Two Months Later
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Dearest Lucy,
We have arrived safely in America. Boston Harbor, to be exact. As you can most likely tell by the fact that you can read this, I am not the one writing. Heath is teaching me my letters, but I am horribly stubborn and refuse to listen to anything he tells me. He has vowed to write down every word precisely as I say it. What a wonderful, kind, darling man I have married!
I miss you dearly and hope you are well and staying out of trouble, although I doubt there is much to be found in a village the size of Blooming Glen. I should very much like to visit you soon, but Heath says we cannot return to England until Collinsworth has been caught, which I hope is soon. I like America, but it does not yet feel like home.
Please write back with all haste. By the time this letter reaches you and your return letter reaches me I fear I will be quite far along... with child, that is. Heath believes I am having a boy, but I know it shall be a girl. I only hope she inherits her father’s patience, for she will be getting none from me. Nine months to have a baby and one month to send a letter! How very long these things take.
Fondly Yours,
Ava
Lucy read the letter twice before she neatly folded it in half and slipped it inside the front pocket of her apron. How wonderful it was to hear from Ava, and to receive such good news. A baby! Why, if someone had told her six months ago that she would be working as a maid in a fine country mansion and her dearest friend would be happily married and expecting a child, she would have said they were dicked in the nob. Yet here they were, two rookery girls who’d managed to turn their lives around for the better.
She hummed quietly to herself as she began to hang the wash out to dry. The sheets flapped in the breeze, spraying droplets back onto her face and arms. The cool water felt wonderfully refreshing, and after taking a quick peek towards the kitchen to make certain no one was watching she used the edge of one damp sheet to wipe the perspiration from her temple.
Through a twist of fate and a bit of luck, Lucy had managed to find employment at an elderly couple’s rambling stone estate in the country. Though a bit senile at times, Lord and Lady Welsh were both kind and considerate. It was the head housekeeper Lucy really had to look out for. She’d already been reprimanded three times for her sharp tongue and “rebelliousness” nature. A fourth time, the housekeeper warned, and she would find herself out on her arse without so much as a letter of recommendation.
“Interfering old biddy,” Lucy muttered under her breath as she pulled yet another sheet from the wicker basket and shook out the wrinkles before hanging it beside the first. Shading her eyes she glanced up at the sun, silently wishing for it to rise a bit faster, for when it reached its zenith she would be able to take her lunch in the kitchen and give her feet a bit of a rest.
Off to the left of the front lawn two gardeners, brown caps slung low over their brows, tended a long line of rose bushes. As though they could sense her gaze they both looked up and the younger of the two, a fair looking lad named Tom, extended his arm in a cheerful wave. Lucy returned the greeting, and as she always did whenever she saw Tom she considered - and dismissed - the idea of giving more than a harmless wave.
For the first time in her life, things were simple and uncomplicated. Why add a man in the mix to muck it all up? She had a roof over her head. Food in her belly. A bit of jingle in her pocket. As long as she remembered to mind her tongue things would remain the same, and that was exactly how she wanted it.
Well, almost exactly.
Her nose wrinkled in annoyance as her mind drifted yet again towards that one morning countless weeks ago when she’d met a handsome stranger... and made a desperate wager.
Nothing had ever come of the bet, mostly because she’d fled London before the month had expired. But she thought of it - and Kinsley - far more than she should have.
Lucy did not bother looking up when she heard the strike of hoof on stone, indicating someone was riding up the long, tree-lined drive. Lady Welsh had many visitors, most of them as deaf and senile as she which led to quite a few interesting discussions over lemonade (which Lucy suspected Lady Welsh heavily dosed with mead) and pastries thick with frosting.
Continuing to hum a mindless ditty under her breath, she stretched up on her toes to secure a pillowcase on the long line of twine, biting her bottom lip in concentration when the clothes-peg refused to hold. Blasted things. She could never get them to work when she needed—
“Might I offer my assistance?”
A jolt of awareness passed through Lucy’s body as two masculine arms passed by her shoulders. Long fingers, saved from being elegant by the myriad of cuts and scrapes on the knuckles, took the clothes-peg and twisted it expertly into place. “There,” he drawled in satisfaction. “That should do it.”
Lucy did not have to turn around to learn the identity of the man standing so close behind her. She’d heard that deep voice before. She’d seen those hands.
A deep, steadying breath relieved the sharp ache in her chest but it did nothing to calm the errant beating of her heart. “What are you doing here?” she whispered in disbelief. The urge to turn around was like an itch between her shoulder blades. An itch she refused to scratch. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his presence was affecting her. Not if she could help it. But when his hand settled on the sloping curve of her shoulder and he gently spun her to her face him she was helpless to refuse.
Their eyes met.
Kinsley smiled, slow and sure.
“I told you I would find you.”