“Why not?” Violet asked, her hands on her hips. “I want to be useful, and the roses need weeding.”
“But you are a duchess!” the gardener protested. “I can do it!”
“And I shall certainly welcome your help,” Violet offered. “But I want to adopt a hands-on approach to the improvement of the estate. Otherwise, how else will I know what is needed most to have it in tip-top shape?”
“But your dress—and your gloves! You’ll dirty ‘em!”
“That’s why you’re fetching me new rawhide gloves.” Violet couldn’t help but smile at the look of utter shock on the gardener’s face. “Besides, they’re just clothes.”
“A-alright, Your Grace,” the gardener sputtered. He bowed quickly and scurried away, leaving Violet to kneel in the mud and continue to pull at the weeds, with her scarf wrapped around her dainty gloves.
To her pleasant surprise, she liked weeding. Never before in her life had she kneeled in the grass and used her hands to tend to something, and the feeling was exhilarating. She felt useful for the first time in a long while.
Violet reached for a particularly large clump of weeds and pulled hard. The weeds resisted—they must have been deeply rooted. Violet scrunched up her face and pulled even harder. All of a sudden, the weeds gave way, ripping up from the ground without any warning, and the force propelled her backward.
She landed on her backside on the soft, damp earth. There was a squelch, and she knew that she had landed in mud.
“Blast,” she cursed under her breath.
For all her talk of the unimportance of clothes, she hadn’t wanted to soil her dress completely. It was a lovely frock, after all. Besides, it would mean more work for her lady’s maid, who would now be up all night trying to get the mud stains out.
If only James had kept his house in order, instead of neglecting it—as typical of his sex—then none of this would…
A bark of laughter sounded from across the garden, and Violet looked up to see the devil in question walking towards her, his walking stick out and a wide grin on his face.
“Well, well, well!” James called out as he approached. “First, you were a viscount’s daughter dressed as a maid, now you’re aduchess lying in the mud. Tell me, my dearest wife, why is it that I keep finding you in positions that are entirely unbecoming of your sex and station?”
“You know why I was dressed as a maid,” Violet snapped, unable to keep some of the irritation out of her voice as embarrassment coursed shot her.
“You better have an equally perilous reason this time,” James teased. He leaned against his walking stick and grinned down at her.
“I don’t. I was simply trying to garden.”
This amused James far more than she thought it would.
He let out another bark of laughter and shook his head. “You are as unpredictable a wife as I could have hoped for, Violet. Although, considering your reputation as a quiet and serious young lady, I had rather low hopes.”
“Can you stop teasing me and help me up?” Violet huffed.
She was cross now, and the last thing she needed was to be teased by the man whose garden she’d been trying to improve.
“Of course, of course,” James said.
He held out a hand, and she grasped it and then pulled herself to her feet, leaning against him to keep from falling. Even in her embarrassment and annoyance, she couldn’t help but appreciate how very strong he was. He didn’t so much sway as he took her entire weight.
Once she was up, she released his hand as quickly as possible and tried to smooth down her skirts and adjust her hair, which had come loose from her coiffure as she’d been weeding.
“Thank you,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster.
James peered at her, still smiling. “I must say, I like this look on you—disheveled, covered in mud and twigs, with grass stains on your dress.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “I know I look ridiculous right now.”
“Indeed, I am in earnest.”
Violet narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t believe thatfor a second. But to her surprise, James looked surprisingly sincere.
But then he ruined it by saying, “As a boy, I always wished I could marry a dryad or a fairy. I thought it impossible until now.”
