Sending the cook a wry smile, since no one was paid anymore, Alice shrugged. “The honest garment of an honest worker,” she quipped before heading outside.
She hadn’t gone but five or six steps when she sawhim. Adam had descended from a fine carriage and was standing in the yard. Her heart squeezed, the breath left her lungs in awhoosh, then returned in a gasp, and her mind denied the possibility of his being there.
How had he found her?
“You are the gardenerandthe groom?” Adam asked, trying to work out why the older man who had been tending a plot of vegetables had dropped his hoe, hurried over, and said he would bring the horses some water.
“No, m’lord. Rather, yes, m’lord. Actually, we don’t have a groom no more.”
The driver Adam had hired at the Reading train station jumped down.
“They’re spirited beasts, Henry. They might lift you off your feet,” he warned good naturedly, obviously knowing the older man.
Adam could easily imagine the short and slight Henry sent flying with a flick of the lead rope.
“I’ll be fine,” the gardener said with a chuckle. “Got a couple buckets roundabout here somewhere.”
But instead of hurrying off to find them, he looked at Adam.
“Nothing to worry about, m’lord, but Mr. Shaw, here,” he hooked a thumb at the driver, “has brought you round back.”
“Naturally, I did,” the man said, crossing his arms. “No point in going to the front, now, is there?”
Adam had no idea what they were jabbering about.
“Nonsense,” Henry said. “If his lordship wants to enter through the front, he may.” The gardener addressed Adam again. “I say, if you want to go around to the front, my grandson has gone inside to send someone to greet you.”
When the man gestured toward the back of the house, Adam let his gaze follow where he pointed. While the gardens were kept well enough, the house needed care. There were roofing tiles missing, trim hanging askew, and a distinct air of shabbiness.
He knew from his parents’ country estate that a manor house such as this ought to have an army of staff constantly maintaining its upkeep. Instead, he’d seen a single wizened old man and a youth who’d disappeared inside.
The white-painted door through which the purported grandson had gone suddenly opened.
“Never you mind, m’lord. Here comes her ladyship now,” the gardener added.
A lovely, honey-haired female exited the house, wiping her hands on her apron. She stopped after a few feet and gawked at him.
Adam stared back at Alice. Despite her changed appearance, he would have recognized her anywhere. Today, she wore a functional kerchief on her head with her hair coming over one shoulder in a long braid. Her dress was a plain, faun-colored cotton and over it, she wore an apron. He would swear it was a maid’s apron.
Yet the old man had called Alice “her ladyship.” The mystery thickened, but at least he’d found her. By the expression upon her face, she was none too happy that he had.
“I shall send word when I need to be collected,” he told Mr. Shaw, and then he left the two men behind. Although trying to maintain a dignified gait as he approached her, Adam wanted to run, irrationally thinking she might vanish before his eyes.
“My lady,” he greeted, unable to keep the teasing tone from his voice. “No longer Mrs. Malcolm, the knowledgeable governess?”
“I doubt the quantity or caliber of my knowledge has changed any. How did you find me?” she asked bluntly. No smile, no kind and gentle greeting as he’d hoped. But as she shielded her eyes from the late sun turning her hair to a thick, golden rope, her gaze flickered over him from head to toe.
When the youth who’d accompanied her had taken Adam’s trunk from the driver and the others had departed, he answered her.
“You left me a clue,LadyAlice.”
She visibly startled before she regained her composure.
“My book,” she said after a moment. “I wondered whether it was one with my bookplate in it. I gave it to you in such a rush that day.”
“Yes, the bookplate.”
She shook her head, perhaps at her own carelessness.
