She sat in one of the chairs near the food, and he sat across from her, scratching his growing stubble.
“Is your headache already improving?” she asked.
“Perhaps a bit? Not enough to say with any certainty at all.”
She frowned. “You’ve not shaved. You always shave.”
“I’m without a valet at the moment. I,ahem, fired him.”
“Why?”
“Nosy nuisance, you are.”
She grinned. “Why?”
He grinned, letting himself enjoy the only company he’d had all day besides Edmund. “He never talked.”
“I would think that would be a good quality in a valet.”
“Perhaps for some. My first valet—Hughes—was a chatty sort. He told me all about his family and ills and joys while he worked.”
Jane chewed her fingernail as she thought. “Didn’t he run off with one of our maids a few years ago?”
“He did. Sends me letters now and then. They have two children and live in Lime Regis and are very happy.”
Jane grinned, then tamed it. “But you are not. At least not with your valets.”
“I cannot deny it. He ruined me for a serious sort of valet. I’ve had at least three since Hughes left. I despair of finding a suitable replacement.”
“And by suitable you mean a chatterbox.”
“The chattiest of chatterboxes. And until then, and as long as one of my arms is not working properly, I shall have to go about stubbled. Now, Lady Jane, what have you brought for me? I’m not feeling particularly hungry, but”—his eyes dropped to the platter—“I’d prefer anything but that.”
“It may be broth, Sir George, but it’s sustaining.”
“It had better sustain me quickly to perfect health.” George wrinkled his nose but picked up a spoon and dipped it into the liquid without grumbling. He sipped from his spoon and peered at the rest of the platter.
Jane picked up her own spoon. “Cook tried to send a portion of what the others are having up for me, but I would not let her. It would not be sporting to eat such delicacies in front of a man forced to eat broth.”
“You are a saint, Lady Jane.”
They sipped their broth, the clink of spoons against china filling the warm corners of the room.
George watched her eat from the corner of his eye. She ate with a vigor that suggested the broth would not sustain her long. She’d be hungry again even before she’d finished her meal.
He sat his bowl and spoon aside. “Edmund said you spent some time with the suitors today. Did you make any progress?”
Jane set her own bowl aside, wiped the corners of her mouth with a cloth, and said, “I shall be direct, George.”
“Please do, especially if we have come to the part of the evening where you explain why you’ve decided to offer your companionship for this meal.” He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable seat and jolting his sensitive shoulder instead.
“I need your help.”
“I assume you refer to my help with choosing a suitor.”
“I do.”
“The same help I offered yesterday, and you rejected.”
