“I know how—” Rafe stopped short at their infuriating grins. How the hell had he managed to form a household with two eccentric, impudent women who nagged him more than his own nursemaid ever had?
“The countess is nervous,” he explained. “I am waiting until we know each other better.”
“Never talking to her will help with that,” Sally said dryly, and Rafe muttered dark curses all the way back to his rooms.
No sooner had he dressed and dismissed his valet than the footmen brought his dinner. Rafe drummed his fingers on the mantelpiece as they laid out his meal, following the same routine they had for years.
One bowl of vegetable soup. One dinner plate. One glass of syllabub and raspberries. One set of silverware. One goblet. One serviette.
Two chairs.
“Must you do that with quite so much sarcasm?” Rafe said.
“My lord?”
“If you’ve something to say, spit it out.”
The two servants exchanged nervous looks.
“Ah. Dinner is served?” one of them hazarded, and removed the last cover from the dinner plate, to reveal potatoes, French beans, and half a small roast duck.
Half. It was a blasted conspiracy.
Waving the servants away, Rafe pulled out his chair. The empty chair opposite smirked. The half fowl said nothing. The image of Thea’s bright blue eyes filled his mind.
“All be damned,” Rafe muttered, and replaced everything onto the tray and hefted it into his arms.
The door to Thea’s parlor was ajar, so Rafe kicked it open and barged in, to see Thea alone at her dining table. She leaped to her feet, dropping her soup spoon with a clatter, and fidgeted with her dress. It was an elegant gown in pale green; it had long sleeves and a modest bodice and still managed to reveal acres of creamy, touchable skin. Matching green ribbons were woven through her hair, and her complexion flaunted a new glow from her outdoor adventures that day, as if she had brought home the sunshine.
“No talking.” Rafe dumped his tray and offloaded his plates onto the table. “We will dine together, because you don’t like to dine alone. But I don’t like talking. So no talking. Understood?”
She nodded rapidly, her lips pressed together in an exaggerated manner. Once she had resumed her seat, he poured wine and sat too. In silence, they dipped their spoons into their soup and ate.
The vegetable soup was tasty, and Rafe tried hard to ignore Thea, but it was difficult when she sat across from him, and might or might not have an alluring dusting of pale freckles on the skin above her bodice, and so his eyes kept drifting back to her.
Which was why he saw her fierce frown as she pushed away her empty soup bowl. He followed her gaze: She was glaring at his glass of syllabub as though it had accused her of cheating at cards. Then she gave her head a little shake as if to clear it, half smiled into the air, and turned her attention to her roast duck and beans. Yet as she ate, her gaze wandered back to his syllabub. Again she frowned; again she shook it off.
This ferocious internal argument continued throughout their meal, until Rafe could bear it no more.
“What?” he demanded. “What is it?”
Her eyes opened wide. “I never said a word. You don’t like talking and I’m not talking.”
“You are thinking. I can hear you thinking.”
“Then I shall think more quietly.”
“You seem upset.”
Again, she frowned, first at his side of the table, and then at her own, and sighed. “I’m not upset. I am merely…confused.”
“About what?”
“I cannot help but observe that your meal includes syllabub and raspberries.”
“So it does.”
“But mine does not. That is all.”
She carved the last of the meat from her half of the bird, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed with dignified fury.
Rafe examined the table. “True. Your meal is entirely devoid of syllabub and raspberries, or indeed, syllabub and fruit of any kind.”
“No doubt there is an excellent reason why the earl has syllabub but the countess does not.”
“You want dessert, call a servant for it.”
“No!” Her knife and fork clattered to the plate and she tidied them. “I do not wish to antagonize them. I can live without syllabub.” She heaved a sigh that would put the most tragic of martyrs to shame. “I suppose all the best countesses must suffer deprivation.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” He shoved the glass across the table. “Have mine.”
“I can’t take yours!”
“Take it!”
“How noble and self-sacrificing of you, my lord! To go without dessert! So stoic. So honorable. So—”