There was a brisk knock at her bedroom door, and as Alva opened her mouth in panic the door swung open, followed by a cheerful Liza.

“It’s a bleak morning, ma’am, so I supposed you might like to have your tea in—Aach!”

The tray of tea things flew through the air, hitting the floor with a variety of crashing and banging sounds. Exploding shards of china scattered through the room. Liza turned the red of Alva’s favorite crimson suit and stood, with her mouth open, rooted like a stock to the floor.

“Liza,” Alva managed, her voice weak. Frantically she tried to think of something to say that would make the tableau seem other than what it was: a loose woman with a naked man in her bed. How could she have forgotten the time? It was dawn, past dawn, for god’s sake; she’d been watching the light for the last ten minutes—

This was bad. She could lose her whole staff if the town started to gossip about her morals. No one wanted to work for a whore.

Sam shifted beside her, and she willed him to stay down—at least this way her body concealed his face.

Naturally, he did nothing of the sort.

“Good morning,” he said, speaking to Liza. The girl turned even redder. “Do you mind me asking, is that the usual way you carry tea upstairs?”

Oh no.

Alva risked a sideways glance at him and almost closed her eyes again. She recognized that expression. It was the I’m absorbed in an extremely interesting problem and nothing you say will derail me until I’m satisfied I’ve worked it all the way through expression. How could that expression exist in this environment? And would it be too dramatic to simply throw herself out the window?

Liza was staring at him in horror, her mouth working as though it was trying to say something and failing. Alva had never seen her at a loss for words.

She finally managed to produce sound. “Sir?”

“The tray. Is that how you usually carry tea things?”

Liza’s eyes darted frantically downwards, taking in the disaster on the floor, before nodding.

“But aren’t cups and saucers and that sort of thing usually made out of china? China’s quite a slick surface,” he said, and oh god no he kicked his feet out of bed, casually wrapped one of the blankets around his waist, and walked over to the scene of the breakage. The two women simply watched him, both their faces frozen. He picked up the broken teapot and looked at it. “See, it’s not as though it’s got any traction. Someone’s made an attempt here, and it’s not a bad one, putting felt on the bottom to increase the cling. But it’s obviously not enough.”