“You may remain if you wish, though I will put you to work.”
“Work?” he had asked.
“I should also warn you that I can be bossy, and even though you are the son of a duke and I am a mere miss, I will order you about.”
Seth had been intrigued, especially since she promised to treat him no differently than anyone else. He also needed the distraction that Miss Hawthorn offered.
“If you are staying, come with me.”
He followed her out a back door and onto a crumbling terrace where pots of flowers sat. “We must pull the weeds,” she had announced and led him to the center of the small back yard to a weed-choked flowerbed.
Frances had planted her hands on her hips and faced him. “Do you have an objection to getting your hands dirty?”
It was almost a challenge. “I do not,” he insisted, though he had never pulled a weed or worked in a garden before.
“Good.” She gave a quick nod and dropped to her knees and started pulling weeds.
Seth settled on the opposite side and did the same. It did not take them long to clear the bed, nor did they speak a single word, but worked in silence. Oddly, doing something offered a comfort that he had not been expecting and by the time the garden plot was cleared, he looked for something else to do.
“We now need to stir up the dirt and add new.”
“New? Where do we get new?”
“There is some in the wheelbarrow by the front door. Bring it around.”
She did not ask but told and Seth had not minded.
When he returned to the back, she had a hoe and was churning up the soil, pale dirt clinging to and staining the black dress where she had knelt on the ground. Seth stopped at the side of the bed and began shoveling the new dirt that she churned with the old.
“We can now plant,” Frances announced and the two of them retrieved the temporary pots from the terrace and placed them where she instructed before each flower or bush was planted to her specifications. There were still areas that had nothing, but Seth assumed that maybe the plants near those spots would simply grow large enough to take over.
Miss Hawthorn then had him haul water from a well for her to carefully dampen the soil around each new plant until she was satisfied that they had enough to drink. By the end of that day, Seth was doing well, better than he had in days, because he was accomplishing something, had worked, and his muscles ached.
He had been fifteen, only two years older than Frances, but he continued to return to the cottage for ten years as their friendship grew and turned into love.
“Who are you staring at, Seth?” his sister asked.
“Miss Frances Hawthorn.”
“Are you certain that attendance at the theatre is necessary?” Frances asked Lady Bethany Grey, a friend she now resided with and who was one of her employers. Also with them was Bethany’s brother, Viscount Shrewsbury, who served as their escort.
“Do you not enjoy plays?” Bethany asked.
“I suppose they can be entertaining, but I thought I would be settling in this evening.”
“The maids are already unpacking your belongings and your set of rooms will be put to rights by the time we return.” Bethany turned more fully to Frances. “I am glad that you will be living here. It is rather quiet above-stairs.”
“If you would have kept your set of rooms in father’s townhome, you would not have been alone,” Shrewsbury reminded her.
As self-proclaimed spinsters, Bethany and her friend, now the Duchess of Ellings, had planned on having a male relative purchase a house where they would live and hold their salons. It had turned out to be His Grace who purchased the property for his wife knowing that they would never live there. It was on the ground floor where the salon and gambling room had been established while Bethany, and now Frances, lived on the first and second floors.
“I have no desire to forever live with my father, or brother, as if I am a poor relation who could not find a husband.”
“You have not found a husband,” Shrewsbury reminded her.
“Perhaps I do not want one. Clearly my judgement is poor since the only gentleman I hoped to set my cap for turned out to be a scoundrel.”
Frances’ eyes widened. She’d not known that Bethany had once been courted or had hoped for a courtship.
