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‘What a little pedant you are,’ he drawled in the most mocking tone he could muster.
Up went her chin. ‘Would you prefer it, then, if I was to make sweeping generalisations about topics I am in complete ignorance of? Or take every opportunity that presents itself to let everyone know our marriage is not a happy one?’
Not a happy marriage? How could she tell? It had been less than two hours since he’d put his ring on her finger. She had no notion whether they were going to make each other happy or not.
As usual, she’d judged him and found him wanting without giving him any chance to put his side of the case.
‘It would certainly make you seem more like a normal woman,’ he said out of bitterness, ‘and less like a plaster saint.’
‘Oh!’ After throwing him one look of searing reproach, she turned her back on him and spent the rest of the short journey to Grosvenor Square staring out of the window.
And so they arrived at his town house in a state of silently eloquent resentment. Though she placed her hand upon his arm as he led her into the house, she managed to do it without even glancing at him. And she stalked up the front steps and into his house with her nose in the air.
Looking, ironically, every inch a marchioness.
Ponsonby, the man who’d served as butler both here and at Kelsham Park for as long as he could remember, raised one eyebrow at the dignified little creature standing at his side. Hardly surprising. The man had known her as the threadbare firebrand of a vicar’s daughter and couldn’t have expected her to alter so much simply because she was now draped in satin and lace. But after only that brief and barely perceptible start, the butler inclined his bald head deferentially. ‘Welcome to your new home, my lady,’ he said. ‘May I present Mrs Chivers, your housekeeper? She will make known to you the members of staff who serve you here in London.’
It was just as well Chivers was ready to do so, since Ponsonby had staged this introduction, en masse, of every person who lived and worked here, because he was pretty certain he’d never clapped eyes on about half of them. They probably inhabited the nether regions of the house and never crept up to his level during his waking hours.
Mrs Chivers confirmed that conjecture when she told his new bride that the skinny little girl who bobbed a clumsy curtsy with eyes round with awe was the one who went round lighting all the fires first thing in the mornings.
‘I shall conduct you to your rooms,’ said Mrs Chivers once she’d accounted for the very last person in line, a rather idiotish-looking boy described as the boots, though he was sure Cadogan, his valet, would never permit someone like that to lay so much as one greasy finger on his gleaming Hessians. ‘I hope they meet with your approval,’ she finished, folding her hands at her waist.
‘I am sure they will do very well,’ said Clare, ‘since I know you did not have much time to prepare them.’
She couldn’t have said anything more likely to impress them all. Mrs Chivers was appeased by the acknowledgement that she would have done better had she had more warning, whilst put on notice that Clare had such exacting standards that she would find something that needed improving.
Clare would be good with the staff, who had been without a proper mistress for far too long. Since well before his mother had died. In fact, all the previous Lady Rawcliffe had achieved when she’d been in charge of things was to create chaos. Clare, on the contrary, would find out all about them and know, within days, which of them were good workers and which needed a swift kick up the backside. And she’d administer it, too—metaphorically, of course. She’d run her own father’s house on a shoestring, from what he could gather, and had still managed to make charitable donations to the really needy in the parish.
He watched the sway of her own backside as she began to mount the stairs, following Mrs Chivers to her bedroom. Where he had half a mind to go himself, right now, so that he could sink his hands, if not his teeth, into those tempting little mounds of flesh. After all, it was his right now. At long last, there was not a single excuse she could make for keeping him at bay.
Except…if he appeared too keen, she might assume…
