When he was finished, he stood to the side, bowed and said, “What do you think, my lady?”
Julianna thought she’d never wished so much to be a horse, but she was not about to say that out loud. Instead she lifted her chin and said, “Now Violet’s stall needs mucking.”
He arched a brow, then glanced down at the hay in the stall. “It looks clean to me, my lady. I mucked it this morning actually.”
She scoffed at that, highly doubting he knew how to muck a stall. She would challenge him to prove his boast was true. “Be that as it may, I’d like it mucked again, please.” She did her best to sound imperious.
Julianna watched from several paces away as Rhys pushed a wheelbarrow over to Violet’s stall, gathered a pitchfork from somewhere in the recesses of the stable, and set to his task with an enthusiasm she found quite surprising.
After only a few minutes, sweat dripped from his brow and his shirt became plastered to his broad chest, outlining his muscles and flat abdomen. Julianna plucked at the neckline of her riding habit. It was unseasonably warm today, wasn’t it?
Rhys didn’t stop, nor did he look up. He pitched fork after fork of hay into the barrow. The stall was cleaned in under a quarter of an hour. And perhaps most astonishing of all, he’d done it all with nary a complaint. He wheeled the dirty contents to another part of the stables, returning with a wheelbarrow full of fresh hay, which he then proceeded to dump into Violet’s stall and spread in a thick, clean layer using the pitchfork again.
When he was finished, he propped up the pitchfork and rested a gloved hand atop it. “Is it to your liking, my lady?” he asked in his most congenial tone.
Julianna had to pick up her jaw from the stable floors before she could answer. She marched toward the stall, haughtily lifting her nose, and examined his work as if she were the stablemaster herself. “It’ll do,” she replied, secretly thinking he’d done a better job than the groomsmen in her own stables.
She didn’t have long to examine his handiwork, however, before she had to invent his next task. She might have been impressed by his ability to muck the stall so thoroughly, but he’d only completed two chores, after all. She intended to make it her daily occupation to get him to quit and forfeit his bet. She suspected it would take several more chores before he’d be willing to give up the bet that seemed so important to him.
“Violet needs to be fed,” she blurted next.
“With pleasure, milady,” he replied, bowing.
“What was that?” She cupped a hand behind her ear. Oh, she did adore it when he called her milady. She loved to make him repeat it. She was certain the other servants in the stable were convinced she was hard of hearing, but she didn’t care one whit. It was priceless to make Rhys Sheffield bow to her, and she intended to enjoy every single moment of it.
Without saying another word, Rhys left with the wheelbarrow again, this time returning with more hay and a bag of grain. He quickly set to work filling Violet’s trough.
What Julianna hadn’t counted on, however, was that he would spread the hay with his shirt off. He egregiously pulled the garment over his head with both hands and tossed it atop the stall door. She was forced to watch the man’s muscles flexing under a fine coat of perspiration. Her mouth went dry.
Rhys’s body looked as if it had been sculpted by a master. And having to stare at him from the other side of the stall while he worked was downright disruptive to her thoughts. It irked her. He was doing it just to be detestable. She knew it.
Very well. Hewasdetestable. She’d never said he was bad looking. In fact, his looks were the least objectionable thing about him. Though she’d die before she admitted that out loud to another living soul.
The sight of his gleaming muscles made her pull out her handkerchief and blot her forehead. Her temper shortened considerably while he remained shirtless.
“Too much grain,” she snapped.
He bowed.
“Too much hay,” she announced.
He bowed again.
“That bit of hay looks dirty,” was next.
He left and retrieved an entirely new bale of hay that was pristine, which he pitched shirtless again. Julianna had to turn around and pretend to examine the tack wall in order to get a reprieve from staring at his muscles.
“What next, milady?” His voice made her turn back around.
What next?What next? “Violet would like an apple, Mr. Worthy. Would you feed her one? Withyour shirton, if you please.”
His grin was downright roguish. He knew he’d affected her. She could tell by the arrogant look on his face. “It would be mypleasure, my lady,” Rhys replied, smiling at her mostly charmingly before retreating to a back room of the stables. He returned moments later wearing a clean shirt and carrying two apples in his hand.
He bowed again. “I thought perhaps you might like an apple as well, my lady.”
She arched a brow. “A horse’s apple?”
“It’s just an apple.” He lowered his voice. “But perhaps you’d like me tofeedit to you.”
