Page 59 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Thirteen

He followed the sway of her skirts through the garden. A few stolen moments with Miss Turner before the workday began shouldn’t be out of the question. She picked her way along the center garden path, pointing at dirt patches in need of straw. He trailed behind her, a faithful laborer doing her bidding, her army of one.

There had to be a better way to win a woman’s heart—at least a better way to pry open her tight-lipped secrets.

“Having fun swanning about the garden?” He tossed another handful of straw to the ground. He was in danger of becoming a besotted rustic.

“Lily Dutton tells me this keeps weeds away. At least until planting time in spring.”

If his London friends knew he whiled away his time spreading straw in a dormant garden, he’d never hear the end of it. They’d inform him there were more dignified ways to chase a skirt.

He’d have to inform his friends a certain russet-skirted, red-cloaked housekeeper had snared his interest. No other woman would do.

“In spring, I picture red flowers here.” She waved a hand over the raised bed and pivoted toward the cottage. “The vegetable garden there. That is,ifI’m still here.”

He tossed the last handful of straw. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

“Your plans, milord. To return to London come spring.”

Miss Turner toed a broken granite cobble, her red hood hiding her face. “Unless you’re staying?”

Last night’s storm had left a damp chill and, like the morning after too much grog, left a head hurting. He’d tossed and turned half the night, mulling over his housekeeper’s unsettling admission.

“I don’t know—”

Plodding hooves and jangling harnesses saved him. From the road, Samuel led a string of horses, and behind him, Alexander led several more horses in similar fashion. An old man rode beside Samuel, leading two gaunt mares. At the rear, Adam drove the Beckworth cart with two horses hobbling behind on tethers.

Miss Turner’s hand shaded her eyes for a better look. “Did you buy more horses?”

“No.”

Samuel waved his hat at the pasture, yelling, “Open the gate.”

“Go talk to him, milord. I’ll get the gate.”

“There’s no need. We’re not taking in more horses.”

Miss Turner touched his sleeve, tender-eyed and hopeful. “Look at them. Even I can tell those animals need a good dose of your care.”

Standing close, it’d be easy to drop a soft kiss on her lips. Her eyes shined with staunch belief. In him. His chest swelled. He was glad to be a hero in her eyes, though he didn’t deserve it. Despite the wretched cold, Miss Turner warmed him. And she was right on one score: the horses streaming into his yard wouldn’t last another mile.

“The gate, if you please,” Samuel yelled again, raising a hand to halt the line of horses.

His housekeeper clutched her skirts high and darted off to the west gate. “I’ll have it open in a trice.”

Marcus slogged through mud on a shortcut to the front of the cottage and cast an eye at the line of sorry horseflesh stretching down the road. “Care to tell me where these horses came from?”

“From Lowick village.”

The older man beside Samuel, hunched and thin of hair, doffed his hat. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, yer lordship, and glad I am to know yer taking me beauties off me hands. They’ve become too much.”

“This is Mr. Hereford of Lowick. The seller I told you about.” Samuel’s smile was strained, and his eyes were flinty. “He’s ready to part with these beauties for an excellent price. Today, in fact.”

“Beauties, you say.” Marcus studied the ragged line. Two swaybacked nags stood near a bay-colored mare suffering from what had to be mud fever. One older brown filly favored a back leg. Probably a case of bog spavin in the hock—and these were the horses close enough to see.

Samuel notched his head at the meadow adjoining his property to Pallinsburn. “I would’ve put them in that pasture, but with the gate and walls not properly fixed—”

“One of the many reasons why I thought we weren’t taking on any morecommitments.”