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“I look forward to your report,” Beatrice said. They left the steward’s office, and there was the duke, standing in the hall, glaring at a painting. He had gone to the trouble of donning a coat yet had not undertaken the great effort required to button it.
He turned to her without changing his expression, and she wanted to smooth out the divot between his eyebrows and pinch him at the same time. “And how do you plan to do that, Madam?”
“To do what, Your Grace?”
“Restore this place to its former glory.” He swept an arm; the painting fell off the wall, and he kicked it aside.
“With licks of cloth.” Beatrice picked up the watercolor, which depicted a group of small beasts peering out of long grass. “By not leaving fallen things on the floor.” She set the painting on a nearby table. “With water and soap and lemon oil. And paint and paper and hammer and nail.”
“You cannot ask for such effort from my staff.”
Beatrice hesitated. “They have told me…what they are.”
“They may if they like.”
“They are great in age, are they not?”
“They are, and would die of broken hearts should they be pensioned off.” His concern for their well-being was clear.
“Therefore, to keep them active and productive, I shall not ask them to do what is outside their ability,” Beatrice said. “How you do jump to conclusions, Osborn. One would take you for a frog.”
***
A frog? He would not take the bait. Nor was he a fish.
“I will not be overrun by footmen as Lowell is,” Arthur said. “It is well known he has a penchant for taking in the runts of every species and cluttering his corridors with the nation’s unwanted offspring.”
“How thoughtful of him. I marvel once again that your kind do not seek to emulate his ways.” Madam did that thing that made her skirts dance around her ankles. He imagined her ankles were as tiny as her wrists. He was lost musing on this until he realized she was nearly at the top of the stairs.
“Take care!” He caught her before disaster struck. “This tread is unsafe.”
“My thanks,” she said, breathless, blushing.
He looked at his hands, which of their own volition had grabbed her upper arms to set her upon the landing.
“Mind your way of going,” he said, shoving the culprits into his pockets.
Madam turned away. “As I was saying,” she continued, “the staff are the sole reason this place is not an utter ruin. As long as they wish to serve, they will. Otherwise, and only if it is their desire, they may be pensioned into one of the cottages that ring the eastern border of the holding. Once they are restored to use. If that suits.”
“I doubt it would suit any of them to be exiled to the eastern border.” What did she know about his holdings?
“Then they will remain.” She stopped before the end of the corridor in front of a room laid waste by Hallbjorn. “This is, as you say, too much for them to make right.” She turned and headed back to the landing. “A chore greater than Mr. Todd and I can manage.”
“You will not lift a finger.” He’d never hear the end of it from Morag should he allow Madam to do so.
“I assure you I am not so delicate I cannot wield a mop.”
“I assure you thatdelicateis the last word I would use to describe you.”
Madam stopped and looked at him with those blue eyes of hers, those summer-sky eyes.
Shelookedat him. Without the ever-present distance.
She looked at him with warmth, and his chest expanded.
“I am pleased to hear it.” Madam climbed the next staircase, and he followed without minding where she was taking them.
The second floor.
