She hesitated, but somehow Gareth knew it was not because she didn’t wish it—but because such intimacy frightened her.

She finally smiled and sat beside him, her small hand still in his. “What would you like to know, Gareth?”

Chapter Eleven

Sometime in the night before the event those in the village were calling “Boulder Day” it began to rain. Not a gentle summer rain, but a torrential downpour that began just before dusk and continued on through the night.

It was still raining when Serena woke just before dawn and parted the heavy velvet drapes to peek outside. Her room, like most of the big suites that comprised the family wing, had windows overlooking the south side of the house. The parterre gardens, which they’d just begun to lay out with shrubs this past week, were below water, the freshly turned dirt a brown slick sheet that seemed to be sliding slowly down the gentle slope.

Serena let out a few choice French words under her breath and quickly dressed. She was headed for the servants’ wing when she encountered Jessup already talking with half a dozen grooms and other servants.

“Good morning, Mrs. Lombard, I was just instructing the men to spread the waxed tarps you had delivered.”

Serena smiled. “You are too good, Jessup. That was exactly why I was coming to find you.” She turned to the assembled men. “The clusters of plants will be fine, but I’m afraid our trenches may already have washed away. Please cover what you can.”

The men dispersed and she turned to Jessup.

“You really do think of everything, don’t you?”

His eyelids lowered slightly to show her words pleased him. “I know you would probably like a hot cup of coffee.”

“I would do murder for a cup. Don’t bother bringing it up for me, I’ll take it in the kitchen.”

“Mr. Lockheart is in the breakfast room, ma’am.”

“He is?” she asked, stupidly.

“And I must confess it was he who recommended the tarps.”

“You fibber, Jessup! Very well, I shall join him. Thank you.” She’d seen Lockheart since his return from London, of course, but they’d managed never to be alone together. She had taken to coming to breakfast a little later and she believed he accommodated her by dining even earlier. That way they’d managed to only see each other in the company of either McElroy or Oliver, with whom she’d found Lockheart closeted three nights earlier when she went to visit her son in the school room.

“Mama!” Oliver had shouted, “Look what Mr. Lockheart brought.” Spread out on the table were a number of automata, more than a few of them in parts. Oliver answered before she could ask.

“Mr. Lockheart and I are taking them apart so that we might study them.”

Serena risked a look at her employer, who was regarding her with the cool look she now knew could hide any number of things.