Page 28 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord

“That’s because she’s got people to do it for her,” Ben said. “I doubt she’s ever held a kitchen knife in her life. Ladies don’t have to dirty their hands with such things.” He reached for the bandage and began to wind it round her hand. “Probably the closest she’s come to cooking is setting a menu.”

Diana pressed her lips into a flat line. “My sister-in-law sets the menu,” she said, a bit annoyed at the slight tinge of judgment within his voice. Probably he was irritated at the inconvenience of having to patch her up.

“I stand corrected.” Ben tied off the bandage, and Diana flexed her fingers, wincing at the ache.

Hannah placed her hands on her hips, peering up at her. “Do you have someone to make your bed for you?” she asked. “And wash your clothes?”

“Yes,” Diana said. “My family employs servants for such things.”

“Why?”

Why? How was she meant to answer such a question? “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s just—it’s just the way it’s done.” She heard the vague confusion within her own voice.

Ben muffled a snicker as he retrieved the knife and rinsed it clean. “Sit,” he said. “I’ll finish up here.”

“Can we have a servant to do our chores, Papa?” Hannah slid into the chair next to Diana and thumped her feet against the leg of the table. “I hate doing the washing up.”

“It’s more money than we can afford just now, poppet. But maybe someday.” He sliced through the abandoned potatoes with an unerring accuracy. “Diana’s family can afford them because her father was a marquess.”

“What’s a marquess?”

“It’s a member of the aristocracy,” he said. “That means her family is quite wealthy. And she’s a proper lady—in public, people will call herLady Diana, since she derives a courtesy title from her father.” A fresh bundle of herbs fell beneath the blade, chopped into very fine bits.

“Oh,” Hannah said. “Can I have a title?”

Ben’s knife stilled for a half a moment, and Diana winced. If she had born within wedlock, she would indeed, as the daughter of an earl, be entitled to the use of ‘lady’ as a courtesy. Instead she was justMissHannah Gillingham. “If you marry a lord someday,” he said at last, “you’ll be a lady, too.”

Hannah gave a nod. “Then I will marry a lord and never have to do the washing up again,” she said. And then, imperiously, “You have to kiss it, Papa.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Diana’s cut. If you don’t kiss it, it won’t get better.” Hannah turned her guileless blue eyes on Diana. “Papa always kisses my scrapes better,” she said cheerfully. “They hardly even hurt after. You’ll see.”

Ben turned slowly, and for a moment they merely stared at one another. Something strange passed across his face, rather like embarrassment. In the candlelight, his cheeks grew ruddy with it, high color burning across them. He could have managed some sort of explanation, she thought, or made some excuse.

Instead he said, “All right. Give it here, then,” and stretched his hand across the table.

Her heart gave a strange leap, beating against the cage of her ribs. But she held out her hand and set it in his. His finger curled around her hand, and he lifted it to his mouth and laid a gentle kiss right across the bandage on her palm. She shouldn’t have been able to feel it. At most, it should have been just the lightest of pressure. But her skin tingled—and not with pain.

“See?” Hannah said as he released her hand at last. “Isn’t that just so much better?”

“Do you know,” Diana said softly as Ben turned back toward the countertop and resumed his dinner preparations, “I think it just might be.”

Chapter Eleven

Imade tea,” Diana said, as Ben came back down the stairs after Hannah had been put to bed. “You’ll no doubt be glad to hear that it did not involve knives.”

He managed a wheeze of a laugh as he settled into his chair, but he grabbed the teapot, poured himself a cup, and—somehow suppressed a wince upon his first sip.

“It’s dreadful, isn’t it?”

“It’s…fine.” A valiant effort to spare her feelings. He plunked a few extra lumps of sugar into it and stirred. “It just needs a bit of milk.” He poured, and poured, and poured. To the very brim of the cup, then gave it all a stir. “There,” he said. “Perfect.”

She could have seen even without her spectacles that his cup was now mostly milk with perhaps the tiniest tinge of color hinting at the presence of tea.

He sipped again, and this time he very nearly did not make a face. Nearly.

“I did taste it myself, you know,” she said dryly.