Page 23 of Time for You
“Miss Griffin? Is anything amiss?” he said, and she jerked to attention.
“Sorry, uh—here,” she said, and shoved the bag at him. “Clothes. You should be able to figure out how to get them on.”
Henry emerged from the bathroom several minutes later, mercifully dressed. Daphne had chosen the clothes he was wearing, had seen him in a hospital gown, and had seen him in just a towel earlier, so she should have been prepared. She should have been, but she wasn’t.
At. All.
It was a shame he lived in a time of three-piece suits, because he was born to wear a Henley. Those forearms were poetry worthy, honestly. His hair curled above his ears as it dried, and he eyed her warily.
Daphne couldn’t blame him. It was easier for her with everyone else around, too.
Henry looked around expectantly. “Where are they?”
“They had to leave earlier, remember?” Daphne prompted.Maybe he does have a major TBI, after all, if his short-term memory is this bad.
“Not them.” Henry sighed.
“Then who?”
“Your servants. I assumed, given the other dwelling was unoccupied, that they had traveled with their employer to her other estate, but you ladies must certainly employ some? A charwoman, perhaps?”
Daphne snorted. She had no idea what a charwoman was, maybe someone who ... charbroiled things? That didn’t seem like it would be a whole job, but maybe it used to be. “No, we don’t haveservants.”
“I thought Ellie said you weren’t poor?”
There was something about his haughty tone that irritated her, and she rolled her eyes. “No one has servants anymore unless you’re like, royalty or some shit.”
“Truly? Then how do things get done?”
“We do them ourselves, believe it or not.”
“So you aren’t ladies, then?”
This was easily the most annoying conversation she’d had with him yet, and that was saying something. “I honestly don’t even know what that means.”
Henry sighed, equally irritated with her. “Women of quality.”
“You think having live-in servants is a sign of inherent morality? That we’re beneath you? What sort of fucked-up time do you come from?”
“That’s not what—”
“No, it is what you said. And look, I get that you’re really freaked out, but that doesn’t mean you get to insult my morals or whatever. I could have just left you on the street, you know.”
“I know, my lady, but—”
“And that’s another thing. Stop calling memy lady. If you want to be formal, you can call me Dr. Griffin, and if you can’t bring yourself to address a woman asdoctor, then just call me Daphne. But enough with thismy ladyshit, okay?”
He glared at her. “I do not mean to offend,” he started.
“And yet you do, constantly,” she grumbled.
Henry ignored her. “I cannot undo years of good breeding overnight,my lady. But I did not mean to impugn your character or manners. I simply meant where—when—I am from, people of higher social status, such as I believed you and your friends to be, have servants. As you do not, I was forced to assume that here, now, this must be poverty?”
“Jesus, no.”
Another glare. His eyes flashed when he did that, and she felt an answering tug in her belly that didn’t quite match her annoyance. “Then explain it to me, rather than sneering at my ignorance,” he said.
Okay, that was fair enough. Daphne leashed her temper as best she could. “In the twenty-first century, we don’t have servants. Almost no one does these days, aside from like, people with way, way too much money. Ellie and I make more than a lot of people, but nowhere near that much. We just do stuff ourselves, rather than have servants live with us.”
