Chapter 10
Anna wandered into the kitchens, her cheeks nipped by the cool morning air and the refreshing walk she had just indulged in. Longer than usual, in truth, for obvious reasons; she had needed the additional miles in an attempt to clear her head from the night before.
“Ah, the wanderer returns,” Mrs. Wilton said brightly, her face a flushed shade of red as she stood over a pot, stirring vigorously. “Will you take breakfast outside, Your Grace, or in your chambers?”
There didn’t seem to be any unfamiliar faces in the kitchens that morning, just the cook, her assistant, and a handful of maids who were finishing their breakfast.
Anna frowned. “Where are the others?”
“The others?” The cook paused her stirring to raise an eyebrow, then seemed to realize Anna’s meaning.
“Oh, you mean the Scots? We’ve come to an agreement.
Our people have the kitchens from five o’clock until ten o’clock, and they have it from ten o’clock until one o’clock for His Grace’s luncheon, and then we all come together to prepare dinner. They’re actually rather nice.”
The news should have quietened Anna’s restless mood, but, instead, it struck her with a small shiver of unease. If everyone just accepted this situation, then she would have to accept it, too.
After last night, that was no longer possible, though.
Do you not see that he wants me gone? Do you not understand that, if I am no longer here, he will get rid of many of you, too?
She held her tongue. It was good that her staff and his were getting along much better, and she did not want to scare the people she cared for, simply because she was afraid for her future.
“Does His Grace not partake in breakfast, then? Or are you making it for him?” she asked, forcing indifference into her voice.
“We make it for him, Your Grace,” Mrs. Wilton replied, as she resumed her impassioned stirring. “Although he asks for peculiar things. This morning, he wanted salted porridge with an egg on top. I can’t imagine it tasted very good, but he seemed satisfied.”
She pulled a face while, on the other side of the room, the maids chuckled quietly. The sort of giggles that could only come from girls who were rather enamored.
“I suppose we should consider taking breakfast together, so that you do not have to trouble yourself twice,” Anna said stiffly. “If we are to live together, we should at least tolerate one another enough to share meals.”
The cook wafted a dismissive hand. “It’s no bother, Your Grace. I will make as many breakfasts as I am required to, and I won’t mind a bit.” She flashed a warm grin at her mistress. “It’s surprisingly nice to be so busy, feeding all the newcomers.”
“I am… glad to hear it.” Anna almost choked on the half-lie.
She was happy for Mrs. Wilton, certainly, but she would have much preferred if Jeremy and his entourage were preparing to leave again. As far from Stonebridge, especially her library, as possible.
“Do you happen to know where His Grace is this morning? Has he risen yet?” Anna asked as she plucked a warm scone from the counter, the comforting scent of butter, sugar, and currants doing almost nothing to improve her temper.
There had been no one awake except for a few servants when she left the manor for her dawn walk, and she had not chosen to take much attention to Jeremy’s habits.
Was he a late riser? Did he enjoy morning walks, like she did?
What had he done with his days when he was in Scotland?
These were questions that fascinated her, but she definitely had no intention of asking him.
Indeed, if she did not have to speak with him again, that would probably be for everyone’s benefit. After all, if he could not talk to her, he could not repeat his desire to have her married off as soon as possible.
“I believe he’s been outside since very early this morning,” the cook replied. “Out near the paddocks. That’s where he had his breakfast and, as far as I know, he’s still out there.”
Anna furrowed her brow. What would he be doing out there? Ruining the growth of new grass in the nearest paddocks with the horses he had brought with him? Destroying her wildflower meadows, so there would be nowhere for the butterflies and the bees to frequent as the season turned warmer?
“I shall take a couple of scones for my breakfast,” she said, picking up a second. “I fear I must see what is afoot.”
Mrs. Wilton seemed perturbed by that. “You can’t have scones for breakfast, Your Grace. You’ll be hungry again by mid-morning.”
“Then, I shall come and bother you at mid-morning,” Anna replied with a cheerier smile, as she took her stolen delicacies and headed back out into the bracing morning air.
The day was overcast, lacking any of that bright spring sunshine to lift her spirits. It actually suited her well for the weather to mirror her inner turmoil, as she moved around the back of the manor toward where the paddocks spread out in vibrant green squares.
She paused at a strange sound, coming from the hay barn: a steady thwack-thwack as if someone were partaking in some early morning tree-felling.
Puzzled, she followed the sound to the open barn doors and pressed herself flat against the side of the building. There, she cautiously craned her neck and looked into the gloom, unsure of what she might find.
What on earth…
If she had been granted a thousand guesses, she would not have been able to come up with the scene before her.
“Excuse me,” Jeremy chided, flashing a hard look down at the small, white-and-gray goat that had just rammed him in the shin. “How am I supposed to build ye a manor of yer own if ye keep trying to knock me off me feet, eh?”
Am I still sleeping? Anna gaped as Jeremy leaned down and scratched between the baby goat’s ears, the precious little creature bleating in triumph.
“Is that what ye wanted, eh?” Jeremy chuckled in the back of his throat: a gruff, almost reluctant sound.
The goat’s tail wagged emphatically as it nuzzled into Jeremy’s hand.
“Aye, well, ye’ll have to wait for more scratches, or I will never be done,” he said, as he resumed his work.
Stripped to the waist, his back and shoulders flexing, Jeremy swung a large mallet with all his might.
It struck a post with impressive accuracy, sinking deeper into the soft dirt of the barn floor, on which a notch was cut to hold planks that would eventually form a sturdy fence—the kind a mischievous little goat would not be able to escape through.
In fact, half of it was already built, along with a small wooden shelter for the runt of the litter.
The goat jumped up and butted him again.
“Och, Sprightly, would ye cease that?” Jeremy scolded. “I know ye liked it in me bedchambers, but ye can’t stay there. Ye ought to be outside, where ye can grow big and strong. Ye can’t be a coddled wee goat, or the other goats will tease ye, and ye’ll never make friends.”
Anna covered her mouth with her hand to stop the laugh that threatened to escape. It was the sweetest thing she had ever seen, not just the effort he put into creating a cozy space for the goat, but his lack of embarrassment in talking to the animal.
She had never in a million years expected that he would actually befriend the creature, much less give it a name: Sprightly. It was the perfect name for such a charming soul, so full of vigor and mischief despite his tiny size and wobbly, clumsy legs.
Her smile faded behind her hand as her stomach fluttered strangely, in a manner that she did not trust. What was she doing, laughing and admiring this man?
She could not allow any softness to pierce through her armor.
She needed to hate him and stay hating him: the man who had claimed her home, claimed her first kiss, claimed her propriety, claimed her goats!
I cannot be led astray again. I shall not.
She had to protect herself against the maddening spells that Jeremy seemed to cast upon her, making her take temporary leave of her senses. What happened in the library could not happen again, and that meant never allowing herself to be alone with this man again.
You kissed me, then threatened my peace, and then walked away from me as if you were already the victor.
With that firmly in her mind, she tiptoed away from the open barn doors and walked off without saying a word to him, either. Not least because she had no idea what she would say to him after the events of last night.
Jeremy paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, leaning on the long shaft of the mallet as he squinted toward the barn doors. Sprightly the goat paused with him, unleashing a pitiful bleat.
“Aye, that was rude of her, wandering off without so much as a ‘good morning’ to ye,” Jeremy said.
His muscles were pleasantly sore, the ache of hard work, but all the necessary distraction of the morning’s endeavors had been undone in a moment.
He had known Anna was there, watching him.
She might have thought herself stealthy, but her footfalls were loud enough to alert someone who suffered the hardest of hearing.
“Do ye think she liked yer new home?” he asked Sprightly, who stared up at him with his blank, goat eyes.
Must be nice to have nothing going on in one’s head.
Jeremy wished he could say the same, but Anna had plagued him all night for a second time.
The ice-cold bath had been a temporary reprieve, just as the morning’s toil had been, for she was far stealthier when it came to creeping back into his thoughts.
Just then, different footfalls approached. Faster, more urgent. A second later, his housekeeper appeared. She took one look at him and quickly turned her back.
“Yer Grace, I came to tell ye that a letter arrived just now,” she said, while he slowly reached for his shirt and pulled it on. “From Her Ladyship. They’ll be joining us sooner than expected. Tomorrow, in fact.”
A wave of disappointment ran down the back of his neck; he had thought he had more time to make the manor a calmer place.
More accurately, he had thought he had more time to keep the reality of his loss at bay.
Beatrice might not want to talk about her husband’s death, but Sophie would surely ask about her father and why he was no longer there; why they had been forced to leave McIver Castle; why she could not go home again.
“The rooms are prepared, I assume?” he said tightly.
“They are, Yer Grace.”
He gave a small nod, though she could not see it. “We’ll have a gathering next week. Send out invitations to any important, unattached gentlemen of the ton to join me for a house party. And anyone else of merit, I suppose, to satisfy curiosities.”
“A house party?” The housekeeper almost turned, her voice textured with anxiety.
“If ye don’t know what to write or who to send the invitations to, ask the other housekeeper or the butler,” he replied.
“As ye wish, Yer Grace,” she said, clearing her throat. “Speaking of invitations, there was one delivered with Her Ladyship’s letter. For a masquerade ball at Belford House. I believe it’s nae far from here.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Aye, it’s not nearly far enough.” He paused to take a steadying breath. “When is it?”
“Tonight, Yer Grace,” the housekeeper replied.
“Tonight?” Jeremy’s eyes widened, and he silently cursed Colin for not mentioning the date when they encountered one another on horseback.
He had too much to do, too much to think about; he couldn’t possibly venture off to a masquerade with Anna tonight.
After what happened last night, she would probably refuse anyway, and he didn’t know how acceptable it might be to carry a dowager duchess into someone else’s residence over his shoulder.
“The messenger explained that it had been planned for some time, but the Marquess didnae ken if ye’d come, Yer Grace,” the older woman explained with some reluctance in her voice.
“Aye, he told me so, but wouldn’t he have invited the Duchess anyway?
Why has he waited so long?” Jeremy grumbled, frustrated that everything seemed to conspire against him at once: his sister-in-law’s arrival, Anna’s defiance, his sleepless nights, the goat that had been put into his care, everything about Anna’s stubborn presence in this manor.
In truth, part of him had hoped he could contend with the Anna problem before Beatrice and Sophie ever arrived, but it seemed his time had run out in that matter. Unless he could somehow do the impossible and have Anna married and out of his way, out of his thoughts, in the span of one night.
“I wouldnae ken, Yer Grace,” the housekeeper replied, bringing a sigh to Jeremy’s chest.
Of course, the older woman wouldn’t know.
She was as much a stranger in this part of the world as he was.
This wasn’t McIver Castle, where they knew all of their neighbors and were always hosting one gathering after another—Douglas and Beatrice were, at least. This was England.
Nothing was the same, and everything that he and his people knew had no place here.
“Find that Katherine girl,” Jeremy muttered. “She seems to be Her Grace’s confidante. Tell her to prepare the Duchess, and that Her Grace is to be ready on time. If there’s any delay, I will come up there and dress her meself.”
A small gasp left the housekeeper’s lips, but her head bobbed in a nod. “I will pass on the message at once, Yer Grace.”
With the same urgency with which she had arrived, the older woman hurried off without waiting to be excused. As she departed, Jeremy groaned and leaned back on the fence he had just built, Sprightly fast asleep on the hay, without a care in the world.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Aye, ‘cause the thing I want to do most in the world is dress the lass.