Brock, the head butler, knew to cut a wide berth around Lord Carey if they wanted to keep their position. His lordship had a cold and calculating temper, and with a tot or two of whiskey in him, he could be provoked by the most innocuous thing. With a few tots in him, he could easily be moved to dismiss a groundsman who had served for twenty steadfast years but had failed to trim the shrubbery to the marquis’s exacting standards on the day he commanded it done. Or to send a young stable boy to pack his things and leave at once when Lady Carey laughed at something he said as she mounted her horse. The servants avoided the marquis when they could, and when they did not have the luxury of doing so, they kept their eyes down and their lips sealed. Lady Carey, however, could not avoid her husband. How she managed to abide her marriage to such a cold man was a source of endless fascination for two old friends in the family’s employ: Miss Foster, the cook, and Mrs. Perry, the housekeeper.
