As if she had a choice. She tried not to look at him. His white shirt did little to hide the breadth of his chest and shoulders. He must enjoy physical work, she thought irrationally.
He bent to pick a yellow flower and held it out to her.
Olivia giggled. “That’s a weed. Ragwort. It might give you a rash.”
He raised his eyebrows with a half-grin and tossed it away. “It seems I have much to learn.” He dusted his fingers and eyed the spread. “What have we here? A feast! Graves and I will enjoy it. The other men have brought their lunch with them. A man gets hungry when toiling in the fields.”
How contented he was. When she’d first met him, he seemed quite different. She’d thought him arrogant, with a sardonic cast to his handsome mouth. An elegant lord tilling the soil side by side with a farmer? It came as a complete surprise to her. But she liked him for it. “There was something you wished to ask me, my lord?”
“Mrs. Graves is unwell. Graves tells me she is with child. As I have no wife to visit her, please call on her. Take anything you consider will be of help to her. You’ll know what’s best.”
“I shall, of course.”
He turned and hailed Graves, then threw himself down on the grass and grabbed a napkin, then picked up a chicken leg. “I’m considering a house party. When can the guest chambers be made ready?” He bit into the chicken and wiped the juices from his chin with the napkin.
Unsettled by his raw masculinity, not to mention his surprising announcement, Olivia stared at him. For a long moment, she struggled as to what to reply. The house was far from ready, and they had very few staff. But she didn’t know why she should feel responsible for any inadequacies. “My lord, there is still much to be done,” she finally gasped out.
He tossed the chicken bone onto a plate, wiped his hands, and leaned back on his elbows. With one booted foot crossed over the other, making her conscious of the length of his legs, his gaze caught and held hers. “I have confidence in you, Miss Jenner. I am sure you are well able to manage.” How annoyingly casual he was. Used to getting everything he wanted, she thought uncharitably, whisking her gaze away from his before he might discern what she thought from her expression. “Shall we say…three weeks?”
Three weeks! This would be a test of her abilities. Could she do it? She must! He said he had confidence in her. Whether he’d intended his praise to inspire her or appeal to her vanity, she found she couldn’t ignore it.
Graves came through the gate and his greeting gave her time to think. It was a huge undertaking, but they might manage at a pinch, and she refused to admit defeat. “How many guests, my lord?”
“Not a large party. A dozen or so. I shall furnish you with their names and other details later.”
Her lungs expanded with her deep breath. “The house will be ready.”
His gaze flickered over her breasts. Dark eyebrows rose. “Well done, Miss Jenner.”
“Then if you permit, I shall leave you. Jack can fetch the basket later.”
“Certainly.” He smiled as if he knew what was in her head. It was just as well he didn’t. Her thoughts were not charitable.
Jack assisted her into the trap. As he urged the horse to walk on, she turned for another glance at the earl as he and Graves filled their plates. Lord Redcliffe still watched her, but it was impossible from this distance to read the expression in his eyes. Surely it wasn’t necessary to bring her all the way out here to convey his instructions? He might easily have conveyed them to her later in the day. How unpredictable he was. He constantly threw her off balance and did it on purpose, she suspected. Flustered, she forced her thoughts on to preparing the house for guests.
Chapter Nine
Dominic rode homefrom the Graves’ farm, thinking of his housekeeper. He smiled. He hadn’t intended to rattle her but enjoyed the effect he had on her. Miss Jenner’s prim demeanor didn’t fool him. A telltale flush colored her cheeks, and she’d tried not to look at him. It brought a swift urge for him to be the one to stir her passions, to draw a heated response from her lips.
A man needed intimacy, a woman’s softness. Women were a civilizing influence. He feared he might lose much of it with only Williams and Graves for company. When attending church on Sunday, he looked for a woman ripe for liaison. One or two stared at him as if he had two heads. Most were as prim as Miss Jenner attempted to be, but she outshone them in the beauty stakes. A widow coyly sent him a subtle message after the service, and while attractive, she failed to stir his interest. She would have, once.
It was definitely time to write to Lady Anne.
Dominic left Onyx to Fellow’s care and walked to the house, planning to pen letters of invitation to several friends. He smiled. Miss Jenner, although at first shaken by his mention of a house party, rallied in that manner he so admired.
*
On her wayto visit Mrs. Graves, Olivia had caught sight of Lord Redcliffe still toiling in the fields as she drove the trap along the lane. She tried not to look his way, as he’d stopped to watch her. He reminded her of a statue of Apollo she’d seen in a book, but warm and real, muscles shifting beneath satiny skin. She caught her bottom lip in her teeth. He was her employer. She must force herself to think of him in that fashion, and no other. But really, she thought crossly, Redcliffe—as she now thought of him—did not help. He seemed to invite situations that threw them together, and his manner toward her was a dreadful distraction.
Olivia’s basket was packed with a tincture of chamomile, peppermint, and raspberry leaf, to ease the nauseating effects of pregnancy. She added one of Sam’s meat pies from the larder for Mr. Graves, in case Mrs. Graves felt unable to cook his supper.
A mobcap over her chestnut hair, Mrs. Graves greeted her at the door, looking pale and tired. She expressed her delight at receiving a visitor. Her mother had passed away, she told Olivia, and the midwife was the only woman to visit her. Over a cup of tea, she spoke of how she and Graves had only been married a year and admitted to being quite wretched in the mornings.
“I hope the mixture makes you feel better.”
Mrs. Graves unloaded the basket. “How very kind. It is so pleasant to have company. Will you please call me Mary?” She looked downcast. “With Graves out working, I find the days quite long.” Her cheeks flushed. “I am most grateful for all we have. You must understand, but I miss reading. I so enjoy it.”
“Please call me Olivia, Mary. What books do you like to read?”
