Page 18 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
“I see you came in with less…alacrity than our previous meeting,” he said by way of greeting. “I congratulate you on keeping your feet.”
She flushed. “I usually am quite agile,” she informed him, her eyes rising to meet his. He caught his breath, only to have it taken from him. “Tell me, Your Grace, have you swept many such as I off their feet?”
“I daresay you are unique in that honor,” he said with a short bow, made awkward by the fact that they were seated. “Though it made for quite a memorable experience, did it not, for our first meeting?”
She frowned a little at that. “It hardly qualifies as a ‘first meeting’ when we exchanged no more than three words between us.”
“I came to the house, and you were here. We spoke. Indeed, I must insist that we call such a meeting as that our first. Would you not agree, Barrington?” he asked, seeing that good gentleman following this exchange avidly.
“As host, I shall keep clear of this discussion and attend to this lovely lady seated on my right. Mrs. Prescott, what a pleasure to have you here tonight.” With that, he turned his attention entirely on the banker’s wife, who blushed prettily under the attention and positively preened when Barrington offered her a compliment.
Helena though was not so happy, which was surprising given her role in being the instigator of the whole affair, whether she realized it or not. James decided he was rather going to enjoy this evening and even went so far as to smile at her when she looked this way.
With a quick glance, she saw Phoebe being caught up in conversation with the gentleman on her left and seemed to be paying no attention to either of them at this moment. Helena very pointedly dropped her napkin on the floor between them, giving James a sharp look, followed by an even sharper kick under the table when he failed to respond.
James winced and would have kicked back had she been a man. Instead, he bent forward to retrieve the cloth and hand it to her. Her hand closed on his. “What are you doing?” she hissed, almost in his ear.
“Following the Rules of Proper Etiquette better than you are, I suspect. I might blame it on lack of practice on your part. I hear you fail to take meals regularly with the family.”
Helena’s face suffused with color. “You think that twitting me about my habits regarding meals is following the Rules of the ton?”
“I suspect that the fact that I fail to kick individuals at the dinner table might give me something of an edge there over you,” he shot back, loving the way her hair tickled his nose when she leaned in like that. He offered her the napkin and retreated to his own space.
“What was that about?” Phoebe asked, batting her eyes at him, acting every inch the maiden fresh from her coming out while the server struggled to set down her plate in front of her, a feat that would have been made easier had she not been playing with her own napkin.
The server managed the task and moved on to him, thankfully forcing a break in this particular conversation. Feeling somewhat caught between the two ladies, James turned back toward Helena and found her glaring at the soup set before her.
“Do you not enjoy the soup?” he asked her gaily, starting to enjoy this strange conversation.
“I would enjoy it more, upon this our FIRST meeting if we could come to an understanding,” she said, picking up her spoon.
“So soon? Why we have only just met. And I was under the impression that this was an experiment in the ways of courtship alone, without a demand of commitment now or at the end.”
“You know full well that that is not of which I was speaking!” she cried, nearly upsetting her soup bowl.
“Careful,” he said, moving one hand coming up to save the bowl in time to prevent a disaster.
“You are deliberately misunderstanding me!” Helena flushed when the other dinner guests paused in their conversation, all eyes coming to rest upon her.
James leaned forward to taste his soup, finding it very much to his liking and oddly enough was rather pleased to be dining in such fine surroundings. Since the disaster with the ships, he had been forced to let many of the servants go.
Lucy had gone so far as to cook for them of late, insisting that since he no longer needed a governess, then at the least she should do something worthwhile within the household rather than be just another mouth to feed. Sadly, she lacked any true skill, though she made up for her shortcomings with her enthusiasm.
He quite frankly needed to tell Lucy that if she wished so much to work for him, that she needed to find a position more in keeping with her abilities, but she was long past the ability to act as a maid, and he had little idea what else to suggest. At least she managed the kitchen staff well enough.
“If you are being made uncomfortable by this conversation then perhaps it is because you are feeling forced into it?” James said with a smile in Helena’s direction.
Helena threw down her spoon. “You are enjoying this far too much!”
“And you nowhere near enough, given what this is costing you,” he said softly, returning to his soup with a certain pleasure.
Her face had gone pale, and for a moment he thought he might have gone too far, especially when Helena threw her head back and laughed. It was a sound half hysterical, and near a sob.
Correction. I have most assuredly gone too far.
He had been acting childish for the sole reason that it had been easy to get a rise out of her. But Helena had indeed paid for his time, and so he must need to give it to her, in the way she had intended to gain it.
James shot a glance around the table, eyeing each of the participants of this impromptu dinner party. No one seemed to be paying them any mind, not even Phoebe who had been trapped into a long, drawn-out story that the banker had trapped him with only the week before. He would not put it past her father to be paying closer attention to this particular conversation than he seemed to be.
