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Rothhaven’s plate was empty again. Althea tugged the bell pull, and when Strensall stepped into the room, she gestured to the tray.
“Real sandwiches this time, Strensall, not the decorative kind, and have a wheel of the Danish dill sent over to Rothhaven Hall, please. A few bottles of the Pinot as well, and some of the pear torte from last night.”
Rothhaven peered at his tea. “Generous of you.”
“Consider it an apology for my wayward sows.” Also a lure. Monsieur Henri’s pear torte was food for the gods and goddesses.
Rothhaven waited for Strensall to depart before resuming the conversation. “Now that you have dodged my question twice, my lady, perhaps you’d favor me with an honest answer: Why are you so unfit for the station that’s befallen you?”
Althea rose, though a lady never paced. “My branch of the Wentworth family wasn’t merely humble, we were destitute. Many decent families fall on hard times, but my father fell upon the gin cask and never let go. He expended more energy avoiding work than many a hod carrier has spent plying his trade, and he was nasty.”
Such a tame little word for the evil that had been Jack Wentworth.
“You’ve described half the peerage, though port figures more prominently among their vices than gin.”
Althea went to the window. Sunshine fortified her, as did fresh air and quiet. In the cramped, twisted warrens of the slums, those commodities were nonexistent.
“If my father was no worse than any earl of your acquaintance, then why am I made the butt of one insult after another?Never let it be said that Lady Althea carries the smell of the shop with her, when the stench of the alley is so much more distinctive.”
Rothhaven helped himself to more tea and this time he added milk and sugar. “Somebodysaidthat?”
“And four other somebodies found it uproariously clever.”
“Did you offer them the cut direct?”
“I pretended not to hear them.”
Strensall returned carrying yet another tray, this one laden with food. Monsieur had included a few slices of pear torte, and Althea battled the impulse to prevent Rothhaven from gobbling them all.
Old habits died hard, when they’d been the difference between survival and starvation.
“One learns,” Rothhaven said, inspecting the offerings, “to never ignore an insult. Will you sulk over by the window or attend your guest? Considering the measures necessary to lure me into your parlor, the least you could do is preside over the tray.”
Althea returned to her seat. “I thought a lady never took unnecessary offense? If I gave the cut direct to everybody who whispered about me behind a potted palm, I’d cease speaking to half of Mayfair. Besides, I don’t know how to deliver the cut direct. Jane says it’s a look in the eyes, a public dismissal, but I haven’t seen it done, and I’m not Jane. I lack a proper aristocratic nose for the cut direct.”
Althea piled two sandwiches on one plate, and a fat slice of pear torte on another with a square of vanilla tablet to the side.
“Who is Jane?”
“Her Grace of Walden, my sister-in-law. She has majestic height, a splendid nose for looking down, and this…thispresencethat inspires equal parts respect and liking. Shemanagesmy brother, a singularly contrary man, and helikesit. She is also a preacher’s daughter and genuinely kind. Jane has no sense of how to wage a war of petty slights and mean innuendo, and the last thing I want is for her to become tainted by my problems.”
“The cut direct isn’t complicated.” Rothhaven set down his plate, inhaled through his nose—another splendid fixture—and slowly turned his head to regard Althea with a disdain so glacial she nearly squirmed in her chair. He held her gaze for an excruciating eternity, then pointedly looked away.
“You see?” he said, picking up his plate. “Not complicated. You notice, you hold in a contempt too vast for words, you dismiss. Try it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. One doesn’t rehearse such a thing.”
Those green eyes that had chilled Althea to the heart a moment ago crinkled at the corners. “Coward.”
“No wheel of cheese for you. A gentleman doesn’t insult a lady.”
“You all but declared war on my privacy, but you won’t practice giving me a dirty look? I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”
Had Althea been at table with her siblings, she would have pitched her napkin at him. “I don’t want to look silly.”
His Grace munched the first sandwich into oblivion. “I will kidnap your cook on the next stormy, moonless night. This is quite good. As for looking silly, when you ignore an obvious slight,thatis when you look silly. And don’t tell yourself that some slights are too small to notice. When you deliver a setdown to even the pettiest malefactor, the real bullies leave you alone. Come, my lady. Pretend I’m the last bounder to speak ill of you. Put me in my place.”
Althea mentally chose a bounder among bounders, the Honorable Pettibone Framley. “He said,‘I feel sorry for it.’He smirked at me as if I were a beast in the menagerie, too stupid to comprehend the taunt.”
