“What are you?—”
“Ye responsible for this?”
“Yes…”
“Is it intended to actually hold the sheep?”
“Ideally… Is it very wrong?”
“Yes,” she said, then snatched up the postholer and thrust it into the ground with surprising force for having such a small frame. She increased my depth by nearly half a foot.
“So, not deep enough?” My hand crept behind my head, scratching the hair there uncomfortably.
“Nae. Ye cut the wood too?”
“Yes… Can I— Would you like help fixing it?”
“Not from ye.” Her statement wasn’t intended to be cruel—it was simply fact to her—even though the reality of it left something uncomfortable curling in my chest.
Dismissed, and with no other obvious task, I wandered back to the kitchens.
Miss McAllen was seated at a table shelling peas into a bowl. No one else was to be found.
“So we have a carpenter?” she asked as I sat across from her. Without looking up, she slid the bowl between us and moved the peas beside it—she didn’t provide instruction, instead raising a dark brow pointedly.
I snagged a pea and, watching her as she returned to her work, followed suit in shelling it.
“It’s not my decision. But I don’t see why not.”
“Then why do ye look like someone shot yer dog?”
“I do not.”
“Ye do, though.”
“Just feeling a little… superfluous.”
Her head tipped to one side as she studied me. “Didnae think ye came here to build a sheep fold.”
“I didn’t.”
“So leave that to her. What is her name?”
“Miss Gillan. And I suppose.”
“Leaves ye free to do whatever it was ye came here to do—presumably whatever you’se did in the shed this morning.”
“I— You—” My mouth hinged open as I gaped at the woman.
“He didnae look at ye the way he did when ye arrived because ye were good at building sheep folds. Or doors. Or whatever other tasks ye assigned yerself to ensure he’d let ye stay. Nor yer pea shelling, to be sure.” She tipped her forehead to the peapod I’d thoroughly mangled quite without my notice. The little beads scattered across the table and onto the floor.
“Right… I’ll just see if there’s anything else I can muck up.”
“Try upstairs. I dinnae believe even ye can ruin anything up there.”
The stairs werein a sorry state and I hope those made it high on Xander’s repair list. It was good that I wouldn’t be responsible for mending them—I’d probably have someone falling through within a day.
This place was smaller by far than his London house, and I expected his other properties would astonish me. When I reached the top of the stairs, there were seven rooms. The door at the very end of the hall was ajar. I peered inside, only slightly fearing I’d find that Fenella had snuck passed.
