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‘The cook here is excellent,’ put in Hugo. ‘I can vouch for that.’
‘No doubt,’ said the Duke. ‘Since you have been availing yourself of his services for the past se’ennight.’
‘Only five nights, in point of fact,’ said Hugo smugly.
‘Thank you, Hugo,’ said Gregory repressively. ‘There is no need to dwell on that just now. Is the soup to your liking, Miss Carstairs?’ he asked, turning to her.
‘The soup? You want to talk about the soup?’
He gave her a look that was almost as quelling as the one he’d directed at Hugo. It made her want to seize the tureen and upend it over his head. But she wasn’t going to allow him to goad her into that kind of behaviour.
‘The soup is delicious,’ she said, satisfying herself with imagining it dripping down his clothes.
The Duke of Halstead—for now that he was speaking in that odiously pompous manner she couldn’t think of him as anything less—turned to Mr Bodkin.
‘And you, Mr Bodkin? Everything is to your satisfaction, I trust?’
Mr Bodkin mumbled something indistinguishable, his face glowing an even deeper shade of red than it had been when Gregory had commended his manners while criticising Hugo’s.
The poor man. As well as feeling out of place, he must now feel out of his depth, with all the undercurrents swirling between the diners seated at this table.
Lady Mixby tried to lighten the atmosphere by launching into typical dinner table conversation. But since it was mostly about people Prudence had never heard of, and events she’d never considered before, it only had the effect of making her feel a strong kinship with Mr Bodkin. And although she knew that they couldn’t possibly talk about anything very confidential or meaningful in front of the servants, every time a new dish came to the table she grew more and more tempted to empty the contents over the Duke’s head. Which in turn reinforced her earlier fears that she didn’t belong here. Because what kind of woman would empty the soup tureen over the head of a duke?
But at length the servants stopped scurrying to and fro, ceased depositing fresh courses on the table and whisking away the old ones. Sam deftly removed the cloth and Perkins brought in a decanter of port on a silver salver. Lady Mixby stood up, signalling that it was time for the ladies to withdraw to...wherever it was that ladies went in this house. Prudence would just have to follow Lady Mixby and Benderby, who’d also risen from her place.
As she got to her feet Mr Bodkin shot her a look bordering on panic. She could heartily sympathise with his reluctance to be left to the tender mercies of Gregory and Hugo. At least while she’d been at table he hadn’t been the only one feeling like a fish out of water.
Hugo had been wriggling in his seat like a schoolboy waiting to be let out of lessons for some time. He was evidently itching to have Gregory to himself so they could settle up over their wager.
As the men rose to their feet, she wondered whether she could breach protocol by inviting Mr Bodkin to join the ladies. She was just about to suggest it when Gregory picked up the decanter and made for the door which Perkins was holding open.
‘Hi, where are you going with that?’ Hugo objected.
‘The morning room,’ said Gregory. ‘We shall all be more comfortable there.’
‘I shan’t,’ said Hugo.
‘Hugo,’ Gregory growled. ‘I told you I was not going to discuss...anything with you before I had explained it all to Miss Carstairs.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘The sooner we get it all out into the open the better,’ said Gregory implacably. ‘Lady Mixby, you will forgive us if just this once we break with tradition and accompany you to the morning room, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she said at once. ‘I am positively agog with curiosity.’ She flushed. ‘Not that I... I mean of course I’m sure it is none of my business, but... Oh, do come along, Hugo!’ She turned a beseeching look in his direction. ‘Nothing so exciting has happened in this family for an age. I, for one, cannot wait to hear Halstead’s account of how he met Miss Carstairs, and if he says he wishes to give it in the morning room then I see no reason why we shouldn’t all go there at once.’
‘Miss Carstairs?’
He was actually deigning to ask her opinion?
‘It is well past time you explained yourself,’ she said. Her patience had been stretched thinner and thinner the longer the meal had dragged on, and it wasn’t going to take much for it to snap altogether. ‘And if you call me Miss Carstairs once more, in that odiously pompous way, it won’t be tradition that will be broken!’
