Page 30 of The Lord Meets His Lady

“As long as you remember my rule.”

Creases deepened at the corners of his eyes. “You’ll not haul wood or water upstairs. Is that the one?”

“No, but we’re making progress.”

“Indeed we are.”

Dampness marked his hairline and wind riffled his neckcloth. Those master-servant boundaries were in peril, and she’d barely put them in place. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for warm familiarity with a man. A bawdy word, a quick jest, clumsy male efforts at conversation…she was familiar with those. Most men of her acquaintance used words like bludgeons, unlike Lord Bowles and his fine-tooled conversation. With him, banter was an art form, and she was out of her depth.

“I’m sure you’re hungry, milord,” she said, plucking at a hole in her gloves.

“Famished.”

“Good. Because a hot dinner and a hot bath await you inside.” Perhaps the role of housekeeper wasn’t so farfetched.

He grabbed his coat off the pile of wood and gave it a quick snap. “We were just starting to have fun.” He stuck one arm inside his coat sleeve, the homespun streaked with dirt. “Do I detect the wish for more serious conversation?”

“Something safer than flirting, milord.”

He brushed dried grass off his sleeve. “Why not tell me who you’re searching for. Just give me a name and what you know.”

She pivoted to the horizon. “I…”

“Miss Turner?” His head tilted, seeking eye contact she refused to give. “I didn’t mean to be cavalier. After this morning, I thought you’d be ready to talk.”

The sky’s blues and lavenders calmed her. Tension lessened between her shoulder blades, but under her cloak, she plucked a loose thread on her gloves. The seam would rip if she wasn’t careful.

“I practiced the explanation in my head all day.”

“And?”

“There’s no good way to tell it.”

“You’ve already put your trust in me.”

She lost herself in the distant sky. The rustic sounds comforted her—Khan’s snicker, a gentle breeze stirring a dormant apple tree, the sweet song of a bird nestling down at night. She’d come this far…

“I can give you a name and little else.”

He waited patiently, his presence a comfort beside her. They didn’t touch, yet she’d say she could feel his shoulder.

She took a deep breath. “The person I’m searching for… Her name is Maude Turner.”

“A family member, I presume.”

“My grandmother.”

Lord Bowles clamped his hands behind his back and stood shoulder to shoulder with her as though he had all the time in the world. “You’ll need to give me more.”

“There’s little I can offer,” Genevieve whispered, losing herself in the darkening horizon.

“Have you met your grandmother?”

She shook her head, her fingers twisting the loose thread on her glove. “All I know is that Maude Turner is, or was, a doll maker. My mother received a letter from her about two years ago.”

“Did you read it?”

Cool laughter erupted.She hadn’t known how to read two years ago.If he only knew the trouble her lack of reading had caused…