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“I am,” she said firmly. “I did not think things through properly or have set in place any plan for dealing with my mistake.”
He nodded. “Good. That’s enough for me. If you do wish to visit the town, perhaps it is best you go with Maggie and her daughters, hide in their shadows, and say as little as possible. It was bad luck that you timed this visit with the butler’s trip.”
She smirked. “I know Paul saw me so I left straight away. I hoped he’d poor eyesight.”
“Or is easily persuaded otherwise by his betters.” He dropped the buttons into her open palm. “Sew them onto something pretty. Then I can enjoy unbuttoning them later.”
A flutter of heartbeats reminded her that whatever happened in the future, for now, in matters of a carnal nature, she was entirely his and that was all she wanted.
Chapter Eight
Three weeks left. If only time could be stretched eternally. Dara twitched Mary’s reins and turned her around. They were on the brow of the hill, near the boundary wall of Matthew’s expansive estate. It seemed ludicrous that a common man could have all this land and no title, nothing that raised him to a higher status that meant he was eligible for marriage with her class.
Tipping her hat forward, she shaded her eyes from the sun.
The dry summer had brought an early harvest and the men had been out since dawn with the scythes cutting the barley. Yesterday, Matthew had taken a wagon load of fresh cabbages to market. He had returned happy with the money he made, although she noticed very little of it was in his purse. She concluded he had a bank account, which again was an odd choice for a farmer. Why had he not spent his earnings on improving the property?
The second-floor window of the cottage was boarded up. To have that extra space and not use it puzzled her. There wasn’t even a set of stairs to access the floor.
She cantered down the hill, along the paths that skirted the fields until she reached the farm. The lads were making haystacks in a distant field. The sun was baking hot and she ventured they might fritter away some of the day in the shade waiting for the sun to lower in the sky.
Tying up Mary—a much leaner horse now that she was ridden every day—Dara entered the cottage.
Matthew was seated at the table, his head resting on his folded arms, and apparently asleep. She tiptoed closer, expecting him to lift his head up from the table and greet her. However, his soft snore told her she was right—he was sleeping, which during the day was very unusual. By his elbow was one of the books from the chest.
She picked it up. It was the first volume of French poetry, mainly love poems, and some were very risqué and unlikely to be approved by Miss Bramhall or her parents. She smiled, turning the well-thumbed pages. She wasn’t the first to appreciate the nuances laced between the lyrical lines. The poems were almost like songs. It was odd that Matthew had the book to hand. Since he couldn’t read French—she never seen him with any book other than the ledger of his accounts—she had concluded his education was rudimentary and pertained to what he considered useful.
He stirred his head, then jerked awake. She quickly put the book down.
He blinked several times before acknowledging her presence with a smile. “Good ride?”
She nodded. “Very. Mary is both sprightly and obedient.” She smiled back.
His smile broadened into a grin, but only briefly. He snatched the book up and carried it over to the chest, lifted the lid, and dropped it in without a care for how it landed. The lid slammed shut. Dara jumped.
“I’ll be taking the barley to market tomorrow,” he said.
She hovered, slightly perturbed by the shadows around his eyes. “Are you ill, Master?”
“No,” he said curtly. Then, seeing how she was hurt by his tone, he softened his voice. “No, I’m not, lass. It’s a busy time of year, little time for sleep and...”
He didn’t use the word, but she knew what he meant. He had been too busy to spend much time with her, and other than a frisky coupling when she had returned from her stay with Maggie, he had barely touched her in three days.
“I shall make supper, then,” she said, removing her bonnet.
“I’ll go check on the lads,” he said. He paused by the door. “Don’t wait for me at bedtime.”
For the third day in a row, she was a little disappointed by his lack of interest in her.
* * *
The following day, he left early with the three men to deliver the barley. Threshed and tied up in sacks, the barley harvest was bountiful and likely to fetch a good price. She waved goodbye to the men at the door of the cottage.
By lunchtime, she had performed many of her daily tasks. She took a break from her chores and opened the chest of books. The book
of poems lay abandoned at the top. She opened the front cover. There was no bookplate, like the others. She noted it had been printed in Paris by a French publisher. How Matthew had come by it was a mystery. She checked the other volume, and thought she saw a faint wording on the first page. The lettering had faded, the ink smudged slightly. There were no further clues.
She lay for a while on the bed and dozed. Outside, the birds squabbled and the cows mooed occasionally. She opened her eyes and stared up at the timber ceiling. Unlike the painted ones of her father’s house, Matthew’s cottage had simple plain boards tacked across the beams. Sitting up, she spotted the broken line of boards. Why had she not seen the anomaly before now?
