He glanced up to find a sky utterly transformed. Without them noticing, a slate-gray blanket of clouds had rolled in, threatening to unleash an unholy torrent of rain upon their heads. “We have about thirty seconds before—”
He wasn’t able to finish the sentence before the weighty drops began plunking down on their heads with increasingly rapid succession. He’d just freed her of the line and secured the hook when the torrent unleashed. “We need to secure the horses,” he shouted as he collected poles and bucket and began sloshing through the river toward the riverbank. He heard agreement at his back.
They gathered their things, and he stuck their boots in the bucket. “We won’t be needing those?” Nell shouted, befuddled.
“I know of a place nearby,” he said. He tossed everything onto the cabriolet bench, then ran to take the reins and settle the horses. “We walk.”
She nodded, trusting.
So, it was he and Nell walked, barefoot, leading a pair of horses and their attached cabriolet through a summer rain shower. Though the day wasn’t exactly ideal, it had certainly been made memorable.
Soon, the old groundskeeper’s cottage came into view. It had long been empty of occupation, and was now where hunting and fishing gear were stored. A maid gave it a clean about once a month.
He pointed toward the front door. “You go inside while I settle the horses,” he shouted. He could temporarily stable them in an old nearby barn.
When he finally entered the cottage, pausing in the doorway to shake rain off his overcoat and stomp mud off his bare feet, it was to find that Nell had busied herself by starting a fire in the hearth, and one in the little stove, too.
“Aren’t you useful in a pinch?” he asked, removing his hat which had done naught to keep his hair from getting entirely soaked.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Benefit of making friends with a retired scullery maid.”
Feeling a bit useless, he strode over to the small pantry in the corner and began gathering tea implements. He felt her watching him from the corner of her eye. A kettle… two chipped cups… a tin of leaves that were a decade old, if a day.
“Do you know what to do with those?” she asked.
“Approximately.”
The admission stole a laugh from her. She was laughing at him, but he didn’t mind. What sort of man didn’t know how to make tea? The sort of man who’d had someone make his tea every day of his life.
A duke, for starters.
Right.
Nell crossed the room and dug into the basket he’d brought. “Ah,” she said, her hand emerging with a jug of water. She dug around some more and found the luncheon he’d brought, too. “So, you’re not completely without use.”
“Damned with faint praise,” he muttered.
As Nell took over the tea-making enterprise, Lucas dusted off a pair of chairs possessed of questionable upholstery before sitting in one and watching her, catching a glimpse of the sort of woman she must be at her work.Quick. Efficient. Capable.
“If I were to find myself stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean,” he said, “I’d pick you for a companion.”
Her light chuckle just reached him. She picked up the tea tray she’d assembled and brought it to the table beside the hearth. She reached out with a cup of black tea. The way he liked it. She’d remembered. She settled into the chair opposite him, and together they sipped in silence, the only sound the pitter-pat of rain on thatch.
But he noticed somethingoffabout Nell. Her hand possessed a subtle tremor when she lifted her teacup to her lips, which, actually, had become a shade of… “Your lips are turning purple. You’re cold.” He didn’t ask. It was a statement of fact.
“Not very,” she said, not very believably.
As they were as close to the fire as they could get without actually being inside the wide hearth, Lucas could see but one option. “You’ll need to undress.”
Her teacup froze halfway to her mouth. “Eh?”
“I may not be as useful in a pinch as you, but I do know this much. You need to undress to allow your clothes to dry.” She wasn’t going to agree. He could see it in the set of her jaw. “As do I.” He hadn’t planned on it, as his overcoat had protected him from getting entirely soaked, but he couldn’t see her agreeing if he didn’t.
“I can’t go undressing,” she said, as if to a child.
“Would you like to catch your death?” The question was on the dramatic side, but the possibility existed.
She stared at him. “Are you sure you aren’t a nanny, instead of valet?”
