blanchard fortune, ‘you know all about bad noblemen, I’m sure!’
Jeb, who was busy counting the score for each side as though he were the referee at a boxing-match, saw that red rage was overcoming his employer. He had experienced it rarely, but he knew the signs. And for once Mad Matt had met his match in a woman whose icy deadliness equalled his fiery temperament.
How he mastered himself Matt never knew. Each fresh insult she offered him had him wishing that he could teach her a lesson, put her across his knee…Added to his rage was his sudden shocked horror at the knowledge that, of all dreadful things, he was becoming sexually roused.
What he really wanted to do was to take her in his arms, bear her to the floor and show her who was master…
He shook his head to clear it, rebuked his misbehaving body, and ground out, ‘No useful purpose is served by our being at odds in this situation, madam. I apologise to you for my deception.’ Which, had he ended there, might have done the trick, but the sight of her small contemptuous smile had him adding, ‘Although you must admit that you did come on too strong from the beginning.’
Behind them Jeb gave a groan, and Hal, forgetting his mistress’s orders, grew angry with the arrogant swine all over again. Lord he might be, but his mistress was right. He was no gentleman.
Stacy was also ready to restart the battle. Just because he was a man, an aristocrat, was big and strong, and, it must be admitted, in an odd way handsome, that was no reason for him to think that he could speak to her as he pleased, but as she opened her mouth to deliver another broadside she was stopped by her companion.
Louisa Landen had watched the affray with growing horror, and total surprise at seeing Stacy, who was usually so cool and controlled, so completely and utterly lost to all ladylike as well as decent behaviour. At first she had felt too weak to intervene, but was now so shocked by the behaviour of both parties that she cried feebly, ‘Stacy, oh, Stacy. I feel so ill! Do leave off wrangling, my love, I need you.’
This had the effect of Stacy exclaiming remorsefully, ‘Oh, Louisa, forgive me! I had quite forgot how ill you are.’
While Matt Falconer remarked nastily, ‘Stacy? I had thought that you had informed me that your name was Anna!’
Stacy dodged this question, which proved that he was not the only liar in the kitchen, by running over to Louisa, putting a hand on her hot forehead and murmuring, ‘Oh, dear, you have a strong fever.’ She looked across at the housekeeper, who, amused by what she had provoked, was standing there mumchance, being, like the rest of the servants, content to leave her betters to their quarrel. ‘Have you no willow-bark, madam, which we may infuse to break my companion’s fever?’
A learned shrew, was Matt’s grim inward comment as he turned his attention to the cooling water in the stone sink—to have the little maid twitter at him, ‘Oh, you should not be doing that, sir. Allow me,’ and try to push him to one side.
‘Nor he should,’ drawled Jeb. ‘Even if you were the butler, Matt, you wouldn’t be washing up. Most remiss of you. Should have given you away immediately—if everyone was in their right mind, that is.’
Taking this remark as a reflection on herself, Stacy, her language deteriorating further, pronounced in her most deadly manner, calculated to bring idle clerks to heel, ‘And who the devil may you be, to speak to both me and Lord Radley so impudently?’
Before Matt could answer Jeb executed a low bow. ‘Matt’s man, ma’am, right hand and factotum. Adviser, too, as you may have gathered.’
‘Your man, m’lord!’ Stacy was all indignation. ‘And you allow him to speak to you so insolently? Did you learn your manners from him, or he from you? No matter,’ she added hastily, as Matt flung down his washcloth and began to advance on her. ‘Pray do not disturb yourself; you will never finish the washing-up at this rate!’
Only Louisa Landen, throwing a conniption fit—Jeb’s words—at this point, stopped both Matt and Stacy from prolonging their slanging-match into the night’s watches.
As Stacy, remorseful again, bent over Louisa, that good lady hissed at her, ‘For shame, Stacy, and use your common sense if it hasn’t quite flown away. You do no good bandying words with him. He has an answer for everything.’
‘And so do I, madam,’ retorted Stacy between her excellent teeth, ‘so do I.’
‘Quite so, and that is what I complain of. He is a dangerous man, and, for him, you appear to be a dangerous woman. A quiet, ladlylike refusal to join in his games would end all.’
His games! Was he playing with her? Perhaps so. He had returned to his duties, to fling over his shoulder at her, ‘I am late from the United States, Miss Stacy, or whatever your name is, and we have no masters and servants there, only equals working together.’
Forgetting all her resolutions and Louisa’s wise advice, Stacy shot back at him, ‘Which country, sir, since you are no gentleman, must be an eminently suitable place for you to live. I recommend that you return there.’
‘And by the same token, madam, since you are no lady, you should surely accompany me. Except that in the States your haughty manners would soon earn you a reprimand from everyone unfortunate enough to meet you.’
Behind her, Stacy heard Louisa wail her name, and how she refrained from answering him back she never knew. She knew only that her common sense, which seemed to have taken flight from the moment she had set foot in this accursed place, told her that she must consider poor, stricken Louisa, and try not to disgrace herself before her own people, who, apart from Hal, were staring open-mouthed at her. Who would have thought that their cool and haughty, if kind mistress could behave so wildly?
Astonishingly, bending over Louisa again, Stacy found tears pricking at her eyes. No, I will not cry, she told herself. This vile bully, who, as I recall, is no better than he should be, shall not make me cry. I will see him in hell first! And what on earth was happening to her that she should think such dreadful thoughts, use such language?
She straightened up, turned towards her tormentor, and said in a more normal voice, ‘You have said that we must sleep here tonight, sir. Are you sure that you have no rooms in this vast house sufficiently warm for us to sleep in them?’
That’s more like it, madam, thought Matt grimly. A little due humility works wonders. He forgot that he hadn’t been humble either. But he replied more gently, ‘I arrived here only two days ago, and no one has lived in most of the Hall’s rooms for the past fifteen years, nor, I fear, have they been heated during that time. We also face a shortage of fuel, so I am afraid that we are all doomed to spend the night in the kitchen—where it is at least warm—or die of cold in one of the bedrooms. I have already moved the servants from their attic bedrooms—I wouldn’t stable beasts in them.’
Jeb was nodding agreement, as well as old Horrocks, who, by what was being said among the servants, really was a butler. But what a butler! Physically frail and
