She did something which she had never expected to do, something which no lady should ever have done—but then, she told herself grimly afterwards, I am no lady, and for sure, for all his title, he is no gentleman! She slapped him across the face with all her strength.
Her blow broke the paralysis which had afflicted them all. Hubbub ensued. Hal rose slowly to his feet, staring at this unlikely lordship. Jeb gave a whistling roar into the silence which followed Stacy’s blow, and then began to clap his hands slowly. ‘Well struck, madam,’ he called to her from his post by the wall.
For his part Matt Falconer held his flaming cheek, and slowly admitted to himself that he should never have allowed his hot temper, long reined in during his years in the United States, to take him over now that he was back in England again and incite him to taunt this headstrong shrew—however much she had deserved it. And now least said, soonest mended. He picked up a towel and began to dry his hands.
He didn’t immediately address Stacy but said, almost mildly, to the triumphant woman who was defying him, ‘I told you not to call me m’lord, and I meant it. I am Matt, Mr Matt, or Mr Falconer to you.’
Stacy, overwhelmed by her own unladylike behaviour, conscious only of poor, sick Louisa’s reproachful stare, murmured hollowly to him, ‘She called you m’lord. Was that another lie in this house of liars, which you, the biggest liar of them all, are supremely fit to head?’
Matt held on to his temper. A hard feat, since he could see that the cross-grained bitch in front of him now had the upper hand, the moral hand, and would use it to provoke him further. She had a tongue like a striking adder, and no mistake.
‘Strictly speaking, madam…’
Stacy, lost to everything, resembling, had she but known it, her father in one of his rare and formidable tempers, raged at him. ‘You can speak strictly, then? I had thought insolence was more your line. But pray continue,’ she added, poisonously sweet, as she saw him open his mouth. To explain presumably. But what explanation could mend this?
She no longer wanted her bed. She wanted to see m’lord whoever-he-was grovelling before her. Nothing less would do.
Matt decided not to bandy words with her. They had an audience, fascinated by the sight of their masters engaged in a ding-dong, knock-down quarrel in front of them, instead of it taking place decently in private. What a rare treat! And all the time in the world to enjoy it, since it was plain that they were all, except possibly the housekeeper, trapped in the kitchens for the night.
‘Strictly speaking,’ he said between his splendid teeth, his eyes still defying her whatever his tongue might say, ‘I am Matthew Falconer, Lord Radley—Earl Falconer’s heir. I prefer, however, to be known as Matt Falconer.’
‘Oh, I thought your preference was to be known as the butler,’ returned Stacy nastily, green eyes flashing, while inwardly she said to herself, Matt Falconer—now wasn’t he involved in some massive scandal when I was barely out of childhood? And no wonder, carrying on as he does.
‘Something wrong with butlers, is there?’ gritted Matt, his own eyes shooting fire as he immediately forgot the resolution which he had just made, that he would be unfailingly polite to this icy hellcat—could hellcats be icy?—and giving her what his old nurse had used to call ‘what for’ again. ‘Unconsidered serfs, are they? I had sooner be a good butler than a bad nobleman any day.’
‘And, of course, being who you are,’ Stacy shot back, all discretion, all decency gone, now completely the true descendant of the rampantly outrageous pedlar who had made the Blanchard fortune, ‘you know all about bad noblemen, I’m sure!’
Jeb, who was busy counting the score for each side as though he were the referee at a boxing-match, saw that red rage was overcoming his employer. He had experienced it rarely, but he knew the signs. And for once Mad Matt had met his match in a woman whose icy deadliness equalled his fiery temperament.
How he mastered himself Matt never knew. Each fresh insult she offered him had him wishing that he could teach her a lesson, put her across his knee…Added to his rage was his sudden shocked horror at the knowledge that, of all dreadful things, he was becoming sexually roused.
What he really wanted to do was to take her in his arms, bear her to the floor and show her who was master…
He shook his head to clear it, rebuked his misbehaving body, and ground out, ‘No useful purpose is served by our being at odds in this situation, madam. I apologise to you for my deception.’ Which, had he ended there, might have done the trick, but the sight of her small contemptuous smile had him adding, ‘Although you must admit that you did come on too strong from the beginning.’
Behind them Jeb gave a groan, and Hal, forgetting his mistress’s orders, grew angry with the arrogant swine all over again. Lord he might be, but his mistress was right. He was no gentleman.
Stacy was also ready to restart the battle. Just because he was a man, an aristocrat, was big and strong, and, it must be admitted, in an odd way handsome, that was no reason for him to think that he could speak to her as he pleased, but as she opened her mouth to deliver another broadside she was stopped by her companion.
Louisa Landen had watched the affray with growing horror, and total surprise at seeing Stacy, who was usually so cool and controlled, so completely and utterly lost to all ladylike as well as decent behaviour. At first she had felt too weak to intervene, but was now so shocked by the behaviour of both parties that she cried feebly, ‘Stacy, oh, Stacy. I feel so ill! Do leave off wrangling, my love, I need you.’
This had the effect of Stacy exclaiming remorsefully, ‘Oh, Louisa, forgive me! I had quite forgot how ill you are.’
While Matt Falconer remarked nastily, ‘Stacy? I had thought that you had informed me that your name was Anna!’
Stacy dodged this question, which proved that he was not the only liar in the kitchen, by running over to Louisa, putting a hand on her hot forehead and murmuring, ‘Oh, dear, you have a strong fever.’ She looked across at the housekeeper, who, amused by what she had provoked, was standing there mumchance, being, like the rest of the servants, content to leave her betters to their quarrel. ‘Have you no willow-bark, madam, which we may infuse to break my companion’s fever?’
A learned shrew, was Matt’s grim inward comment as he turned his attention to the cooling water in the stone sink—to have the little maid twitter at him, ‘Oh, you should not be doing that, sir. Allow me,’ and try to push him to one side.
‘Nor he should,’ drawled Jeb. ‘Even if you were the butler, Matt, you wouldn’t be washing up. Most remiss of you. Should have given you away immediately—if everyone was in their right mind, that is.’
Taking this remark as a reflection on herself, Stacy, her language deteriorating further, pronounced in her most deadly manner, calculated to bring idle clerks to heel, ‘And who the devil may you be, to speak to both me and Lord Radley so impudently?’
Before Matt could answer Jeb executed a low bow. ‘Matt’s man, ma’am, right hand and factotum. Adviser, too, as you may have gathered.’
‘Your man, m’lord!’ Stacy was all indignation. ‘And you allow him to speak to you so insolently? Did you learn your manners from him, or he from you? No matter,’ she added hastily, as Matt flung down his washcloth and began to advance on her. ‘Pray do not disturb yourself; you will never finish the washing-up at this rate!’
Only Louisa Landen, throwing a conniption fit—Jeb’s words—at this point, stopped both Matt and Stacy from prolonging their slanging-match into the night’s watches.
As Stacy, remorseful again, bent over Louisa, that good lady hissed at her, ‘For shame, Stacy, and use your common sense if it hasn’t quite flown away. You do no good bandying words with him. He has an answer for everything.’
‘And so do I, madam,’ retorted Stacy between her excellent teeth, ‘so do I.’
‘Quite