Heired Lines

by Magan Vernon

  “No, really, I can do it myself.” Natalie’s hand reached for the teakettle, but Meredith moved it back quickly. Almost too quickly.

  Everything moved in slow motion and as fast as the speed of light.

  Natalie’s foot must have hit one of the dollhouses as she fumbled forward and, instead of catching herself, she landed, chest first, into the table, tea sandwiches going all over. Luckily Meredith grabbed the teakettle before that soaked both of us.

  “Are you okay, miss?” Meredith asked, frantically picking at the fallen items before she helped Natalie back to her feet after setting down the kettle.

  I held in a laugh, waiting to see if Natalie was actually hurt and, once she stood, smoothing her shirt, her face as red as her hair, I finally let out a breath, yet my body still tensed.

  “Next time just let Meredith help you.”

  Natalie got down on her hands and knees, picking up the discarded sandwiches; something pulled me down as well, while Meredith moved as quickly as she could, picking up the discarded food and trying to mop up the spill.

  “Sir, you don’t need to worry about that,” Meredith said, eying me on my hands and knees, a bit of tea spotting my already sodden trousers.

  Natalie didn’t say anything. No more sass. She just politely picked up as many pieces of food as she could, setting them on the table as fast as her fingers could move.

  I sighed, looking out the window before standing.

  It was late and the day was wearing on me, so I assumed it had to be doing the same to Natalie. If I wanted to keep her happy and working, it was probably time to call it a night.

  “How about if Meredith shows you to your room? We can have some tea and sandwiches sent there.” I didn’t wait for a reply as I nodded to Meredith, who was already holding the tray and standing at attention.

  “Yeah. I could probably use some sleep if the other rooms have half as much stuff as this one.”

  I wasn’t going to tell her exactly how many other rooms there were and how this was nothing compared to what else Auntie Sarah had filling them.

  The thought of it alone had a dull ache throbbing in the back of my head.

  What had I gotten myself into with this manor?

  Was I doing the right thing by hiring Natalie?

  I guess I’d figure that out tomorrow.

  If the first night at the estate was any indication of our future working together, I probably had to prepare for things to get a whole lot messier.

  …

  The sun had barely started to rise when Meredith knocked on the door for my wake-up call.

  “Sir, I have your coffee and paper. May I come in?” she called from the other side of the door in the sitting room attached to my bedroom.

  I’d cleared out this guest room, moving most of Aunt Sarah’s trinkets into her old room. I would have stayed in the sprawling master suite, but there was something that didn’t seem right about sleeping in her old room.

  No.

  Something was very wrong and had the hair standing on the back of my neck as I entered the cold chill of the room where she passed.

  So, yeah, one of the other rooms was fine. Though it was almost as good as the suites in my parents’ place near London, if not better.

  The en suite bathroom could use some updating. Soaking in a claw-foot tub every night wasn’t exactly ideal for hair washing. But none of that could be done until each piece was cataloged for its value, according to the Webley historical society’s rules.

  My chest tightened as I pictured Natalie. The way her eyes lit up as she looked at everything, then the utter defeat when she tripped up.

  Dammit, should I have had said something different to her?

  I needed this to work out. I needed the manor set, and I couldn’t go and get the curator all flustered.

  I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of the redhead.

  “Come in,” I called through the door.

  She placed the silver serving tray with a carafe of coffee, and a full English breakfast of bacon, poached eggs, toast, tomatoes, and bangers on the ottoman in front of my chair.

  “Did you have someone bring Natalie coffee as well?” I asked.

  Meredith stilled for a moment before she nodded. “Miss Eleanor brought it to her room, but Miss Natalie was already awake and heading to the parlor.”

  I shot up, my heart beating in my ears. Why the hell was she starting now?

  “The parlor? Was she expecting me to join her for breakfast?”

  Meredith straightened the apron over her gray dress. “I believe she’s already started working, sir. She has a book out and some little tags, mumbling to herself as she paces the room.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I held. “How could she even get started when we haven’t even talked about her work?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Then I’ll find out.” I stomped toward the door but halted with my hand at the knob when Meredith’s voice rang through the room.

  “Sir? Don’t you think you should get dressed first?”

  I looked down at my robe. Probably more covered than I would have been in a suit.

  I sighed, but quickly covered it in a yawn.

  “You’re right. It’s not appropriate to greet a guest of the manor this way.”

  After getting dressed, I headed back to the sitting room. Meredith had my coffee and a piece of toast wrapped in a napkin.

  “You might need your coffee before you handle this one.” She smiled.

  “Thanks.”

  She followed me out of the room and down the long hall until we were at the parlor.

  I stopped, leaning against one of the wall sconces to take my first sip of bittersweet coffee while I took my first look at Natalie in her element.

  Her fiery red hair was pulled into a messy bun, a few fallen strands framing her cheeks.

  And her bloody beautiful face.

  Without a bit of makeup on it was easy to see her wide, light-brown eyes peering behind long, curled lashes at the little objects she was tagging.

  She was dressed casually, in an oversize blue T-shirt with “Tarheels” embroidered on the front and some black cropped pants.

  Between taking my first sip of coffee and trying not to stare at her arse, she finally turned toward me.

  She gasped, her hands trembling, but she managed not to drop the Victorian era lamp she was holding. She closed her eyes, letting out a slow breath before opening them.

  Bloody hell, could I get lost in those damn eyes.

  “You scared me. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  I smirked, pushing off the wall and taking a step toward her, ignoring whatever this feeling was that bubbled in my chest. “Well, this is my house.”

  She held up the lamp, the intricate, hand-painted pink flowers catching the light. “Oh your house then? So all of these are yours? Didn’t take you for an oil lamp man. Or to have so much pink. Or dollhouses for that matter.”

  I took the lamp, the rough edges of the paint work scratching against my fingers as I peered down at the wick inside. “Great Aunt Sarah had a knack for the unusual. And lots of it. I guess you’d call her a noble hoarder.”

  Natalie put her hands up, palms toward me. “Hey, I didn’t say that, you did.”

  Shaking my head, I smiled, imagining the eccentric older woman who would have Meredith make me marmalade toast when I was younger while she explained her latest purchase from a land and time that was so far away.

  “Are all of the rooms like this?” Natalie asked, a wince of hesitation in her voice.

  I cleared my throat, setting down the vase before walking toward the bay window, gazing out into the gardens where some of the Great Pyrenees were already out, begging for scraps from the workers.

  Of course, they w
ere always fed plenty, yet no one could resist giving them a little something extra from the kitchen.

  “The estate is at least twenty-thousand square feet with three stories and the cellar. I’m not sure exactly what’s down there, so hopefully you have enough room in that book of yours for all of it.”

  I turned toward her and nodded at the notebook in her hands.

  A small smile played at the corners of her lips. “Well, since you probably know the history of this place, would you mind helping me while I go through a few of the items?”

  My temple throbbed as her words hit me right in a pressure point.

  I hired her to help with these objects.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She tilted her head. “You were the one who questioned my ad in the first place, so maybe we could at least see if we’re on the same page for a few of these objects.”

  I cleared my throat, trying to think of an excuse.

  Then she smiled expectantly at me, and there went that flutter in my chest.

  Bloody hell, I couldn’t tell her no.

  “Okay, what do you have for me?”

  She pulled a faded sepia-toned picture from the table, holding it up as if she had a royal flush.

  Quickly I grabbed the old picture from her hand. Dammit, why did I let Aunt Sarah take a photo of me in one of her old ball gowns?

  I straightened, my neck impossibly hot as I tugged on my collar.

  “I have a phone call with one of the chancellors at ten.”

  She peeked at her watch. “So, we have a few hours then?”

  “Fine. But no more breathing a word about that photo.”

  “Does that mean I can’t ask if that lace gown is still in your closet?”

  I narrowed my eyes yet couldn’t help the smile that sat just at the corners of my lips. “I have no idea where it ended up. Great Aunt Sarah had it made especially for her in Italy when she went there for a duke’s wedding.”

  “It is a beautiful piece.”

  “It may still be somewhere in her wing. I never really looked for it, though. Can’t say it would still fit me now. Great Aunt Sarah was a slight woman at five feet and probably ninety pounds soaking wet.”

  Natalie smiled and picked up a rose quartz poodle figurine from one of the dollhouses. “It seems like she had a big personality, though.”

  I nodded. Natalie knelt down, examining each little piece of the dollhouse and furniture as if they were museum pieces and not just some eccentric old woman’s collection.

  No one else in the manor handled her stuff with this much care.

  Not just my neck, but now my entire body warmed, watching her. A sense of pride welling that someone else appreciated these things.

  “These dollhouses I thought were just toys from the late 1880s, early 1900s, but the more I’ve looked at them, the more I’ve started to see their little intricacies.”

  My curiosity piqued, I crouched down next to her; caked-on dust hit my nostrils as she used a small paintbrush to push aside the offending little granules.

  “But most of these are replicas of famous estates around England. Some were even made by the manor’s builder.”

  She pointed to a small engraving that read John Dobson, 1824. Newcastle.

  I blinked, rocking my head back and forth before leaning closer to examine the words, and ran my finger over the carving.

  “He was a Victorian-era architect. Famous for designing at least fifty churches and one hundred private homes,” Natalie said.

  “I had no idea these were anything special,” I whispered.

  “Sometimes you just have to clear the dust a little and look beneath the surface to find it.”

  I didn’t realize how close we were until her breath tickled my cheek and I inhaled the scent of her floral shampoo.

  I stared at her fingers as she pointed to the different features of the home model. Lost in the soothing tone of her voice.

  “Sir?” Meredith’s high-pitched tone knocked me out of my reverie so fast that I stood up, almost tripping over another house in the process.

  Before I could lose hold of my footing, though, a warm hand grasped mine, sending a jolt of electricity through me like I’d never experienced before.

  “Are you okay, Gavin? I mean, uh, Lord Gavin?” Natalie asked, looking up at me through hooded lashes.

  Quickly, I pulled my hand away, ignoring how much I enjoyed her touch, as I took a step toward the head maid, who looked at me with a curious smile.

  “Yes, Meredith?”

  “The chancellor said due to some flooding he won’t be able to make the meeting today. If you need to go back to the work you and Natalie were doing, you have the rest of the morning free.”

  “Thank you, Meredith,” I said, curtly nodding.

  “You’re welcome. I’ll let you two know when lunch is ready,” she said, a small, quizzical smile on her lips.

  “That’ll be fine, Meredith. Thank you.”

  As soon as she was out of the room, Natalie’s voice boomed, “So does this mean you’re ready to get your hands dirty?”

  My lungs expanded as I took in a deep breath and let it out.

  What was this prickling over my body?

  Was this pride?

  No one else had thought anything of these pieces.

  Until Natalie came along.

  I did the right thing by hiring her.

  “How about I do the markings?” I said, grabbing the notebook that had fallen to the ground.

  “Works for me.”

  Chapter Three

  Natalie

  Every muscle in my body ached like I’d just run a marathon.

  Not that I’d actually ever ran any sort of a race. I was more of the girl who faked a cold to get out of running the mile in gym class.

  Sure, I’d gone on plenty of picks and random flea market trips, but I never spent hours digging through years and years of items, each more fascinating than the next.

  Usually I would have stopped as soon as my back started yelling at me to stop. But there was something rooting me in place.

  I couldn’t say if it was the job itself or the sandy-blond-haired man next to me with that melodic accent. Each time he opened his mouth, I expected the pompous man from the emails, but he would give me little snippets of his aunt’s stories on the pieces.

  From our first email, and once I knew his title, I thought he was just some spoiled snob. Like the Chads I’d met in school whose daddies bailed them out of everything. Though this guy had a leg up on them, anyway, being a lord.

  But it wasn’t just his noble title or the fact that he owned this amazing manor.

  He wasn’t a guy who just took what was handed to him. When he spoke about his Great Aunt Sarah, she wasn’t just an old woman who handed him the castle. There was a subdued laughter as he’d relax his posture, gently brushing each object as he recalled a memory. The little gesture had me smiling each time he did it.

  And something happening deep down in my chest that definitely shouldn’t have been racing.

  “Okay, it looks like that might be the end of the parlor items. Or close to it.”

  I placed the tag on the last dollhouse, then set it along the wall with the thirty-two other perfect miniatures. Each still needed to be valued once I did a little more research, but their stories were almost worth more than the monetary value.

  “You do know that this is only one of the rooms with items that need to be documented? And probably the cleanest one?” Gavin asked, raising one of those perfectly shaped eyebrows.

  Damn, he was infuriating. Not just because of what he said, but why did he have to still look so pristine in his button-down shirt molding against his body? I, on the other hand, was pretty sure sweat had mixed with dust and coated my brow line.

  “
Hey, you gotta celebrate in baby steps. Sometimes I even give myself pre-rewards.”

  “Pre-rewards?” He tilted his head, his forehead crinkling as if I just said the most ridiculous thing ever.

  “Yeah, like you give yourself the reward because you know you’re going to deserve it, and it gives you even more incentive to do it because you’ve already rewarded yourself.”

  He stared blankly like most people did when I said something they didn’t quite understand. But usually that had to do with history, and Gavin hadn’t questioned me when I explained some of the history of the different trinkets.

  In fact, he even asked more questions after I rambled and laughed at some points.

  But not even a hint of a smile. Even when he laughed. He was like those damned guards at Buckingham Palace that weren’t allowed to react. I silently made it my mission to see if I could get even a small quirk from his lips.

  Waving my hand in the air, I tried to maintain my composure so I could explain it all. Though I secretly hoped for some kind of reaction out of him. Even if it was just a teensy-weensy smile.

  He then let out a sigh as he looked at his watch. “You know it’s midday, far past breakfast, and your meal has probably already been taken back to the kitchen.”

  I couldn’t let this guy see me falter…again.

  No. I was going to make him smile if it was the last thing I did.

  And maybe it was kind of fun to give him a good ribbing. I had a feeling he never had anyone say something negative to him.

  I smiled extra hard, giving him a grin so wide that my cheeks started to hurt. “Then I guess it’s lunchtime. Which way to the kitchen? All I really know is how to get here and to my bedroom. I should probably know where all of the rooms are don’t you think?”

  His forehead crinkled. If he kept giving me those stern, brooding looks, his face was going to stick that way. “I’ll signal Meredith for lunch, then she can show you the rest of the manor.”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiping his finger across it.

  Was he seriously texting his maid?

  “Or you can just point me in the direction of the kitchen and maybe the pantry? You don’t need to bother Meredith. I can just go make a grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly.”