“There are people,” she said, “who cannot find work for one reason or another.”
He stopped in his tracks again and looked at her, appalled. “If I were to wander into the nether regions of the house,” he said, “or into the stables, I would find all the maimed and criminally inclined vagabonds of the world eating me out of house and home, would I?”
One of the maids who had come to make up his bed last night had been lame and looked as if she might be a bit simpleminded too.
“Not all,” she said. “And those you would find are usefully employed and earning the food for which you pay. More gardeners and stable hands were needed by the time my father-in-law died, and the indoor staff had grown rather sparse. Aunt Lavinia has a tender heart, but she was never able to give it room while her brother lived. He was content with life as it had always been. He disliked change more and more as he grew older and after he lost Dicky.”
“One of these strays is, I suppose, Mrs. Ferby,” he said. “Cousin Adelaide, who is not under any circumstances to be called Addie.”
“I suppose you were given an account at breakfast of the seven-month marriage, were you?” she said. “She has to live upon the charity of her relatives since she has almost no private means, and Aunt Lavinia convinced herself that bringing a companion to the house was the respectable thing to do after she was left alone. Perhaps she was even right. And her chosen companion is a relative.”
“Not of mine,” he said testily. “I can understand why you would rather I went back to where I came from, Lady Barclay.”
“Well, you do seem to have managed very well without Hardford Hall for the past two years,” she said. “Now, having come here on what seems to be some sort of whim, you have whipped yourself into a thoroughly bad temper. Why not go away and forget about our peculiar ways and be sweet-tempered again?”
“A thoroughly bad temper?” The dog whimpered and cowered at his feet. “You have not seen me in a bad temper, ma’am.”
“It must be a very disagreeable sight, then,” she said. “And like all bad-tempered men, you have a tendency to turn your wrath upon the wrong person. I am not the one who has neglected Hardford and the farms belonging to it. I am not the one who has filled the house with strays without a clear plan for what to do with them. I am not the one who brought Cousin Adelaide here as a companion, with the full knowledge that she will remain here for the rest of her life. Under normal circumstances, I mind my own business in my own house and make no demands upon the estate or anyone on it.”
“The most abhorrent type of person on this earth,” he said, narrow eyed, “is the one who remains cool and reasonable when being quarreled with. Are you always cool, Lady Barclay? Are you always like a block of marble?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“And now see what you have done,” he told her. “You have provoked me into unpardonable rudeness. Again. I am never rude. I am usually all sweetness and charm.”
“That is because you are usually in a different universe,” she said, “one that revolves about you. The Peninsula was full of rude, blustering officers who believed other people had been created to pay them homage. I always thought they were merely silly and best ignored.”
And she turned, the baggage, and began walking back the way they had come. She did not look behind her to see if he was following. He was not. He stood where he was, his arms folded over his chest, until she was out of earshot. Then he looked down at the dog.
“If there is a type of woman that grates upon my every nerve more than any other,” Percy said, “it is the type that always has to have the last word. Rude and blustering. Silly. SILLY! ‘I always thought they were best ignored.’ For two pins I would go straight to the stables, mount my horse, and set its head for London. Forget about this ungodly place. Let you and all your playmates overrun the house until it is derelict. Let the earl’s apartments turn to mildew. Let that steward turn into a fossil in his dusty office. Leave Lady Lavinia Hayes alone with her cousin and her bleeding heart. Let that marble pillar beggar herself with the bill for her roof and all the other repairs that are bound to be needed. Let the tide ebb and flow against the cliffs until eternity wears them away and both houses fall off.”
Hector had no opinion to offer, and there was no point in Percy’s standing here, pointlessly venting his frustration as he watched the cause of it recede into the distance.