“Might I make a suggestion?” Imogen said.
Those blue eyes turned on her, dark eyebrows arched above them.
“Please do.”
“The strays always look far more attractive,” she said, “after they have been tended and fed for a while. They gain weight, and their coats become thicker and shinier. There are surely a number of people who would be more willing to take in an attractive pet that needs a home than a mere stray which has never had one.”
“Oh, dear Imogen,” Aunt Lavinia said, “I am sure you must be right. All little girls want a cat or a dog. I did. Little boys too, I daresay. And perhaps the Misses Kramer or . . .”
“I never wanted an animal,” Cousin Adelaide said, winning for herself a look of acute distress from Aunt Lavinia and one of fleeting amusement from the earl.
He had stepped away from the door to allow two maids to enter and pick up the trays. Imogen noticed that his eyes rested thoughtfully upon one of them, a thin girl with stooped shoulders who was a deaf-mute, though he had no way of knowing that yet since he had not spoken to her. Mr. Soames, the physician, had been in the process of finding an insane asylum for her after her father, a farm laborer, died. But Aunt Lavinia had stepped in with a solution of her own.
“You are suggesting, Cousin Imogen,” the earl said when the trays had been borne away, “that we run a sort of pet-grooming business here, free of charge, to supply our neighbors with pretty cats and handsome dogs over which their children and womenfolk may coo with tenderness?”
Aunt Lavinia looked as if she was holding her breath.
“In a word, yes,” Imogen said. “Though I believe you used the wrong pronoun. I do not suppose for a moment that we would do any such thing. I cannot imagine you feeding or petting stray animals, Cousin Percy, especially ugly ones. Or loving them.”
“Oh, Imogen, dear,” Aunt Lavinia said reproachfully.
The earl pursed his lips. “My contribution would be the house and the food, I suppose,” he said.
“Yes,” she told him, “though I do think perhaps a corner of the stables could be prepared for Fluff, who will be birthing her kittens soon.”
“What?” His eyebrows snapped together.
“Oh, the whole world loves a kitten,” Imogen said. “They will be easy to place once they are ready to leave their mother.”
He gazed at her narrow-eyed and then transferred his attention to Aunt Lavinia.
“No more strays in the house, ma’am,” he said gently enough. “Besides, it is to be hoped that you have denuded the neighborhood of the lot of them by now. I will give directions for a nest to be prepared in the stables. Perhaps . . . Fluff will prove to be a decent mouser and can earn her living out there after delivering herself of her kittens. I shall talk to you some other time about the human strays. I believe I have just seen one of them in the guise of a maid.”
“Annie Prewett?” Aunt Lavinia said. “She is a good girl. She does exactly as she is told once she understands what that is. Provided she can see your lips as you speak and you speak slowly, she understands.”
He continued gazing at her for a few moments before looking back at Imogen.
“Has the waltz penetrated this far into the wilderness?” he asked her. “If so, you will reserve the first of them for me at the village assembly. If you please. I will not hoof it around the floor with someone who does not know how it is done, and I daresay you do.”
It sounded like a command to Imogen, though he had added the words if you please.
Mr. Alton was the one who usually waltzed with her, his plump, always somewhat moist hands at her waist and clasped about her own. Waltzing with the Earl of Hardford would surely be an improvement upon that severe trial. She felt an unexpected frisson of pleasurable anticipation.
“Thank you,” she said. “I shall consult my dancing card.”
He grinned at her suddenly, and that frisson leaped up into something that quite unsettled her stomach. For that grin was not his usual smile of practiced charm, but seemed to be one of genuine appreciation.
“I shall challenge to pistols at dawn any man other than myself who dares write his name next to the first waltz in your card,” he said, making her a slight bow.
Good heavens, was he flirting with her? Was his arrogance such that he thought he could draw even her within the orbit of his charm?
She raised her eyebrows and looked coolly back at him while Aunt Lavinia laughed and Cousin Adelaide snorted.
* * *
There was an image of the country gentleman that had always been singularly unappealing to Percy. It was that of the landowner who tramped about his land in ill-fitting coat and breeches and shapeless boots, sturdy staff in hand, faithful dog at heel, discussing crops and livestock and the weather with his foremen and laborers, and crop rotations and markets and the weather with his steward, horseflesh and bonnets and the weather with his neighbors, and the weather and the Lord knew what else with all and sundry while kicking up his heels at their various entertainments and admiring their hopeful, fresh-faced daughters.
Heaven help him, he thought during the following days, but he was in sore danger of becoming that country gentleman himself. He could be in London, he thought the afternoon following the first wave of visits—there were others—enjoying himself even if the Season had not yet begun and town was thin of company. He could be at Tattersall’s or Jackson’s boxing saloon or calling upon his tailor or his boot maker or be in his bed sleeping off the effects of last night’s carousing with friends—or enjoying the favors of a new mistress. Instead, he was looking about Ratchett’s dusty office and suggesting that with his superior skills the head steward—at that point Ratchett was the only steward, but that was a minor point—ought to be able to spend all his time in the office, engaged in the invaluable task of keeping the books in order, while a younger, less skilled and experienced man, an underling, in fact, undertook the mundane day-to-day task of running the farms and suggesting ideas for change and improvement. A second steward, that was, who could benefit from the advice and guidance of the head man. A subordinate, of course. A sort of disciple, in fact.