He almost shivered. He liked being watched by her.
“You said,” she continued, “that you were frequently serious, and that it is up to me to figure out when.”
“Is that what I said?” he murmured.
“Something rather close to it.”
“Well, then.” He leaned in closer, too, and his eyes captured hers, green on blue, across the breakfast table. “What do you think? Am I being serious right now?”
For a moment he thought she might answer him, but no, she just sat back with an innocent little smile and said, “I really couldn’t say.”
“You disappoint me, Miss Eversleigh.”
Her smile turned positively serene as she returned her attention to the food on her plate. “I couldn’t possibly render judgment on a subject so unfit for my ears,” she murmured.
He laughed aloud at that. “You have a very devious sense of humor, Miss Eversleigh.”
She appeared to be pleased by the compliment, almost as if she’d been waiting for years for someone to acknowledge it. But before she could say anything (if indeed she’d intended to say something), the moment was positively assaulted by the dowager, who marched into the breakfast room trailed by two rather harried and unhappy looking maids.
“What are you laughing about?” she demanded.
“Nothing in particular,” Jack replied, deciding to spare Miss Eversleigh the task of making conversation. After five years in the dowager’s service, the poor girl deserved a respite. “Just enjoying Miss Eversleigh’s enchanting company.”
The dowager shot them both a sharp look. “My plate,” she snapped. One of the maids rushed to the sideboard, but she was halted when the dowager said, “Miss Eversleigh will see to it.”
Grace stood without a word, and the dowager turned to Jack and said, “She is the only one who does it properly.” She shook her head and let out a short-tempered little puff of air, clearly lamenting the levels of intelligence commonly found in the servants.
Jack said nothing, deciding this would be as good a time as any to invoke his aunt’s favorite axiom: If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.
Although it was tempting to say something extraordinarily nice about the servants.
Grace returned, plate in hand, set it down in front of the dowager, and then gave it a little twist, turning the disk until the eggs were at nine o’clock, closest to the forks.
Jack watched the entire affair, first curious, then impressed. The plate had been divided into six equal, wedge-shaped sections, each with its own food selection. Nothing touched, not even the hollandaise sauce, which had been dribbled over the eggs with careful precision. “It’s a masterpiece,” he declared, arching forward. He was trying to see if she’d signed her name with the hollandaise.
Grace gave him a look. One that was not difficult to interpret.
“Is it a sundial?” he asked, all innocence.
“What are you talking about?” the dowager grumbled, picking up a fork.
“No! Don’t ruin it!” he cried out-as best he could without exploding with laughter.
But she jabbed a slice of stewed apple all the same.
“How could you?” Jack accused.
Grace actually turned in her chair, unable to watch.
“What the devil are you talking about?” the dowager demanded. “Miss Eversleigh, why are you facing the window? What is he about?”
Grace twisted back around, hand over her mouth. “I’m sure I do not know.”
The dowager’s eyes narrowed. “I think you do know.”
“I assure you,” Grace said, “I never know what he is about.”
“Never?” Jack queried. “What a sweeping comment. We’ve only just met.”
“It feels like so much longer,” Grace said.
“Why,” he mused, “do I wonder if I have just been insulted?”
“If you’ve been insulted, you shouldn’t have to wonder at it,” the dowager said sharply.
Grace turned to her with some surprise. “That’s not what you said yesterday.”
“What did she say yesterday?” Mr. Audley asked.
“He is a Cavendish,” the dowager said simply. Which, to her, explained everything. But she apparently held little faith in Grace’s deductive abilities, and so she said, as one might speak to a child, “We are different.”
“The rules don’t apply,” Mr. Audley said with a shrug. And then, as soon as the dowager was looking away, he winked at Grace. “What did she say yesterday?” he asked again.
Grace was not sure she could adequately paraphrase, given that she was so at odds with the overall sentiment, but she couldn’t very well ignore his direct question twice, so she said, “That there is an art to insult, and if one can do it without the subject realizing, it’s even more impressive.”
She looked over to the dowager, waiting to see if she would be corrected. “It does not apply,” the dowager said archly, “when one is the subject of the insult.”
“Wouldn’t it still be art for the other person?” Grace asked.
“Of course not. And why should I care if it were?” The dowager sniffed disdainfully and turned back to her breakfast. “I don’t like this bacon,” she announced.
“Are your conversations always this oblique?” Mr. Audley asked.
“No,” Grace answered, quite honestly. “It has been a most exceptional two days.”
No one had anything to add to that, probably because they were all in such agreement. But Mr. Audley did fill the silence by turning to the dowager and saying, “I found the bacon to be superb.”