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Another week passed, and Willow found herself so busy, she scarcely had time to think of Ansley. She hadn’t, as yet, carved out an hour to move to the former housekeeper’s more hospitable chambers.

At night, she flopped exhausted onto the hard, narrow mattress in her tiny room. Then as unrelenting as a hurricane’s wind, he intruded upon not only her waking thoughts but her restless dreams.

As expected, she encountered him several times a day.

It was unavoidable since Mrs. Bloomfield had departed. And when he quirked his handsome mouth into a smile, or she caught him watching her with that dark, seductive gleam in his eye, she fairly ran in the other direction.

Not because she didn’t thrill from the desire on his face, or because she didn’t want to throw herself into his arms and declare what she feared was love blossoming in her heart, but because their stations were too far apart. They were too different.

Nowhere in her ancestry did a single aristocrat perch loftily on a family tree branch. She and all of her family before her were commoners. Earls did not marry their housekeepers, and she would be no man’s mistress.

She snorted out loud as she counted the same linens for the third time.

My, but she’d become imaginative of late. More like fanciful with her head in the clouds.

She, who’d always prided herself on her pragmatism and logic.

Like any young woman, she’d dreamed of meeting a man she’d fall in love with, who had similar dreams and goals as she, and they’d marry. They’d raise their children together, content in the simple life they’d forged for themselves.

But since meeting Ansley, most especially since coming to live in his household, unfamiliar discontentment had shrouded her. His home was massive and resplendent, an opulent reminder of everything he was, and she was not.

Oil and water and all that.

Happily, in recent days, she’d observed more and more flexibility in his routines. Less rigidness in his regimens. And less and less had his tic troubled him. It brought her the strangest sense of joy to know that whatever demons had haunted him, appeared to be fading.

Change might be hard—hadn’t she experienced it often enough?—but in this instance, it had borne wonderful fruit. He’d adjusted to Mrs. Bloomfield’s absence with commendable ease, too.

In a flurry of tears and hugs, the former housekeeper had departed for her daughter’s home, and although Willow felt slightly overwhelmed and missed the housekeeper’s advice and assistance, no major disasters had occurred. As yet, in any event.

The rest of the servants were so adept at their duties the house practically ran itself. Reeves continued to regard her with soulful, basset-hound baggy eyes, dashing to assist her with trivial things, and in general, being a kindly, hovering nuisance.

She feared the day would soon come, he would ask for her hand in marriage, and she worried that when she refused him, it would cause a rift in the smooth operation of the household. How awkward to continue to work together, to be under the same roof, day in and day out, and to know he desired a relationship she didn’t.

A palm resting upon a monogrammed pillowcase—the bold navy-blue S proclaiming the linen the earldom’s possession—she paused, tucking her chin to her chest for a moment. Was that so very different than her situation with Ansley? In all honesty, despite the age disparity, she and Reeves were more aptly-matched socially.

Oh, she’d steadfastly denied the insidious emotion twisting around her heart. The wily thing, encroaching upon her will and resistance until it had taken over. Which, despite her determination otherwise, had her recalling over and over and over again the heart-stopping kiss she’d shared with Ansley.

He’d not approached her again—nor mentioned their kiss.

She was grateful and annoyed. Relieved and frustrated. Perplexed and thankful.

In short, the dratted, beautiful man had her at sixes and sevens. She scarcely knew up from down or right from left. Tea from coffee. However, she’d managed to convince herself she could remain Fawntonbrooke Hall’s housekeeper until next autumn.

Willow Harwood was a woman of strong mind and will. She wasn’t a feckless ninny. She was independent, resilient, and capable of resisting an irresistible man.

Pray God, I am.

She’d continued to believe that until one morning, she’d awoken as dawn’s light peeked into her chamber, and her very first thought had been of Ansley. She’d yearned to see his slightly sleep-tousled sable hair, that enigmatic smile that never failed to make her heart flip, and those mesmerizing blue-hour eyes that peered straight into her soul. Eyes the exact color of the sky just after sunset and before sunrise.

And she wished—oh, God above, how she wished—he could be hers. Hers. And she could be his. For it was futile to deny the truth. She’d gone and done the unthinkable. The stupid, untenable, senseless, wonderful unthinkable.

Willow had fallen in love with her employer. A man far above her station. A wonderful man she couldn’t hope to have a future with except as in the role of his housekeeper.

Then, even more, insidious thoughts had slithered into her mind.

Ansley must marry someday. The earldom required an heir.

What—God forbid—if he began courting a woman while she still worked for him?