Charlotte couldn’t help but compare his soothing manner to Sir Alexander’s rigidity. The cousins seemed to be opposites in many ways.
A small movement caught her eye. One of the double doors leading to the corridor shifted a bit, but no one entered. A moment later a small dark shape was pushed through the opening. Charlotte glimpsed a white hand helping it along. The door closed. The cat Callie skittered across the floor and disappeared under the table holding the tea tray.
“What was…?” began Lady Isabella. A paw flashed out and snagged the fringe on one of the armchairs. “It’s some sort of animal!”
“Just a cat, I think, Mother.” Edward sounded amused.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Sir Alexander bent, reached under the table, grabbed, and missed. Callie erupted from the other side, raced across the room, and clawed her way up one of the brocade curtains. She hung there, well above all their heads, glaring. Edward laughed.
Lady Isabella, on the other hand, went rigid, as if the incident had been designed to offend her. “A little joke of Elizabeth’s no doubt. I have told you and told you to send her to school.”
“So you have,” said Sir Alexander through gritted teeth.
“Well, you must admit that I am right! She is completely out of hand. I am sorry, Frances. I don’t mean to criticize your disciplinary methods, but really you…”
“Enough.” Sir Alexander strode to the bellpull and yanked it. “As you say, you have made your opinion quite clear on many occasions, Aunt.” A footman arrived in a rush, not the one from before. “Our guests are leaving, Ethan. Fetch their things.”
Lady Isabella stood, her green eyes flashing much like Sir Alexander’s. “This is the way you treat me? And you wonder that I…?”
“On the contrary, I don’t wonder at all. Allow me to see you out.” He herded his aunt toward the door. Edward followed with easy grace and an amused glance for Charlotte as he exited.
Lady Isabella’s voice drifted back from the stairs. “Do not expect me to help you…”
“I expect nothing,” Sir Alexander replied.
Frances rested her forehead in her hand. Charlotte considered trying to coax the cat down off the drapery, but decided that stillness was the best choice at the moment.
“She practically forced her way in,” said Frances when Sir Alexander stood in the doorway once more. “There was nothing I could do.” Callie hissed from above.
The master of the house turned back to the corridor and shouted, “Lizzy!” There was no doubt he was heard all the way to the top stories.
“It’s rather like Bedlam here, isn’t it?” popped out of Charlotte’s mouth.
Sir Alexander turned on her. “It is nothing of the kind!”
Lizzy rushed in, the ribbon sash of her gown dragging behind her, blue eyes sparkling. “Is she gone? I got rid of her, didn’t I?”
Sir Alexander stalked to the far corner of the room, seized a straight-backed chair, and carried it to the window where the cat perched. “Come here!” he said to his sister. It was the voice Charlotte had heard when he spoke to Holcombe, and Lizzy rushed to obey. He climbed onto the chair, heedless of his boots on the satin seat—the slender legs creaked a little—and without hesitation grasped Callie by the nape of her neck. For an instant, the cat relaxed. Sir Alexander plucked her from the curtain and thrust her down to Lizzy, who caught her in her arms. “Take that animal away and do not let me see it again.”
“What? Ever?”
“Do not test me just now, Lizzy! Do as I say!” He stepped down from the chair.
The girl goggled at him. “But, Alec, it was only…”
“Now!”
Lizzy looked scared. Clutching the cat, she ran out. Her feet pounded on the stair to the upper floors. Sir Alexander stood still, his back to the room, his fists closed; then, without another word, he strode from the room, his tread audible on the lower staircase. The room seemed curiously empty when he was gone.
Frances Cole dropped back onto the sofa and burst into tears.
As Charlotte went over to sit beside the weeping woman, it occurred to her that Sir Alexander Wylde thought he was in control of his household, his universe, but he wasn’t, not in the least. She patted Frances’s shoulder. Maybe he had been; his manner was certainly that of a man used to getting his way. But something was unraveling now. The threads were escaping from him, snapping like the warp of a broken loom. She