more handsome today. His attire possessed none of the fussiness of Mr Cowes’s ludicrous cravat—his own was simply tied, and his jacket and breeches were again a sober blue and buff. Normally, the austerity of his dress was tempered by the playful spark in his eyes, but today he seemed merely irritated.
That is, until he looked at her. Then he just seemed confused. ‘Good God, did you swim here?’
She glared at him. She knew she was late and that she’d annoyed him, but she didn’t want to be the butt of his sarcasm. ‘You may have noticed the rain.’
‘It didn’t rain that hard here.’He turned to Rogers. ‘Tell Mrs Wright to come.’ And, to Isabelle as the footman walked off, ‘I have rather a busy morning.’
He still sounded peeved, and an awful sense of dread settled around her shoulders. Would she ever learn to control her temper and hold her tongue? For all that she might have protested yesterday, she truly needed this position—particularly in light of what had just happened. At least she’d be safe in his house.
Some humility was in order. ‘I am sorry. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.’
He sighed and actually sounded a bit contrite. ‘No, no, I’m sorry. It’s obviously been something of an ordeal getting here this morning. Uh…perhaps you should…’ He held out his handkerchief.
She took it gratefully. A mirror hung on the wall a few paces away and she walked towards it, dabbing her face. But the reflection she saw…heavens, for the first time she realised just how dishevelled she looked. Positively amphibious. Her cheeks were flushed and most of her hair had slipped from her chignon to hang wetly around her shoulders. She immediately began smoothing it back, but then she noticed her dress. Thick, chaste cotton most of the time, but right now it clung to her in a positively…
‘Oh, dear.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Even though he’d apologised for his abruptness, his voice sounded gruff and irritable.
She raised her gaze from her suddenly conspicuous breasts and realised that he was watching her in the mirror. She turned around immediately, slouching her shoulders forwards in an attempt at modesty. ‘Nothing.’
His gaze lingered on her face for just a second longer than was proper, but before she had a chance to turn an even more intense red, a matronly, middle-aged woman walked purposefully into the hall.
He dragged his attention away from Isabelle and cleared his throat. ‘Ah, Mrs Wright. This is Miss Thomas.’
The woman—obviously his housekeeper—smiled warmly, her manners too good to reveal any surprise at her appearance.
He turned to Isabelle, assiduously keeping his gaze above her neck. ‘I thought Mrs Wright could show you around the house this morning. Perhaps you would prefer to…uh, go to your room directly to change?’
She nodded silently, and with a nod of his own, directed at both her and Mrs Wright, he returned to his study.
‘Well, then,’the housekeeper said cheerily, clapping her hands together, ‘shall we begin?’
Before setting off, Isabelle restored her modesty by fishing a shawl from her bag and wrapping it around her shoulders.
‘You poor duck. I’ll lead you straight to your room, although I think we can see most of the house on the way.’
Isabelle followed her up the staircase to the first floor, feeling rather awed by the woman’s efficiency. She talked practically non-stop as they walked, and Isabelle hoped she might be an ally. She’d obviously already offended the footman.
‘I’m afraid most of the rooms on this floor are formal and won’t pertain to your duties,’ Mrs Wright was saying. She opened one half of a pair of massive, mahogany doors. ‘Here is the ballroom. Rather nice, don’t you think?’
Nice? It was the largest room Isabelle had ever seen, not that she had much to compare it to. The parquet floors gleamed, uncluttered by furniture except for a long suite of damask-covered chairs that lined the walls and four carved mahogany side tables. Tall windows, framed by red velvet, tasselled curtains, filled the room with light, making it bright even on a cloudy day. And beyond the windows, gardens—gardens of a size she hadn’t realised existed in London. It was like a palace.
She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes. Rather nice.’
Mrs Wright had apparently grown jaded by this level of opulence and didn’t waste any time gawping. She walked briskly across the room, and Isabelle struggled to keep up. At the other side, she opened another door, leading them into a dim corridor.
‘This is a servants’ passage. It connects most of the principal rooms. This door here…’ she paused to rap on it gently ‘…leads to steps that will take you all the way downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs Graham is the cook. She doesn’t like anyone to take food from the kitchen between meals, and I’d advise you not to get in her way.’ She laughed, but Isabelle didn’t find the prospect of a truculent cook amusing. They kept walking.
Mrs Wright pointed out the door that led to the dining room as they passed, but she didn’t bother opening it. At the end of the passage, they came to a set of stairs. Standing beneath the staircase, Isabelle looked up, feeling dizzy. They appeared to spiral up for another two storeys.
‘These will take you to your bedroom. There’s another set of servants’ stairs on the north side of the house, and you should try to use them unless you’re accompanying Miss Weston-Burke—you’re not as low as a scullery maid, my dear, but still it’s best to keep out of sight. And you should use the servants’ entrance in the future, as well. I will give you a key.’ Isabelle blushed—she’d already used the front door twice. Had that been wrong? She wasn’t used to thinking like a servant.
Mrs Wright mounted the steps and Isabelle followed behind her, forcing herself not to look down or think too hard about how securely the stairs were attached to the wall. They stopped at the second floor, and Mrs Wright opened a door. It led into a small vestibule containing a walnut armchair and a tall, Chinese vase. A fat tabby cat slept peacefully on the chair. The tip of one of his ears appeared to have been torn, and his tail trailed down crookedly, as if it had been broken at some point.
‘I won’t bother showing you this floor since you’ll never need anything on it. His lordship’s rooms are at the far end, and all the other rooms are vacant bedrooms. And that fine creature,’ she added, motioning towards the cat, ‘is your other charge.’
The cat yawned and stretched.
Isabelle stared at it. ‘My other charge?’
‘Yes, and he’s very demanding. He’s called Tobias the Third, and you mustn’t be too kind to the scoundrel. He followed his lordship home one afternoon about two years ago, and his lordship made the mistake of feeding him and letting him inside. We’ve been trying to evict him ever since…he’s supposed to stay in the kitchen, but Mrs Graham’s terrified of cats and keeps letting him out. Silly woman always pretends it’s an accident.’
‘Why is he the third?’
‘Tobias the First died three years ago. The Second lives in his lordship’s country house in Norfolk. He’s a talent for taking in strays—an honourable quality, I suppose, but I told him I’d leave the minute Tobias the Fourth appeared nonetheless. Not one yet has been a good mouser,
