Thomas

by Grace Burrowes

  Tentatively, Loris bit off half the peach section. “Scrumptious,” she murmured. “Sinfully, utterly, oh…”

  Sutcliffe held the other half of the slice against her lips as he regarded her with an odd gravity. Loris took the second bite, her lips grazing his fingers. He fed her another slice the same way, starting a peculiar heat in her middle that owed nothing to the summer weather or the meal.

  “More?” he asked.

  “No, thank you, though the fruit is lovely.”

  “Lovely,” he agreed. “Absolutely lovely.”

  Loris busied herself with repacking the hamper, and Sutcliffe subsided once again onto his back, the fraught moment passing amid the clatter of cups and plates.

  “We’re to have company,” the baron said, eyes once again closed.

  “Oh?” We were to have company?

  “David, Viscount Fairly, is threatening to grace us with his presence.”

  “He was here before. A largish fellow, blond hair, fine manners.”

  “And mismatched eyes,” Sutcliffe added. “One blue, one green. That’s him.”

  The viscount would keep Sutcliffe occupied then, this would be the first, last and only picnic for Loris.

  Surely, a good thing. “You worked for him,” she said. “You speak as if he’s a friend.”

  “He is, of some sort, but what his purpose is I do not know.”

  Ignorance of any degree was a rare admission for Sutcliffe. “Lord Fairly’s purpose last autumn was to ensure Miss Hollister and Viscount Amery were getting on well enough, but not too well.”

  “How do you know this?” he asked, opening one eye. “You were never introduced to the man.”

  Harry had ventured an opinion, as had Mrs. Kitts. “I kept an eye on things from a discreet distance, and Miss Hollister—Lady Amery—has corresponded with me.”

  “You women and the things you tell one another.”

  Then his lordship dozed off, right there on the blanket.

  Loris quietly put away the detritus of their picnic and clasped her arms around her bent knees. In slumber, the baron was sinfully handsome, but the fatigue he kept at arm’s length claimed his features, and something else shaped his countenance, something more subtle.

  The baron was lonely. In sleep he looked wistful, as if longing for something lost in his past. The dark lashes fanned against his cheek were both boyishly innocent and naughty. Loris watched him for a few more minutes, reluctant to leave him alone.

  To leave him unguarded. Why he should need guarding was beyond her, a fine, grouchy specimen of titled manhood like him. Loris eased over onto her side, pushed the hamper off the blanket with her toe, and closed her eyes.

  She certainly wouldn’t sleep here on the same blanket as her employer, but her own dreams had been troubled of late, and resting one’s eyes was sometimes a good idea.

  She drifted off amid a pleasant fantasy involving a handsome dragon feeding her peach-flavored kisses.

  Chapter Six

  Thomas dreamed of plush, pink lips sweet and glistening with the nectar of ripe peaches. He came awake, half-aroused, half-amused at his dreams, a bee droning near his ear.

  Not eighteen inches from where he lay, Loris Tanner was also enjoying a nap. She had curled on her side, her features more patrician in repose than when animated. Thomas permitted himself several long minutes to simply appreciate her, at peace for a change, not charging about, firing off questions at him, or expounding knowledgeably on the difference between spring and autumn lambing.

  Thomas brushed a finger down the curve of her jaw. Her skin was as silky soft as it looked—softer even. Thomas missed that, the feel of a woman’s skin. As her eyes fluttered open, he drew his hand back.

  “Wachet auf, liebchen,” he murmured.

  She blinked. “What did you just say?”

  “Wake up,” he translated, dearling.

  “I was merely resting my—drat!” Her hand flew to her left eye, and she sat up abruptly.

  Miss Tanner rubbed at her eye, then tried to hold it open, then rubbed it again as tears wetted her cheek.

  “I’ve something in my eye,” she said. “Something that shouldn’t be there.”

  “Let me see.” Thomas scooted closer on the blanket, but couldn’t see a thing, because the lady was looking down, then holding the irritated eye closed, then rubbing at it. He caught her hands in his and held them in her lap.

  “Close your eyes and stop fussing,” Thomas instructed, sitting hip to hip with her, but facing the opposite direction. He drew his knees up and shifted Miss Tanner by the shoulders so her back rested against his knees.

  “Don’t fight me,” he instructed. “If you keep rubbing, you could do serious damage.”

  “Blast and bother, it hurts.”

  Thomas framed Miss Tanner’s face with his hands. “Relax, and let me be in charge for a moment. The eye is delicate, and you could impair your vision permanently with your rubbing and poking.”

  She closed her eyes, her cheeks damp, the left eye already a trifle irritated. This close, Thomas couldn’t help but once again take note of Miss Tanner’s lovely complexion, the freckles telling a tale of refinement thwarted by practicality.

  He leaned closer and gently eased her eyelid up with his thumb. The next maneuver was one Fairly, a physician, had learned from an old ship’s surgeon. Thomas eased the mote from Miss Tanner’s eye, brushed a kiss to her forehead, and sat up.

  He handed the lady his handkerchief, then touched a finger to his tongue and extended his hand toward her. A tiny sliver lay on his fingertip.

  “And you used your—?” Miss Tanner goggled at him with damp-eyed consternation.

  “My tongue,” he said, taking the handkerchief from her to dab at her cheek, then handing it back again. “I saw Fairly do it with little Rose when she was about to pitch a screaming fit at the horrible, awful, mean cocklebur in her eye. Not particularly sanitary, but neither is rubbing your eye.”

  “I thank you.” Her tone was more dubious than grateful, though Thomas was glad to have helped her. Never had he thought to envision Miss Tanner as a damsel in distress.

  She’d deal with him severely if she knew he’d thought of her thus.

  “Some lemonade?” He held out a mug to her, knowing she’d be self-conscious about her teary appearance.

  “Thank you.”

  Two consecutive thank-yous. Time for some small talk, or a judicious soupçon of charm.

  “You are welcome. My apologies for drifting off. I sometimes don’t realize how tired I am until I am forced to pause, and I go out like a snuffed candle.”

  “You will sleep better soon, sir. You simply aren’t at home here yet.”

  Thomas accepted his handkerchief from Miss Tanner and tossed it in the picnic hamper, though he’d rather she’d kept it.

  “Are you at home here, Miss Tanner?”

  “I’ve lived here a good ten years, Baron. That’s longer than any other two places I’ve lived put together, and for the most part, I’ve been happy here.”

  No, she had not been happy. “For the most part?”

  “My father has had a problem with spirits for as long as I can remember. Then he left, and I stepped into his shoes without telling Lord Greymoor, without even really intending to do anything but keep things together until Papa came back. I love working with the land, the beasts, and the crops. I have not always loved what my life has become.”

  She’d loved drudgery, for which she’d not been compensated until recently.

  “That is a fair summation of my own situation,” Thomas said. “I derived a sense of value managing the viscount’s business, making sure the reports were accurate, solving problems or anticipating them if I could. I was always tending to business, and somewhere along the way, I stopped tending to Thomas Jennings.”

  “Thomas? Your name suits you.”

  Such a smile she had, all benevolence and pleasure, like a girl with her new pony. Thomas had been in her company fo
r most of every day at Linden, and this was the first he’d seen of that smile.

  It would not be the last, by God. “I strike you as a Thomas? Why is that?”

  “Thomas is a fine, old name, and biblical.” Miss Tanner opened the hamper and extracted another slice of cheese, extending it to him first, like some oblique form of communion. “Thomas is a solid, dependable, honest name. You are a Thomas sort of fellow. And of course, St. Thomas Aquinas was a learned, worthy man as well.”

  “This is exceptionally fine cheese, and you’ve offered a hearty endorsement of a fellow you’ve only recently met, Miss Tanner.” She’d given Thomas more compliments than he’d heard in his entire lifetime combined—solid, honest, dependable, learned, worthy.

  Miss Tanner divided the next slice of cheese in half, passing Thomas his share.

  “I haven’t known you long, that’s true,” she said, munching on her cheese, then leaning back on her hands. “In that week, I’ve seen you inspect every acre of land for which you’re directly responsible, and ask many intelligent questions. You’ll get to the tenant farms in their turn. You’ve asked about every neighbor on every side, and you went out of your way to meet half of them this morning, at market, on their own turf. You got rid of Chesterton, and you’ll give Nick the running of the stable. I’ve seen the measure of you.”

  While Thomas was only beginning to learn her. “All that, in a handful of days?”

  Miss Tanner rose quickly, before Thomas could assist her, but he was on his feet with the same speed.

  “When you are responsible for all this,” she said, waving an arm, “the dairy, the sheep, the horses, the pasture, the crops, the marketing, the equipment, the wood, the home farm, the tenants, the game, you cannot manage by precise formulas. You must trust your instinct and accept you won’t always be right.”

  She alluded to a courage Thomas didn’t entirely understand, but this instruction from her was much needed if he was to become a proper owner of the estate.

  “What if you’re not right about me?” Thomas asked, studying the pastures and wood in the distance. Beautiful scenery, but in the past week, he’d learned to see it as a responsibility, too. “What if I’m a wastrel, rakehell, miscreant who won’t face his responsibilities?”

  Thomas’s own grandfather had summarized him thus at one point, just prior to sending him away. Theresa had known better than to second those accusations, at least.

  Miss Tanner slid her fingers through his, though she too, gazed out across the fields, as if a joining of hands was a matter of complete happenstance.

  “At the very least, Baron, you are both men, the rakehell, perhaps, but also the responsible fellow who will care for his land and people to the best of his ability. A rakehell can mature into the other, but it is very unlikely the careful, reliable man will entirely degenerate into the rake.”

  Miss Tanner slipped her hand from Thomas’s, though she could not possibly know what a comfort her faith in him was.

  “May I ask a favor of you, Miss Tanner?”

  “You may ask.”

  Asking was the only privilege a gentleman could claim where the ladies were concerned. Before he lost his nerve, Thomas charged onward.

  “If I gave you leave to use my name, would you? When we are private, that is.”“Why would you allow me this familiarity? I certainly never called Greymoor by his name, nor did my father.”

  Thomas asked this of her, because he wanted to call her Loris, wanted her to have one fellow in the entire shire who didn’t refer to her as Miss Tanner. The good ones would call her thus out of respect, most would infuse their address with veiled disdain.

  She was canny though, his Loris. She’d sniff out prevarication, so Thomas settled on a version of the truth.

  “I never expected to hold a title. I didn’t want it, I don’t want it, in fact. I am not, to myself, Baron Sutcliffe. I have no idea who that fellow might be. I have always been Thomas Jennings, and for my adult life, Thomas Jennings has been the factor of David Worthington, now Viscount Fairly. It grows wearisome to be only the baron, or his lordship, or Sutcliffe, and never, ever just plain Thomas.”

  Miss Tanner used the toe of one worn boot to flip the lid of the hamper closed.

  “My father has been gone more than two years,” she said, “and when I talk to myself, which I do frequently, I am Loris Evelina Tanner. Since my father left, no one, not Mrs. Kitts, not Nick, not the boot boy, has called me anything but Miss Tanner. That sounds so starchy, and so old.”

  So safe, too. Thomas didn’t mention that.

  “Shall I call you Loris, then? You are most assuredly not old.” Though she could be very starchy.

  “When we are private.”

  “We are private now.” Though within full view of the house, because Thomas valued propriety where she was concerned.

  “I will take my leave of you, Thomas.”

  She smiled at him, an extravagant beneficence that far eclipsed mere permission to use her name.

  And he smiled right back. “Until next we meet, Loris.”

  * * *

  “His lordship won’t like this,” Nick said. “Come have a look, Miss Tanner.”

  Loris bent over Nick’s shoulder and peered at Rupert’s hoof, upturned between Nick’s big hands.

  “He’s sprung a shoe,” Loris observed, for the iron shoe was twisted at an odd angle to the bottom of the foot. “Can you get it off the rest of the way?”

  Nick rose, setting the hoof down gently. “I can, but Rupert didn’t spring that shoe while dozing in his stall all on his lonesome, Miss Tanner. Look at the marks here and here.”

  Deep scrapes were etched on the outside of the hoof wall. “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere, Nicholas?”

  “Give me a minute to get the dratted thing off.” Nick dealt with the shoe, told Jamie to see to soaking the horse’s foot, and followed Loris out of the barn and up the garden path toward the manor house.

  “Is this a good time to tell you the baron wants to put you in charge of the stable?” Loris asked.

  “Was that your idea?” Wee Nick was clearly displeased by this impending honor, but he was too good a fellow to curse before a female.

  “I told him you were content with your station, but his choices are limited—you, old Jamie, or Beckman.” For Loris would not tempt fate by managing the stable herself, not even if the baron equipped her with two bullwhips.

  “For the present,” Nick said, snapping off a white rose, and passing it to Loris. “I will manage the stable, but tell the baron he needs to find someone better suited to the job.”

  Balderdash. “You will do a better job than Chesterton. If you don’t want to take orders from me, then you can answer to the baron.” From who, Nick had arguably just stolen a rose.

  “I would much rather take orders from you than from his almighty baron-ship. I like my peace and quiet, and I like the horses. Managing people, especially stable lads, is a thankless and tedious job.”

  Not balderdash at all. “For which you should be handsomely compensated,” Loris reminded him, laying the rose on the edge of a bird bath, the stem submerged.

  They walked the rest of the way to the manor house in silence. Nick at least didn’t expect Loris to take his arm and mince along like some helpless granny. Around Nick, Loris never felt the fluttery, useless feelings the baron engendered. She wasn’t tempted to watch Nick walking away, wasn’t curious about what his fingers would taste like with peach juice on them.

  Loris asked Harry to find the baron for them, and then led Nick to the library.

  “I forget what a lovely house this is,” Nick said.

  “You’re not up here very often?”

  “I try not to be,” Nick replied, going to the French doors and leaning on the jamb. He was so tall that even slouching, the hair of his crown fluttered against the top of the doorway.

  “Every window looks out on a pretty view,” he said, “and you’ve made sure every breeze brings in the s
cent of flowers. I see the little Vermeer is no longer hanging in the stairway, though. Still, to live here would be a fine thing.”

  “Interesting sentiment,” said the baron from the doorway, “for a man who’s reluctant to accept a higher station.”

  His lordship moved entirely too quietly.

  “Reluctant,” Nick replied, turning slowly, “to accept greater pay for even greater trouble and strife. Telling someone else to muck the stall I am perfectly capable of mucking myself doesn’t elevate my station, Baron.”

  The men exchanged feral smiles, as if the carping and sniping was all jolly good fun. They’d probably enjoy wrestling in the dirt like boys and comparing the size of their biceps.

  Nick was the larger specimen. Sutcliffe was likely faster and more devious.

  The baron propped himself against his desk. “I assume this isn’t a social call. What may I do for you? Drink, Haddonfield? Miss Tanner?”

  The baron threw down a challenge, a taunt from the reluctant nobleman to the reluctant stable master.

  “Nothing for me,” Loris murmured, but the baron was already pouring three servings of brandy. His hospitality to his employees was unusual, both for its graciousness and for its peculiarity.

  Brandy at two of the clock—for Loris’s nerves, perhaps?

  “We have a potential problem in the stable,” Nick said, sipping his brandy delicately. “Damn, but this is good. My compliments—apologies for my language, Miss Tanner.”

  “The Marquis of Heathgate keeps the estate supplied,” Sutcliffe said, “or he did for his brother, Greymoor. We’ll see how I stand in his favor. What is this problem?”

  Nick ignored the mention of the titles, though Loris could go for months without hearing even the word marquis.

  “Miss Tanner,” Nick said, “will you explain for his lordship?”

  “Rupert managed to spring a shoe while standing in his very well-bedded stall,” Loris said. “Nick is certain the shoe was on tight when your horse was unsaddled after our outing earlier today, but the stable was untended for portions of the day. We suspect mischief.”