Free Lady in the Mist by Laurie Alice Eakes

he’d come face-to-face didn’t want the kind of favor Dominick was prepared to give—his life.
    “Thank you, Lord,” Dominick muttered on his way back to the kitchen. “You have a droll sense of humor, making me wait on one of your servants.”
    Dominick didn’t know who the Lee family was but presumed they could help advance Kendall’s political ambitions. He wondered how the minister felt about being invited because of his wife and not because the mayor wanted spiritual advice. Not that Kendall seemed lacking in his faith. He read his Bible along with the newspaper every morning. For all Dominick knew, the minister liked political connections as much as did the mayor. The vicars whom the Marquess of Bruton appointed to the livings he controlled tended in that direction. The dozens of other vicars whom Dominick had made a point of meeting preferred other distractions to keep them from serving God.
    Perhaps Sunday should be the day he acquired a case of the ague or broke a leg. He disliked the idea of bowing and scraping to men who traded favors for advancement in their profession, when they were supposed to have thoughts of a spiritual nature.
    “I believe I’ll direct the serving from in here,” Dominick told Letty Sunday morning. “I’d rather not serve the dinner.”
    “It’s your job to carve the meat for guests,” Letty said. “Carry the roast to the sideboard and lay a slice on each plate. Deborah or Dinah will take the plates to the guests, and they’ll pass around the removes.”
    “I know how a dinner is served,” Dominick responded. “But I’ve never done the actual work. That is . . .” He eyed the hunk of meat glistening under a glaze of juice. “I have no idea how to carve.”
    Letty sighed. “Whatever got a gentleman’s son into a situation like you’re in, if it wasn’t females or gaming?”
    “Stubbornness. Now show me what to do.”
    She showed him on a ham. Preserved in salt, it needed a swift, hard slice of the knife to break through the surface, but he managed to make credibly even and straight wheels of meat. He didn’t think about the tenderness of the roasted beef presiding on its china platter.
    Deborah and Dinah carried the bowls of crab soup to each guest. All Dominick had to do was stand at the sideboard and fill the bowls from a tureen. Trying not to yawn, he watched the guests from beneath his lashes and realized halfway through the first course that one of the guests watched him in return.
    She was the minister’s niece, a golden-haired beauty with eyes the color of spring grass. From beneath her own long, dark lashes, she gazed at Dominick and ignored her food and her aunt’s frowns. When their eyes met, she smiled and looked away.
    Dominick pretended not to notice. Flirting with the guests was certainly not acceptable for him. Flirting with a servant was not acceptable for her, and he would never be the cause of a lady getting into an awkward situation, however unwittingly.
    He picked up the now empty tureen and headed toward the kitchen.
    “Do tell us about your manservant, Mayor Kendall,” the young woman said as the door swung shut behind him.
    Dominick thudded the basin onto the table. “That young lady needs some lessons in decorum.”
    “She’s got an eye for you.” Deborah nearly doubled over laughing. “Never saw the like, a lady flirting with a servant.”
    “She recognizes quality.” Dinah tossed her head. “But Reverend Downing would be well served to marry that one off again soon.”
    “Again?” Dominick paused. “She’s a widow?”
    “Two and twenty and recently out of mourning.” Letty spooned gravy into a bowl. “She was downcast, so her parents sent her here to the seaside for the summer.”
    “The only thing she’s cast down,” Deborah said, “is her handkerchief for Mr. Cherrett.”
    Dominick’s cheeks grew warm. “Don’t be absurd, Deb.”
    “Stop gossiping about the guests and take in the next course,” Letty