He raised his eyebrows. “A duke’s daughter shouldn’t be doing laundry.”
She laughed. “I don’t do laundry. Not really. Not the hard parts, the soaking and the scrubbing and the wringing. I just do the hanging up and taking down. And folding it and putting it away. I like that.”
“As long as you like it.”
“I do.”
“And,” he said carefully, “you needn’t make custard. You could tell Mrs. Nixon how to make it.”
Her face colored and she dropped her embroidery hoop into her lap and twisted her hands together. “You know?”
“Word got back to me.”
“But I like making custard, too.”
“Good. Because I like eating your custard.”
He couldn’t help but lay a subtle emphasis onyour. Since he had found out she was the one who made the custard, he thought it even more delicious. When he ate it, he felt he was filling himself up withher. Her care. Her sweetness.
“Good.” She smiled. “I’m glad you know my secret.” She picked up her embroidery hoop and her smile turned a bit mischievous. “And I’ll tell you another one. Because I wasn’t perfectly truthful with you, just now.”
Apprehension threw tight, iron bands around his chest and compressed the air out of his lungs. He had been so sure the custard-making was her only secret. And it was such a silly, harmless one. What painful truth was she about to reveal?
“I do have a little bit of time on my hands occasionally, and there’s something I’d like to do with it.”
Go to Paris? Take up with a lover?
“I’d like to learn saddlery.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“I want to learn how to make a saddle.”
He was still bewildered. “You want to learn a trade?”
“No. I just . . . I’ve had an idea for a while. For a special saddle for myself and Zephyr. And I’d like to be the one to make it. If you would take me to Lancaster, I can have a tree made there for my saddle and I could buy the tools and leather I need. I was thinking Mr. Spedding might be willing to give me some lessons in how to cut and stitch the leather? And I could use the extra harness room in our stables to do my work.”
Ourstables. She had saidour. She wasn’t going anywhere. The strain and weight of the invisible iron bands dropped away, and he felt like a boy.
All things were possible once again.
He took up his newspaper, hoping to give an appearance of nonchalance rather than ecstasy. “I’m going into the village tomorrow. Shall I have a word with Mr. Spedding about the lessons?”
She beamed. “Oh, yes, would you? If you ask, he’ll be sure to say yes.”
Oliver was fairly certain Spedding would be far more likely to say yes if the pretty, young Mrs. Hartwell asked him herself, but Oliver would hammer out a fee for the lessons, make certain there was nothing dangerous for Henrietta in the undertaking. No chance of lopped-off fingers, for example.
And he’d make sure Spedding didn’t have any strapping, young apprentices about. Ones with flirtatious ways and wandering, greedy hands. Henrietta had no idea of her effect on men. And still no idea some men were depraved animals.
Like you.
He straightened a page of the newspaper. “Would next week suit for going to Lancaster?”
“Oh, Oliver!”
A flurry of skirts as Henrietta jumped up and suddenly she was in front of him, almost in his lap, leaning over, pressing intohim, hugging him from a standing position as he sat, her breasts nudging under his chin.
Time had not made her touch any less arousing for him. He didn’t know how it was possible, but each time she came near him, his physical desire for her grew incrementally. At this point, a quick kiss on his cheek accompanied by an unintentional graze of her bosom against his arm could keep him awake all night, painfully hard until he capitulated and used his hand while thinking of the softness of her lips and breasts.
