Gemma bit back a sigh of frustration.Why did it always feel as though she alone had the will and the focus to carry out their plan?
Following Bess as she weaved through the kitchen packing up a parcel of food for Lucy to carry on her investigative walk, Gemma persisted with her question.
“Bess—you always know everything that’s going on in town.Where is Hal working today?I know the hay is in and drying, and the ewes are not yet ready to lamb, Mr.Cartwright’s pig is recovered from its illness, and Mrs.Givens’s hens are laying again since Hal repaired her chicken coop to keep the foxes out.So what is it that has claimed Hal’s time and attention today?”
Bess turned and handed her a hamper.Gemma blinked down at it; while she’d been enumerating Hal’s litany of efforts around the village, she hadn’t noticed Bess was packing a lunch for her as well as Lucy.And quite a lunch it seemed to be—the basket was heavy enough to require two hands.
“Take that with you out to Mr.Woodhill’s farm.The storm the other night blew a branch down his cottage roof, and Hal offered to go over and thatch it for him this morning.He’ll be needing some sustenance right about now.”
Gemma shook her head in amazement.“Does the man never rest?He seems to spend every waking moment he isn’t here behind the bar, working some field in the countryside or helping someone in the village.”
“I know you and Hal got off on the wrong foot,” Bess began, appearing to choose her words with care, “but it has seemed, lately, as though the two of you had gotten past those early disagreements.I would think you’d have noticed by now how important he is to the people around here.”
Gemma clutched the hamper to her chest to stop the silly fluttering of her cracked, crumpled heart.
The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of aristocratic guests checking in and out, stopping in for drinks or to try the food Five Mile House was becoming known for.She’d been terrifically busy—yet somehow, she’d always seemed to find time to tryst with Hal in the broom cupboard, or pull him into an illicit kiss behind the market cart.Somehow she’d managed to hold onto her virginity, but she couldn’t be certain whether it was through any fortitude of her own or if Hal was simply too good a man to take her virtue when he knew she intended to wed someone else.
Even in that, she felt his protective care.
And then, of course, he’d been right on hand to ‘protect’ her from securing a proposal.Every single gentleman who wandered innocently into the pub was subjected to Hal’s smirking judgment, and found wanting.
His looming presence had sent more than one gentleman scurrying home after a single ale, before Gemma could even take a proper shot at him.
As for the rest, the ones with enough fortitude or obliviousness to withstand Hal’s threatening sneer, well.
Gemma set her jaw.She could not allow it to continue.Hal must not interfere with Lord Stonehaven, and she must tell him farewell.That was all there was to it.
“I know Hal is a pillar of the community here,” she told Bess.“But that doesn’t give him the right to meddle in my affairs.He may think he knows what’s best for everyone in Little Kissington, spreading his benevolence over the whole village and all the tenants as though he were the lord of the manor, but I’m not one of his dependents!”
Bess appeared to choke on nothing but air, her breath wheezing like a bellows.“I beg your pardon.I don’t know what’s come over me.Too much sugar in the air perhaps.”
“You should take a rest,” Gemma advised, setting down the hamper to grab her pelisse and hat from the wooden pegs beside the door.“With the inn as busy as it is now, it’s too much work for one woman, Bess!You must let me hire someone to help you.”
“My cousin Flora is a dab hand with a hot water crust,” Bess said reluctantly.“And I know her family could use the wages.Her brother-in-law might be interested in helping out behind the bar again, as well.”
“Yes!Perfect.He did an admirable job of filling in while Hal was…indisposed.Hire them both.”
“I suppose having an apprentice would be all right.”Bess smiled, her cornflower-blue eyes thoughtful.“It occurs to me, Gemma, that you and Hal are not as different as you like to pretend.You take care of people too, in your own way.”
Gemma’s ears went hot with embarrassment.“Nonsense.I’m a very self-centered person, ask anyone who knows me.”
“You’d better be careful,” Bess said with a laugh as she began piping a layer of meringue into a round pan.“The longer you stay here, the more we are getting to know you!”
Making a face, Gemma chose not to dignify that with a response.Instead she picked up the hamper and swept out of the kitchen with all the hauteur at her command.
Never mind Bess chuckling in her wake.These people in Little Kissington, they didn’t know the real Gemma.They’d only ever met Down and Out Gemma.They wouldn’t be as welcoming to Queen-of-the-Scandalous-Socialites Gemma.
Gemma chewed that over as she walked down the main street through the center of the village.Other women going about their daily business, running errands and chasing children, gave her nods as they passed.Men touched their hat brims cordially.She recognized many of the faces she saw from the public room at the inn; she’d even started memorizing some of their usual orders, without intending to do it.
Bess was right, Gemma realized.If she wasn’t careful, this place was going to start feeling more like home than London did.
At the edge of the village, just beyond the blacksmith’s shop, sat a squat, square cottage with a fenced pasture attached where Mr.Woodhill lived with his friend, Mr.Prince.
Little more than the size of the courtyard at the Five Mile, this patch of green and brown was all Mr.Woodhill had to farm.Yet he was one of the more fortunate men in the county, and accounted more than respectable, as he owned his own property rather than managing a parcel of land for the absent Duke of Havilocke as a tenant farmer.
Two confirmed bachelors, neither Mr.Woodhill nor Mr.Prince had ever married, so there were no grown children to help with the upkeep of the farm, or with repairs—like the hole in their thatched roof.
The thatched roof upon which Hal was currently kneeling, his broad shoulders outlined against the clear blue sky as spring sunshine poured down over his hatless head.
