Mr. Bassington-Smythe's Residence, The Stacks
Still, an angle worth exploration. Some strange look had come over the boy’s face—he was an odd child, she thought; so many of them were. Even her dear sister was odd, in her own way. Endearingly so with Aurelie; the steady gaze fixed on her face was nothing of the sort.
”Long enough to know him for an eccentric,” she said then, a little conspiratorial light in her smile. Not too scandalous an insult, in his line of work. Frankly, she had found most of Mr. Bassington-Smythe’s sort to find being called an eccentric to be a kind of badge of honor. Ana had been called it herself, of late; she thought she was starting to understand the appeal.
There was nothing in the boy’s tone when he spoke again that spoke to her of insubordination; indeed, the rather reserved tone was far more appropriate than anything exhibited thus far. But if he thought to rectify earlier mistakes, he had best choose his words with better care. Giving himself leave was certainly bordering on rudeness. More than bordering, really. But it was, as all of this had been so far, not far enough down that road for her to waste her time. With any luck, she would hear what she needed to and never see this ridiculous child again.
The question then became, rather, how to make sure she heard it. Ana found the suggestion of doing vegetable preparation in the parlour deeply repugnant—one had this done in the kitchens for a reason. Ana had never done much cooking herself, but she did understand on a basic level how it was done. And it tended to be messy. She had no desire to have Umberto’s home become any more untidy than it already was.
Ana curled slender fingers around the handle of her cup of mediocre coffee, smiling apologetically. ”I shouldn’t like to make your work any more difficult for you.” A sip; cup met saucer once more with a clink of porcelain. ”I had really best be getting on. It doesn’t seem as if our Mr. Bassington-Smythe will be returning any time soon. Quite all right. I’ll leave my card with you, if you would be a dear and give it to him when next he returns.”
The cup, middlingly terrible coffee, and saucer were all set gently against the table in front of her. Ana stood, smoothing her skirts over her thighs with a smile. ”It was lovely to meet you—at last. My sister,” she offered, ”has said much about you. I do hope that’s right—you do know my sister, don’t you? Aurelie?”