by June Calvin
Olivia had watched with growing dismay as Lord Edmund caught the hay her workers threw up to him, his movements ever more dextrous as he built up the load. She hadn’t the slightest idea how the hay was made to stay in place, but it became painfully clear that Lord Edmund did. How could she fulfill her part of the bargain? She feared she would never be able to be in his presence, working with him every day, without yielding to her attraction to him. And she was attracted to him. She had been even before that delightful kiss last night. However she might disdain him for the cardsharp and fortune hunter he had shown himself to be, the heat still rose in her cheeks and elsewhere in her body whenever she looked at him.
Watching his long, lean frame as he caught, laid, and teased the hay into place was torture. Sweat had long since plastered the workman’s tunic to his broad chest and muscled thighs. He had become a piece of moving sculpture, with a body to put those pagan statues of Lord Elgin’s to shame.
As she noted Jason’s improved performance with his haystack, she found herself half yearning for him to succeed, that she might be wedded and bedded by the so-tempting Lord Edmund. She gnawed at her lower lip and looked up to encounter the subject of her fantasy looking down at her, heat in his brown eyes.
The effrontery of the man! Looking at her as if he were undressing her! Olivia touched her heel to her horse and rode toward Aunt Lavinia, who sat upright in the gig beneath a wide umbrella, avidly following events.
Lavinia studied her niece’s expression carefully. “Will they win, do you think?”
“I pray not.” Olivia compressed her lips tightly.
“He is very handsome, is he not? And very well set up.”
Very well set up. You might say so! Olivia blushed and turned to study the vast acres of uncut hay beyond the little tableau. Only two workers were scything, all she could spare this morning. Somehow she must get it all cut, dried, and into the barn or made up into haycocks before the halcyon weather changed.
“Livvy, dear?” Her aunt interrupted her worried thoughts. “Do you mean to keep your bargain? For I do believe Lord Edmund would be a very good influence on Jason.”
“A good influence? The man is a gamester. Do you forget that if he had faced any other young man the other night, he would likely have taken every dime his victim had to wager? He is a penniless n’eer-do-well, a fortune hunter, a. . .” Olivia spluttered, her indignation outrunning the charges she had to lay against Lord Edmund.
“I think you are being unfair. Look, Jason has managed to load his wagon. Will you keep your bargain, dear?”
Olivia turned back, grimly noting the truth of her aunt’s observation. Jason’s load sat slightly off center, but it rose fully as high as Lord Edmund’s. “Yes, I will, if they win, which I by no means concede. After all, they must yet take their loads up Partridge Hill. Doubtless they will both spill out there, as the others did yesterday.”
As they headed for the barn, Olivia rode behind them, followed by Lavinia in the gig. Behind them trooped the workers and an assortment of children, all laughing and talking loudly. They knew there was a wager being played out, though they had no way of knowing what the stakes were. Some of the men made their own bets on the outcome, to Olivia’s vexation. My brother and Lord Edmund have set a very bad example today, she thought, then remembered with a guilty twinge her own role in the affair.
The road to Partridge Hill rose slowly but steadily from the flat meadowland near the Sparrow River to the relatively high ground of a small bluff midway up the side of the valley. Her father had placed storage and cattle barns here, safe from the occasional flood.
Thinking of her father, she forgot to watch closely what was happening in front of her. A shout, quickly followed by a deluge of hay, caused her horse to shy and then stumble. She managed to pull it up just as her brother tumbled from his perch. He began cursing most colorfully until his diatribe was drowned out by most of the remaining load on his hay wain. He quickly disappeared from sight under the golden cascade.
At Jason’s shout, Edmund turned his head just in time to see the younger man’s hay separate along the fault line created when he had tried to balance his off-center load. He watched the boy slide from sight. So much for marrying Olivia, he thought, then consoled himself: That rose has thorns.
He called down to one of the gamboling boys beside the wagon, to see if Jason was okay.
“He be well enou’ to say more’n what he ought,” the lad responded. And indeed, Edmund could hear Jason’s swearing quite clearly, and frowned at the notion of the same sounds reaching the ears of the women and children. Before he could move to put a stop to this unseemly display, though, Jason’s voice fell silent.
Seeing that Jason had survived his fall, Edmund decided to continue on to the barn, mindful that his own load was very much the product of an amateur, and might follow the same path as Jason’s if he continued to defy the laws of gravity by stopping on an incline.
It wasn’t far to the barn, and Edmund halted just at the door, as he stood to have his head knocked if he tried to enter atop the hay. He slid down, and the young boy who had charge of the team took the wagon inside.
Not pausing to brush himself off, Edmund hastened back down the hill to see whether Jason was injured or just angry. As he moved around the second hay wain, he saw several people, including Olivia Ormhill, frantically pawing through a large mound of hay. Abruptly Jason’s head popped up, quickly followed by the rest of him, looking more like a straw man than a young squire. He wiped his hand over his face, struggled to his feet, and grasped Olivia by the shoulders.
Edmund started to move faster, fearing the young man’s anger would cause him to harm his sister. Jason shook Olivia and said something to her that Edmund couldn’t hear, and suddenly they were both laughing. Then Jason stooped and picked up an armload of hay, throwing it at her. Soon Olivia was only slightly less covered with hay than Jason, and the sight of them made Edmund laugh, too, in amusement as well as relief.
Joining elbows, brother and sister turned toward him. “Well, my lord, it seems as if you have won your share of the bet,” Jason said, catching Olivia closer to his side. “My sister will make you an excellent teacher. Do you see that you are an excellent pupil.” He winked at Edmund on the side away from Olivia’s view. Edmund smiled and took the proffered hand.
“That I will,” he promised, looking at Olivia to see how she felt about the turn of events. She was still smiling as she nodded her acceptance. Mischief kindled in her expressive eyes.
“I collect you are vastly relieved to have won your way free of any obligation to marry me, Lord Edmund.” She looked down at her hay-covered costume. “I must seem even less of a bargain just now!”
He grinned. “No, indeed, Miss Ormhill. Hay becomes you. I find myself snatching defeat from victory when I look upon such a fetching sight and realize you might have been mine!”
“Fustian.” She smiled slyly at her brother. “It seems to me that Lord Edmund is not dressed appropriately for the occasion, do you not agree?”
Jason squinted at Edmund. “Indeed! But we can rectify the situation. Shall we?”
As of one mind, they scooped up armsful of the hay and threw them at him. The golden shower briefly obscured his view. When he could see again, he returned the favor.
Abruptly Olivia stopped, merriment fading from her face. Edmund followed her gaze and saw an elegantly turned-out rider approaching down the country lane on a handsome roan gelding.
“Oh, no,” he heard Lavinia mutter. She rushed up to her niece and began brushing hay from her clothing.
“Jason, Olivia, what can be the meaning of this?”
“Lord Corbright.” Olivia drew herself up, combing at her hopelessly hay-bedecked hair with shaking fingers.
“Frank, you’ve arrived just too late to see the result of a famous wager,” Jason crowed. “Come, join us for lunch and we’ll tell you all about it.”
Edmund was surprised at the cordiality in Jason’s voi
ce toward the man who had jilted his sister. He was even more surprised to realize who the man was.
Corbright surveyed the trio with an ambiguous smile playing across his lips. “Throwing yourself into the role of farmer again, Olivia? You look most charming in the part.”
Olivia pasted a smile on her face. “Thank you, my lord. Gallant as usual. May I make known to you Lord Edmund Debham?”
Lord Corbright had barely glanced at him before, doubtless taking him for one of the estate workers. Now he stared at Edmund insolently and for an unconscionably long time before acknowledging the introduction. Edmund returned his perusal calmly. He knew this overdressed gentleman, though he had not been Lord Corbright at the time of their acquaintance. So this is Olivia’s former fiancé, he thought. A nasty piece of work! A crony of his brother, Franklin Melwin had long since shown his true colors to Edmund. Little does she know how fortunate she has been to escape marriage to him.
“Well, Eddy,” Corbright drawled at last. “I see you have finally achieved your life’s ambition—to labor in the fields.” He shook his head. “I suppose you have found your level—what must cannon fodder do, once the cannon fall silent?”
“Now see here,” Jason spluttered. “Lord Edmund is our guest, and I won’t have you—”
“Jason and Lord Edmund have just been having a bit of fun, Lord Corbright.” Olivia’s voice shook as she spoke, and Edmund suspected she feared an altercation.
“Did you ever notice, Jason, how easy it is for those who have never faced cannon to look down on those who have?” Edmund sneered at Corbright. If there was to be a quarrel, he would draw Corbright’s fire. He did not fear the man.
“That’s right,” Jason snapped. “And Lord Edmund’s bravery in battle deserves your respect.”
Corbright flicked at an invisible speck on his coat sleeve. “Oh, do not fly up in the boughs, either of you. I referred to something Lord Edmund’s brother said of him. That, of course, was before he distinguished himself as a spiker of cannon rather than as fodder for same. No offense was meant, Lord Edmund.”
“Then none is taken,” Edmund said, shrugging. He turned to Olivia. “Did I hear a rumor of luncheon? Haying makes one quite peckish.”
“Indeed, yes.” Lavinia Ormhill, standing between her niece and nephew, linked her arms with theirs and tugged at them. “All is in readiness. The trestles are set up in the shade of the barn, and I daresay our avid audience is peckish, too.”
At this, they all became aware of the interested observers standing all around them: the house servants who had set up the luncheon, the farmworkers, their children, their wives, and even a pair of mongrels, though the latter were doubtless more interested in the food than the fodder for the gossip mill that they saw unfolding before them.
“I do not expect that Lord Corbright will wish to partake of so unsophisticated a meal,” Olivia said, and her expression made it clear she hoped he would concur.
“On the contrary, with such a fetchingly attired maiden as my hostess, how could I pass up a bucolic feast?” Corbright swung himself down from his horse.
Lavinia directed the seating at the picnic table with Olivia Ormhill at one end as hostess, and Lord Corbright at the other as the most distinguished guest. Jason sat at Corbright’s right hand; Lavinia took Olivia’s right, and directed Edmund to her left.
The house servants she arrayed on one side of the table, the field-workers on the other. This odd caricature of a formal dining table might have amused Edmund at another time, but he could see that Olivia took no pleasure in looking down its length at her former fiancé. Her laughing, light-hearted manner, so briefly but delightfully displayed while exchanging barrages of hay, had been replaced by a stiffness that thrummed with some deep emotion. Edmund could not tell if it was fear or anger, sorrow or desire, that underlay her frozen manner. Perhaps all four, he mused. Though far from an expert, he had sufficient experience of females to know that they could be quite complicated creatures.
If he had not known Corbright for the cad he was, he might have wondered at the man for lingering where he so obviously was not wanted. Certainly he wondered at Olivia’s brother, for he positively fawned on the man. It confused him to find the boy so lacking in spirit as to make a bosom beau of the man who had supposedly broken his sister’s heart. That Corbright would flirt with her though he was now married, Edmund didn’t wonder at. That Lavinia and Jason seemed to be delighted by such behavior confused him thoroughly.
Chapter Seven
Olivia looked around the table at the pastoral scene. It would be a fit subject for Constable’s brush, she thought: the rosy-cheeked country folk with their tankards of ale, laughing and joking among themselves; the handsome, well-dressed lord of the manor at one end of the table, chuckling with one of his workers, his wife at the other, presiding over a harvest feast.
Only the man at the end of the table was not the lord of this manor, nor the woman his wife. Nor ever shall be, she reaffirmed to herself. She tried to catch Jason’s eyes, but he seemed determined not to look her way. I pray he does not explain all about that wager. It would make her look pitiable in Franklin’s eyes.
She glanced at Lord Edmund. He looks as confused as I feel, she thought. For her former fiancé to visit her, tease her, and join in their midday meal must seem very strange. Corbright’s recent behavior seemed strange to her, too, though no stranger than his sudden ending of their engagement and immediate marriage to a wealthy tradesman’s daughter. He had paraded Jane about, exclaiming upon her womanly submissiveness and her very proper willingness to let her husband manage her substantial fortune. After her death in childbirth, Corbright had attempted to renew his relationship with Olivia, but his recent actions had put paid to any hopes he had voiced for a rekindling of their romance.
During Jane’s life he had pursued a policy of harassment of Olivia that she had been at great lengths to hide from her volatile, heedless brother, who had long since accepted Franklin’s explanation of why he had broken off the engagement, and thought him the best of fellows. He had smiled approvingly at Corbright’s recent attempts to renew his attentions to Olivia, as had her Aunt Lavinia.
He would have a hard time believing Corbright’s recent behavior, she thought, but once convinced, he would leap to my defense in a way that might be fatal to him.
She shuddered at the thought. Jason’s accuracy when aiming a shotgun at pheasant or ducks was much admired in the neighborhood, but he had no great expertise with pistols. As for his swordsmanship, he had little training and, she suspected, a style distinguished more by vigor and aggression than skill. Corbright, on the other hand, was widely acknowledged as an accomplished marksman and swordsman. Moreover, she feared he would delight in doing something that would grieve her.
A loud ripple of laughter brought her attention back to the present. The company was becoming entirely too jolly, and she realized they had lingered too long at the meal, drinking the ale that workmen insisted was necessary to their doing a good day’s work, but which she suspected only slowed them down. She had long since learned not to attempt to wean the English farm laborer from his ale, so she provided it, but she knew better than to offer unlimited helpings. She stood, signifying that the meal was over.
Lord Corbright stood, too, rapping his tankard on the table for attention. “Before we go, I’d like to propose a toast. To the fairest, best-loved lady farmer in all of England.” He saluted Livvy with the mug, then raised it to his lips. The sentiment was applauded, and the toast drunk. The servants and workers exchanged significant glances and sly nudges. Livvy felt her cheeks heat, and looked away, only to meet Lord Edmund’s wondering eyes. What must he think? The very idea of such a toast in public, and to his former fiancée at that!
As the workmen and women walked away, talking and laughing, and the house servants began clearing the table, Lavinia bustled up to Livvy. “Well, did you hear that? Very promising, I’d call it.”
“Would you?” Livvy snapped. �
��Promising of what? My descent into infamy?”
“Of course not, dearest. It is clear that he has accepted you for what you are at last, and is going to court you again.”
Livvy shook her head emphatically. “That’s not it, nor would I find it cause for celebration if it were. He is making mischief again, drat the man.”
Edmund had watched and listened throughout the meal, trying to sort out and understand the relationships among these people. Thoroughly confused and frustrated, he blurted out, “I think it very odd that a married man would court your niece, Miss Ormhill, and even odder that you would applaud it.”
“Mercy upon us, Lord Edmund. Lord Corbright is not married. He is a widower. His poor little wife perished in childbirth over a year ago.”
“Ah.” He looked at Livvy, whose eyes met his unflinchingly. “That explains his behavior.” What, he wondered, explained Olivia Ormhill’s red cheeks and sparkling eyes? Any number of emotions could account for them, from anger to embarrassment to pleasurable excitement.
Her answer shed little light on her feelings, but made it clear she did not wish to discuss the matter further. “I do not take it to be anything but a hum. Now if you will excuse me, Lord Edmund, I must organize the workers. The hay must be put into the barn and as many more loads as possible brought in yet this day. And someone must begin cutting another meadow or we shall be at a standstill in a day or two.”
“Shall I help with the unloading, load another wagon, or take up a scythe?”
Jason joined them just then, along with Corbright. “None of that,” he said, laughing gaily. “Frank has invited us to look over the two stallions he recently purchased.”
“Alas, we cannot avail ourselves of Lord Corbright’s gracious offer, Jason.” Edmond threw his arm around the boy in a companionable gesture. “We are pledged to your sister. Have you forgotten our wager?”