The Knight of Slaughtaverty

Chapter 4 - Rules to Live By

Excellent!

I now know, without any doubt, through lived experience, that not reacting to someone making a fool of themselves is worse than laughing at them.

It's an experience I'm still living through; as try as I might, none of the pens I pick up and place on the desk's surface wants to remain there. They are rolling off as fast as I put them up there, slamming into my head and bouncing around me while I crouch on the floor, trying to gather them.

What on Earth was this stupid desk polished with?! Is the room slanted?

I stop my feeble attempts with a strangled gasp when cool fingers wrap around my wrist the next time I reach up to place yet another fallen pen on the desk, and I'm pulled to my feet calmly but with enough strength to make resisting impossible.

Alaric guides me to a lovely over-stuffed Edwardian chair, dating from the late 1800s, upholstered in beautiful muted turquoise Damask embossed velvet. I gingerly sit down on it, as that is the request implied by his gesture. I don't blame him; after my wonderful show-and-tell session, I would not have wanted me moving around in the study anymore, either. There are quite a few valuable, breakable items in this room.

"I'm sorry, I'm not usually this clumsy," I lie, but there's no point in explaining the whole superhuman ability not to be a klutz when handling delicate valuables. Who's going to believe that after my vivid demonstration of the clumsiness I'm capable of?

Alaric, of course, doesn't acknowledge my testimony to my usual lack of clumsiness. Leaving me seated, he gathers the pens with one deft motion and pops them back in their places before he walks around the desk and sits down on the chair behind it.

Show-off!

I'm glad to be seated, or I would've felt like a child in the headmaster's office, about to be scolded for... well... being a woman, I suppose. Taking soothing breaths to calm my nerves, I try to gather the best words to convince Alaric that despite all indications to the contrary, I am indeed the man for the job.

It is hard to gather thoughts and words when the recipient of those thoughts and words is clad all in black, his hair immaculately combed and his eyes radiant like those of a cat shining in the dark, where he sits straight and stiff, his hands resting motionless on the surface of the huge desk. He is silently watching me, and I can almost hear the electrical hum of his brain working. Thinking. Deciding.

"You will keep your own hours," he says after the longest pause in the history of pregnant pauses. For a moment, I have no idea what the words spilling from his lips are telling me. "I am more interested in having the job done accurately and thoroughly than speedily and haphazardly or during set hours. I do expect a progress report each Monday to help me keep track of your findings and make decisions based on them."

"Sir?"

"I'll need your advice on which pieces to sell, which to keep and which to donate to museums," he clarifies. "This mansion is bursting at its seams with articles gathered over the last 400 years and more. The entire east wing is currently used only for storage. There is no point in having so many... things. They lose their value when stored piled on top of each other or crammed into rooms."

That is indeed a pity.

"I would suggest that you start in the foyer and parlour and systematically work your way through all the rooms in that area before moving on to the next floor and the four wings, but I leave that up to you to decide."

I am still just looking at him, blinking slowly, trying to let his words settle in my mind and my heart. He is allowing me to stay?! The job is mine?!

"Please keep in mind, Miss Dankworth, that though this might seem like a museum that should be open to the public, Slaughtaverty Manor is our home, and we value our privacy. There are areas of the mansion that will be made accessible to you as required but should not be intruded into on a whim.