Startled, he turned. Devil take this weather. The rain on the tiled roof concealed the fact that Cinderella hadn’t taken his suggestion and returned to the house. She was carrying a bin of oats which she poured into a manger in the corner.
“I mightn’t be talking about you,” he said gently.
She cast him another of those unimpressed glances as he set aside the brush and shouldered his valise. Behind him, Saraband buried her nose in her feed. The mare might make a braw confidante, but she was useless when it came to giving advice. And as Lyle surreptitiously studied the lass who set out ahead with such a confident step, he’d love a woman’s perspective on his situation.
They dashed out of the stables and through the rain, the wee dog barking at their heels, into the Grange’s kitchens. Like everything else Lyle had seen on the estate, they were spotless and modern. The warmth from the huge hearth sent the blood to his prickling extremities.
He dropped his luggage on the floor and headed for the fire. The dog was two steps ahead of him.
The lassie opened a cupboard and pulled out a pile of towels which she dropped on a well-scrubbed table. “Here.”
He stripped to his shirt and started to mop up the damp. Without looking at him, she unwrapped herself from his coat and spread it and her sodden shawl across a couple of chairs. Then she kneeled near the fire to tend to the dog.
When Bill was a fluffy white blob, the lassie rose and started to dry her thick hair, darkened to milky coffee with rain. Lyle struggled not to notice how the brisk movement of her arms jiggled her generous bosom against her thin blouse. He had a liking for small, curvy women. Or at least he did now.
After draping his wet, crumpled towel over another chair, Lyle straightened and stared at his adorably disheveled companion. “Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?”
She lowered the towel from her hair and regarded him with unreadable eyes. To his complete amazement, she dropped into a curtsy. “My name is Flora, sir. I’m a housemaid here.”
With difficulty, he stifled a scoffing laugh. His intelligence mustn’t have impressed her. That lie wouldn’t convince the county’s greatest blockhead. Not least because she spoke with a clipped upper-class accent and her hands, while undoubtedly competent, were as smooth and unblemished as any lady’s.
“Flora…” he said in a thoughtful voice, studying the wee besom and trying to make sense of this latest twist in their interactions.
“Yes, sir,” she said, dropping her gaze with unconvincing humility.
What the devil was she playing at, Sir John Warren’s beautiful only child? She’d kept him guessing from the first, which promised interesting times to come. Last week in his London club, her father had offered this girl to Lyle as his bride.
Intrigued and faintly annoyed that she judged him daft enough to swallow this twaddle, Lyle decided to allow her enough rope to hang herself. Plastering an ingenuous smile on his face, he stepped closer. “I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Flora. My name is Smith. Ebenezer Smith.”
Chapter Two
* * *
Charlotte Warren stared incredulous at the tall, commanding man who filled the Grange’s kitchens with sheer force of personality. Then she shut her mouth so sharply, her teeth clicked.
“Mr. Smith?” she said, much as he’d said “Flora.” Flora was the first name she thought of when she decided not to reveal who she was.
“Aye, that’s right,” he said with that sincere smile she didn’t trust at all.
“But you’re Scottish.” She slipped out of her clogs, then was sorry she did because barefoot, she lost a good two inches in height.
“Smith is a gey common name north of the border.”
Whereas there was only one Ewan Macrae, Earl of Lyle, she thought grimly. She glanced toward the fine leather baggage piled beside the table. “That’s odd. The initials on your saddlebags are E.A.A.M.”
To her satisfaction, chagrin flashed in those deep-set, dark blue eyes.
Take that, Ewan Macrae, whatever that double A stands for. “Arrogant Ass,” I’m guessing.
After she’d read her father’s insultingly brief note announcing that he’d chosen the perfect husband for her, she’d balled it up and flung it into the fire. Then she’d set out to ignore the absurdity, hoping that like most of her father’s crazes, it would go away.
It hadn’t gone away.
The proof that it hadn’t stood before her now, over six feet tall, black-haired, brawny, and with an insolent light in his cobalt eyes that made her want to pitch a copper saucepan at his gorgeous head.
“That’s the monogram of the fine gentleman I serve, Ewan Macrae, Earl of Lyle.” He paused and subjected her to a sharp glance where she stood near the hearth. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
“I have no interest in society wastrels,” she said in a lofty tone, before recalling her humble alias. A housemaid shouldn’t criticize her betters. At least to the betters she criticized.