Page 19 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘Letitia was training to be an acrobat before she broke her wrist. She’s been told she’ll never swing again. Poor thing. She’s quite sad about it. The prospect of steady employment has buoyed her spirits incredibly.’ Rosanna raised the teapot and poured a cup for Phineas, then for herself, just like Mama would have done.
Phineas dropped his paper to the table. When he spoke, his voice rang low and serious. ‘You can’t just bring people in. I need to check their backgrounds.’
‘Then check them. But I can’t imagine the streets of Soho and audition lines around theatres are places where miscreants and criminal masterminds gather, all plotting how they can make their way onto the staff of Phineas Babbage.’
He was not a man for obvious tells, but there… in the squint of one eye and the slight tensing of his shoulder, she could see he was thinking. He took an easy breath, then turned to her with a sharp look.
‘What if they talk?’
‘They’reactors.’ She waved at the air, licked a finger, and turned another page. ‘No one will believe them.’ She slid the catalogue across the table. ‘What do you think of these curtains?’
Phineas lowered himself onto a chair and put a piece of toast onto his plate, then looked up. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Toast is so proletariat. Have a croissant. Our new cook Jean is from France. Learnt from her grandmother. They are the best pastries you’ve ever tasted. Try one.’
Phineas pushed the catalogue away and shook out his paper to scan the headlines. ‘You do not need new furnishings. You will be here for a few weeks. Maybe less. These are sufficient.’ Phineas gestured at the windows without looking at the heavy black lengths that half covered them. ‘And I prefer toast.’
Rosanna had just been about to lick her fingertip again, but at Phineas’s instruction, she paused, the point of her tongue wetting her lower lip. A dash of something flashed in his eyes. Was it humour? Anger? Or discomfort, maybe?
Find their weakness, he’d said. Had she, perhaps, found his? What adelightfuldiscovery.
‘I am a newly wed wife,’ she countered, sitting a little straighter as she assessed him for a response. ‘I will not receive callers to an austere home with limewash walls. You needn’t fret. I have sufficient funds in my own accounts to cover the expense. Just sign them off like a doting husband would.’
‘No curtains.’ He twisted in his chair. ‘Felix! Fresh toast!’
A shape appeared at the door, and Phineas’s shoulders relaxed, but he quickly tensed again. Hugh, recently appointed butler, tugged his fringe in a deprecating move that betrayed his origins in the countryside.
‘Excuse me, miss. Milady. My miss lady, my Lady Babbage, there are many trunks in the hallway. And hat boxes. What would you like me to do with them?’
‘Oh, my things!’ Rosanna laughed and clapped her hands together with glee. ‘Have them brought up to my room. It’s at the end of the hall, on the floor directly above this one.’
Hugh bent into a perfect stage bow. He backed out of the room slowly, rolling his hand the entire time, then, just beyond the threshold, turned and dashed out of sight.
‘No curtains,’ Phineas repeated. A twist of anger contorted his cheeks and narrowed his eyes. ‘No new staff until I’ve cleared them. And toast, not bloody croissants. I do not like croissants at breakfast!’ He snatched a pastry from the pile and, in some bizarre illustration of his point, tore off an angry mouthful. As he methodically chewed, his jaw lost its tension, and his eyes fluttered just a little.
‘Delicious, aren’t they?’ Rosanna said.
Phineas looked down, grumbling as he spotted bits of pastry on his shirt. He slapped the croissant onto the plate, where it bounced, only to roll over the side of the table, leaving a trail of thin tan flakes in its wake. He pointed an accusatory finger. ‘No redecorating my house, Hempel. It is completely unnecessary.’ And he rose from his chair and stomped down the hall, his footfalls echoing.
‘People will judge me,’ she called after him. ‘They will say I am lacking in taste. I will not have gossip suggest that I was a wife without style, and that my husband left because I did not create a comforting home.’ The only answer was silence. Rosannadashed to the door and leant into the hallway. ‘Iwillhave new furnishings, Phineas Babbage, or you will find yourself without a conveniently placed wife!’
The front door banged shut.
Rosanna returned to her chair.
‘That settles that, then,’ she said, and picked up her catalogue once more.
Morning shadows cast by the tall townhouses enveloped the carriage house and stables. Although the overhead sky blazed a brilliant blue, a cool breeze nipped at the small patches of exposed skin between Rosanna’s sleeve cuff and her riding gloves.
All her life, she had never been alone. There had always been siblings and noise, and then nannies and governesses and chaperones and someone to watch over her. But today? Today, as a married woman with the veneer of a husband who felt nothing as bothersome as jealousy, she was, perhaps for the first time in her life, free.
Rosanna moved beneath the carriage house arch and into the stable. A familiar nicker greeted her. Lovelace, her head hanging low over the open half of the stable door, nudged Rosanna’s shoulder and puffed a humid, straw-scented breath over her cheek. Rosanna pulled an apple from her pocket. Lovelace nudged her, then nibbled at the peace offering.
‘I’m sorry we didn’t go out yesterday. I was busy with that bossy man. Did you miss me?’
Her horse grumbled something like denial as she crunched the apple. Rosanna rubbed Lovelace’s nose. ‘I didn’t miss you either.’
Mr Brown, groom to her parents’ carriage horses and the only man Rosanna would trust with Lovelace, led the horse from its box and passed her the reins. ‘Do you need me to fetch the mounting block from next door, miss? I mean, ma’am? I looked, but Mr Babbage doesn’t seem to have one.’
