Valor peered out the window at the bustling streets. “What do you think, Mrs. Right? My aunt says the new butler will be a barnacle on a boat.”
“Aye, so she says. Mr. Hubert Huberville is his name. But what I say is that any harbormaster worth their salt can scrape a barnacle off a boat with very little trouble.”
“So you will be the harbormaster?”
“I always have been, love.”
The carriages had entered the square and slowed to a stop.
Mrs. Right kept her eyes on the front doors, and she was glad she did. They were flung open and a short and round individual flew outside and promptly tripped. He fell on the road and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop.
The duke and his valet, Reynolds, had descended from their carriage. The duke stared down at the prone butler.
Charlie opened their carriage door and snorted. “Well Mrs. Right, there’s Lady Marchfield’s latest man lying on the ground looking like a dug-up potato.”
They were helped out, along with Sir Galahad who had, for the past hours, been snoring on his blanket. Valor took him in her arms and the little pug seemed very surprised that they’d turned up in a new place while he napped.
Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds helped Mr. Huberville to his feet, his coat now severely muddied. Thomas ran ahead to get the door open for the duke, who stepped around Lady Marchfield’s latest project.
Really, where did the lady find these men?
Mrs. Right held up her head and did not deign to even glance at the muddy butler.
In the great hall, Valor said, “Goodness, this would be a moment when all my sisters would race above stairs to fight over the rooms. Now there is no need to run as nobody will compete with me.”
“Cheer up, Poppet,” Mrs. Right said, “you’ll finally have the best room.”
Valor nodded. “But I will be alone in that corridor. I’m going to ask Papa if you can take the room next to me.”
Mrs. Right nodded and presumed the duke would sanction it. They already did so in the Dales. Valor had ever been harassed with nightmares and they still came upon her from time to time. She was especially prone when left alone with only her imagination for company. Mrs. Right had long moved out of the servants’ quarters on account of it after Winsome had gone.
“And we must be sure that Sir Galahad’s bed is put back together again by his bedtime. He’s been a very good soldier about roughing it over the past days.”
Mrs. Right nodded. Sir Galahad, unlike most canines, reposed in a miniature four-poster bed with a canopy of silk and a knit blanket it had taken Valor several years to complete. The pieces of that very fancy dog bed were currently packed in the coach, but Charlie had disassembled and reassembled it so often that he would have it back together in no time. Whether or not this bed was necessary was an ongoing question, as Sir Galahad more often ended up sleeping in Valor’s own bed, but Valor thought he preferred it for daytime naps.
“You go up and I will go down,” the housekeeper advised. “I would like to have a word with Cook regarding our new inhabitant.”
Valor carried Sir Galahad to his new bedchamber and Mrs. Right made her way down to the kitchens. She found Cook waiting for her as he would have heard the ruckus of their arrival over his head. As they’d always done, he’d traveled ahead and had been in the house for some days already to get the place in shape for the arrival of the duke.
“Well?” she said. “What do we have on our hands?”
“I hardly know how to explain it, Mrs. Right.”
“Do take a stab at it, though.”
Cook nodded. “You know how all these butler fellas think they’re above everybody else, as if they ain’t made from the same cloth?”
Mrs. Right nodded, as that was the primary thing she had against butlers.
“This one don’t. He’s as jumpy as a jackrabbit and forever apologizing over I do not know what. This morning, he claimed he was sorry he’d finished his breakfast plate as he thought I might want some of it. Why should I want something from his plate when I have my own? I am the cook, can I not be trusted to make myself enough food? That’s the way of him, sorry over everything.”
Mrs. Right tapped her chin. This was new. She’d made a habit of taking a butler down a peg but it did not seem as if this one had any pegs to take down. “He ran out to greet the duke and fell on the road,” she said.
“Oh yes, that’s him all over. He’s always in such a state he’s forever falling over. He’s fallen off his chair twice already.”
Mrs. Right heard the familiar sound of footsteps on the stairs. Mr. Hubert Huberville came round the bend in a rush, bounced off a wall, and steadied himself with the back of a chair.
“Mrs. Right, an honor to meet you, my lady.”
