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“Aggy!”
“Do you want me to take over Aggy’s downstairs chores?” Petal asked once Aggy had hurried off.
“I think you had better. Aggy can inform Sir Aidan that you are swapping roles so she can get the experience of working upstairs. He can’t object to that too much,” Rollo sighed.
Dismissed, Petal hurried off to work. Inwardly, though, she couldn’t help but feel she had just made a massive mistake. However, keeping her distance now would protect her heart. The unfinished business between them would have to remain, well, unfinished. At some point she would have to face him again, but would have to deal with that, and the feelings that arose, when it happened. It would have to be another time, though, preferably when she was feeling considerably stronger emotionally.
Right now, she had work to do.
Aidan waited impatiently for Petal to appear. He used the time to think carefully about what he was going to say to her.
“This is utterly ridiculous,” he grunted aloud. “I am the master of this house. I don’t need to explain myself to a servant.”
Having said that, though, he felt driven to make sure she wasn’t upset. Although why he should feel she would be upset by finding Edwards helping him was beyond him. He just knew he wouldn’t settle until he saw Petal again and made sure she was alright. She had, after all, been insulted by the dowager just for reading to him. That was something he had to apologise for. He had been the one to ask her to do it. If he happened to mention the unfortunate incident with Edwards then so be it.
At least the slate would be wiped clean between them and they could go back to the way things were.
Deep inside, he suspected that they could never go back to how things were yesterday. The horrible guilt that had slammed into him when realise she had seen him with his arms wrapped around another woman had shaken him. He had never felt such strong emotions in his entire life. The need to apologise to Petal was so strong that he was a little stymied by it, mostly because he had done nothing wrong.
He frowned as he contemplated that and thought over the ramifications of his current predicament.
“I should just marry her,” he mused.
It was one solution to his current problem he just couldn’t get out of his mind. “She is pretty. She can read. She is good company. She knows the house well, and the servants.” He sighed despondently. “Too well.”
He leaned back against the pillows and stared at the canopy overhead. “She wouldn’t know how to run the house, but Mrs. Kempton does, and can. She is looked upon fondly by Rollo, and works well with him. But then, as Lady of the house, she wouldn’t be required to work. The dowager would have a fit of the vapours if she had Petal as a daughter-in-law, but then wouldn’t keep harping on for me to re-join the ridiculous social whirl in London. She would also have to stop parading a bevy of desperate females through my house. I could finally be myself in my own home, but then most probably wouldn’t be welcome, or comfortable, in the homes of my associates and friends.”
“Talking to yourself again, Aidan?” Jerry drawled from the doorway.
“This bed chamber is like Whites, but there are more people are coming and going here. I think I shall just get a concierge for the door. I don’t know why I don’t just move my bed out onto the driveway and be done with it,” Aidan drawled, throwing a rueful look at his brother.
“I take it that you have been busy?”
“I thought I would be bored,” Aidan murmured thoughtfully. “It has been anything but. The dowager has been again.”
“So, who should you marry?” Jerry asked thoughtfully. He carefully closed the door behind him and began to pray that it wasn’t the irascible Edwards. He wasn’t sure what he would say, or do, at the prospect of having that woman as his sister-in-law.
“Just how much did you overhear?” Aidan asked, contemplating the wisdom of confiding in his brother.
“Enough,” Jerry replied. “I take it we are not talking about Edwards?”
“No, we are not talking about Edwards,” Aidan replied.
Jerry sighed with relief. “I take it we are not talking about Hornsby either?”
Aidan threw him a dark look. “No, we are not talking about mother’s chaperone either.”
“So, can I take it we are talking about the delightful maid of yours who keeps reading to you?”
“Delightful?” Aidan frowned at his brother. “Now, why would you call her delightful?”
Jerry grinned at Aidan’s instinctive jealousy. “Settle down, brother. She is delightful. She is spirited.”
“I know,” Aidan sighed, feeling strangely proud of her if a little unnerved by it. “It would cause the scandal of the century. She is a servant.”
When Jerry didn’t reply, Aidan looked at him. Their eyes met. Aidan could detect no animosity. In fact, there was nothing more than an easy-going thoughtfulness that surprised him. A part of him had only been merely contemplating taking Petal as a wife. To find himself talking so casually with his brother about such an enormously contentious issue was shocking. It was even more shocking that he wasn’t all that appalled by it.
“I married someone the dowager claimed was of my kind and look how that turned out. We were both miserable beyond belief. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Jerry replied.
