this. When I think of some of the insults I’ve heaped on waiters, when I’ve come in, sharp set...’ He shook his head ruefully, before breaking open a roll and slathering it with butter.
He groaned, half closing his eyes as if in ecstasy.
‘That has to be the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. You’re a marvel.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m no marvel. You are simply very, very hungry. I don’t suppose you would think a simple bread roll would be all that delicious if you weren’t.’
‘That may be part of it,’ he agreed, reaching for another roll, a faint frown furrowing his forehead. ‘Perhaps I have fallen into the habit of taking such simple things for granted. But I shan’t any longer. And as for—’
He’d just reached across the table to take her hand when there came a knock at the back door.
Muttering under his breath, Lord Havelock strode across the room to answer the knock while she stood up and whipped off her apron.
‘Mornin’,’ said a short, wiry man who was knuckling his forehead.
‘Gilbey! Where the devil,’ snapped her husband, ‘have you been?’
He then, belatedly, seemed to recall she was there. ‘Pardon my language,’ he said perfunctorily, over his shoulder at her, before waving his arm in her direction.
‘My wife, Lady Havelock,’ he said to the wiry man, who’d sidled in out of the cold.
Out of habit, Mary dropped a curtsy, causing the wiry man’s shaggy eyebrows to shoot up his forehead.
‘This is my groom,’ said her husband with a touch of impatience. ‘You don’t need to curtsy to such as him. Now, you, explain yourself,’ he snapped, turning his attention back to the wiry man too quickly to notice Mary flinch.
How could he reprove her like that? In the man’s hearing?
‘I expected to find you, and, more important, Lady and Lightning, in the stables when I got here last night,’ snapped Lord Havelock.
‘Well, when I got here yesterday, me lord, seeing as how there was nobody about, and the stables deserted, I thought it best to take them, and your chestnuts, to the nearest inn, make sure they was taken proper care of, like. And see if I could find out what was afoot here. Brought ’em back as soon as I’d made sure there would be proper provisions for them and knew as you’d arrived yourself.’
‘Hmmph,’ said Lord Havelock and stalked out into the yard, the groom trotting behind in his wake.
Mary stood looking at the door for a moment or two, her mouth hanging open. Where had his appetite gone? He’d been complaining of hunger ever since they awoke. So hungry he’d even joked about trying the coal. But the moment he heard his horses had arrived they’d driven every other thought from his mind.
He must care about them a lot, she decided, closing first her mouth, then the kitchen door through which he’d just vanished without a backward glance. She should have picked up on the clues the day before, when he admitted he’d had them travel by stages so as not to tire them, though he’d pushed her into making the entire journey in one go. And the way his face had fallen when she’d admitted she couldn’t ride.
Which told her two things. First, he must have thought about going out riding with her. Not only thought about it, but looked forward to it, or he wouldn’t have looked so disappointed.
And second, that she’d been right about his character. Even though Lord Havelock had looked as angry as she’d ever seen him, the groom hadn’t seemed the slightest bit scared of the way he’d shouted. He’d just stood there letting her husband rant a bit, then stated his case clearly.
And her husband had listened.
Just as he’d listened to her, when she’d stood up to him over the matter of their betrothal. He’d scared her a bit, back then, the way his anger had blown up seemingly out of nowhere. But it had blown out just as swiftly.
Not that it excused him rebuking her in front of a third party. Her father had exercised that particular form of cruelty towards her mother, whittling her sense of worth down, insult by insult, until there had been nothing left but splinters.
Well, she wasn’t going to let her husband do the same to her. Not that she really thought he was doing it deliberately.
Nevertheless, she needed to take a stand, now, so that he would learn she wouldn’t tolerate such treatment.
She strode to the dresser and took down another cup to set on the table. Outside staff generally came into the kitchen for their meals. Since there was nobody else to provide them, she would have to take on the task of feeding the groom.
Even if her husband disapproved of her sitting at table with him.
Well, she didn’t care if he did think she was committing yet another social faux pas by extending common humanity to the poor wretch, the way he’d done when she’d dropped that curtsy.
Lifting her chin, she strode to the table and placed the cup down firmly before one of the empty chairs. She half hoped he did disapprove of her willingness to hobnob with a lowly groom. She went back to the dresser and picked up a plate, a knife and a fork with a toss of her head. For then he’d discover that he had most definitely not married a mouse.
She set about preparing such a substantial meal that it was bound to earn his forgiveness, once she’d shown him that he couldn’t get away with trying to browbeat her in front of servants.
* * *
‘You were right,’ said Lord Havelock, the moment he came back into the kitchen. She glanced up from the stove to assess his mood, before reaching for the kettle.
‘Was I?’ She poured water into the pot, noting that her hands were shaking as she braced herself to stand up for herself for the first time in her life. ‘What about?’
She couldn’t see any sign of the anger that had driven him out to the stables, which must mean he was pleased with the condition of his horses, and had forgiven the groom for not being on hand the night before. She just hoped he’d be as quick to forgive her.
‘About the caretaker and his wife. Gilbey found out— Stop loitering there in the doorway, man,’ he barked at the groom over his shoulder. ‘Come in and shut it before you let all the heat out,’ he said, depriving her of the opportunity of inviting him in herself.
The groom snatched off his hat, shuffled forward and closed the door behind him, while Lord Havelock sauntered over to the stove, holding out his hands to warm them.
‘Gilbey put up at the Dog and Ferret last night,’ he said. ‘The landlord told him that the Brownlows have gone away to visit relatives of some sort for the season. They don’t plan to come back until the twenty-eighth. It was a shock to everyone in the taproom to hear I’d come back, expecting to take up residence. God only knows where my letter to them has gone. Still at the receiving office, I shouldn’t wonder. Is that a fresh pot of tea? Capital.’
To her intense irritation, he then pulled up a chair at the table and indicated the groom should do so, as well. Where had his insistence on keeping the groom in his place, and she in hers,
