“Confound it, Lucy, why is my mail lying OPEN upon my plate where I should instead find my breakfast?” James stood behind his chair at the breakfast table, noting the broken seal, the paper half unfolded lying neatly upon an empty plate as though this were quite the usual thing.

“Perhaps you should read it,” Lucy murmured, her hands so twisted in her apron that the fabric became quite crumpled and very unlike the fastidious servant he had always known. James gave her a sharp look and sat down, reaching for the paper carefully as though it might bite him.

There were few enough words to read. He finished and read it a second time before setting it down next to his plate. “Lucy, I daresay some breakfast would be good about now. If you could be so kind…?”

She stared at him, her face so pale that for a moment he wondered that she might faint. But Lucy was stronger than she looked, for she straightened and smoothed her apron that lay in a somewhat crumpled mass down the front of her dress from all her twisting. “As you say, Your Grace. I shall see what might be causing the delay.”

James glanced toward the tall, multi-paned window nearest him, staring out at leaden sky with a heart that felt every bit as tempestuous. That he had received a summons from Lady Barrington’s father was not unexpected. He had tried to see the man last night to tender his apologies for the situation, but the man had refused to see him.

Of course, this morning he would be expected to make things right. It was only natural.

With that thought in mind, he looked up and even managed a smile as Lucy came in followed by a veritable army who brought breakfast enough to feed a dozen dukes.

Lucy lingered long after the others left until James, realizing he’d not get a moment’s peace otherwise, bid her be seated and share in his repast, lest so much go to waste entirely.

She recoiled as if he’d suggested she sleep in the stables henceforth. Sighing, he set down the bread with marmalade he’d intended to eat and stared at her. “Lucy, you have the strangest notions of propriety of any servant I have met. I sometimes wonder if you do not think that it is I who am working for you.”

“Your Grace, I hardly know what you mean,” she said, sitting primly in the chair next to his, hands folded neatly in her lap.

He cast a very pointed look at the letter still lying next to his place setting. “I think you know full well what I mean. Look, if we are to talk as equals the least you can do is to help yourself to something. A muffin perhaps?” he asked, offering her the basket. “It is impossible to eat with you sitting there staring at me like that.”

She stared at him a long moment, finally taking a muffin and setting it before her, though making no move to eat. Her eyes were troubled as she glanced at him, at once wary and unsure. “You will go, then? Though it will storm ere long?”

“It is not so far as that. I shall be fine, Lucy,” James said, picking up his fork and concentrating on the food before him, even if she were not, knowing full well it was not the weather that troubled her.

“Is it true then? That your Lady was set upon by a dozen thieves and she fought them off single-handed?”

His laughter caught him by surprise, near choking him. He grabbed for his juice, drinking deeply before answering. “Lucy, you should know better than to listen to kitchen gossip. You know it all gets blown out of proportion.”

“But your Lady?” she prompted as he addressed his breakfast again.

James sighed and laid down his fork. “My Lady, as you so put it, is quite a capable personage in her own right. Which is all I will say on the subject. I suppose you have conjectured to lay together that story and this rather…” he waved his hand over the letter, turning up his lip with a certain distaste, “…rather imperious order demanding that I show myself upon the Duke’s doorstep at half past ten.”

“Are they not connected then?” she asked, picking up her muffin and taking a cautious bite, almost without thinking.

“They are, though there is little to worry about. I hardly think he would call me out, though I expect to hear something of a well-deserved tongue-lashing. I would much rather have had it done and over with last night, but the Duke is a calculating sort. Likely he rather hoped I would stew in my own juices for a bit before having it out with me.”

“And did you?” Lucy asked, rising to fetch a plate from the sideboard and an extra place setting.

“Stew? I suppose I did. I know I scarcely slept, not that such a thing is any of your concern.”

“It was once,” she reminded him, sitting and reaching for the plate of bacon, helping herself liberally and adding several slices of bread from the basket.

“Not for a long time,” he reminded her gently and saw that she at least had the grace to flush. “Lucy, have I perhaps done you a disservice?”

Her head came up sharply. “Your Grace?”

He sighed a little. “I am sorry I ever said a thing about the use of my title between us. I rather miss being your little ‘Jamie,’ he said and shook his head. “I am wondering if I should have sent you to another household from here, to someone else with children who needed raising as I once did. Would you have been happier there?”

Lucy’s eyes went wide, and she nearly dropped the fried egg she was spooning onto her plate. “Have I been as much a burden as that?”

“Never! You have never been a burden to me,” he said and leaned back in his chair to study her earnestly. “I had rather thought we had become something…like family.”

“I have always felt you were…family,” she said softly.

“But it has left you in an awkward position here,” he pointed out.

She shook her head. “I am content and have nothing for which to complain.”

He let that go, for he’d heard her complain mightily over the years. “At some point though, you must decide that I have fully grown and can manage my own affairs,” he said, gently, and placed his hand on the letter, which crinkled under his touch. “You had worked yourself into a frenzy here.”

She dropped her eyes to her plate but had no answer for this.

He reached for another slice of toast and found it gone. James stared, for in fact most of the serving plates upon the table were quite empty and he didn’t remember eating more than that initial slice of bread. Lucy’s plate, on the other hand, held the dregs of what looked to be a rather large and appetizing breakfast.

He watched in wry amusement as she daintily set her napkin over her plate and rose. “I shall see about getting this cleared…” she murmured and started for the door.

“Lucy…”

She paused on the threshold and turned as though expecting a scolding. “Yes, Your Grace?”

He would have laughed had she not been so much in earnest. “You do not need to worry any longer,” he said softly. “Whatever the Duke of York has to say about the matter, I have not revealed your part in any of this, nor will I. I am sure Lady Barrington received back the token, and while I still seem to be beholden to courting the Lady, it is not so much a chore as I may have thought initially.”

Bright hope flared in Lucy’s eyes. She stepped back toward him, hands clasped in delight. “So, you care about her then?”

James raised an eyebrow at her. “Would it matter so very much to you were I to admit that I did?”

“She is not like other girls,” Lucy said softly.

“No, she is not like other girls,” he agreed, and glanced somewhat wistfully at the empty muffin basket, realizing that if he were to make his appointment that he was quite out of time to request yet another breakfast.

With a servant such as Lucy on hand, it was a wonder he ever ate at all.