Try as she might, there were no other blessings she could come up with. It was dangerous to try to think more than a few days into the future because that was when the panic started again. She had spent an entire morning huddled in a barn because the fear had been so strong that she could not think.
One step at a time. She must leave here, so that was the next thing to deal with. Perhaps Lord Dereham’s housekeeper could recommend a nearby house where she might seek work. She could sew and clean, manage a stillroom and a dairy—perhaps things were not so very bad after all, if she could find respectable employment and hide in plain sight. No one noticed servants.
* * *
The baron came into the breakfast room as she was addressing a plate laden with fragrant bacon and the freshest of eggs. Her appetite had not suffered, another blessing perhaps, for she would need strength of body as well as of mind. A mercy that I possess both.
‘My lord, good morning.’ Lord Dereham looked thin and pale in the bright daylight and yet there was something different from last night. The frustration in the shadowed amber eyes was gone, replaced with something very like excitement. Now she could imagine him as he had been, a ruthless physical force to be reckoned with. A man and not an invalid.
‘Miss Prior.’ He sat and the footman placed a plate in front of him and poured coffee. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Very well, thank you, my lord.’ Julia buttered her toast and watched him from under her lashes. He was actually eating some of the scrambled eggs set before him, although with the air of a man forced to swallow unpleasant medicine for his own good.
‘Excellent. I will be driving around the estate this morning. You would care to accompany me, I believe.’
It sounded remarkably like a very polite order. He was, in a quiet way, an extremely forceful man. Julia decided she was in no position to take exception to that, not when she needed his help, but she could not spare the time for a tour. ‘Thank you, I am sure that would be most interesting, but I cannot presume further on your hospitality. I was wondering if your housekeeper could suggest any household or inn where I might find employment.’
‘I am certain we can find you eligible employment, Miss Prior. We will discuss it when we get back.’
‘I am most grateful, of course, my lord, but—’
‘Is your Home Farm largely arable?’ he asked as if she had not spoken. ‘Or do you keep livestock?’
What? But years of training in polite conversation made her answer. ‘Both, although cattle were a particular interest of my father. We have a good longhorn herd, but when he died we had just bought a shorthorn bull from the Comet line, which cost us dear. He has been worth it, or, at least he would be if my cousin only chose the best lines to breed to him.’ Why on earth did Lord Dereham want to discuss animal husbandry over the coffee pots? ‘May I pass you the toast?’
‘Thank you, no. I am thinking of planting elms on my field boundaries. Do you have a view on that, Miss Prior?’
Miss Prior certainly had a view on the subject and had left a promising nursery of elm saplings behind her, but she was beginning to wonder if the absence of a Lady Dereham was due to his lordship’s obsession with agriculture and an inability to converse on any other topic. ‘I believe them to be very suitable for that purpose. Marmalade and a scone, my lord?’
He shook his head as he tossed his napkin on to the table and gestured to the footman to pull back his chair. ‘If you have finished your breakfast we can begin.’
Can we indeed! Was the man unhinged in some way? Had his illness produced an agricultural mania? And yet he had shown no sign of it last night. As she emerged into the hall she saw the maid who had helped her dress that morning was at the foot of the stairs, holding her cloak, and a phaeton waited at the front steps with a pair of matched bays in the shafts. Her consent had been taken for granted, it seemed.
Julia closed her lips tight on a protest. Without Lord Dereham’s help she was back where she had been the night before. With it, she had some hope of safety and of earning her living respectably. It seemed she had no choice but to humour him and to ignore the small voice in her head that was telling her she was losing control and walking into something she did not understand.
‘I am at your disposal, my lord,’ she said politely as she tied her bonnet ribbons.
‘I do hope so, Miss Prior,’ Lord Dereham said with a smile that was so charming that for a moment she did not notice just how strange his choice of words was.
Were his words strange, or sinister? Or quite harmless and she was simply losing her nerve and her sense of proportion? Lord Dereham handed her up to her seat in the phaeton and then walked round and took the reins. The groom stepped back and the baron turned the pair down the long drive. They looked both high-bred and fresh. A more immediate worry overtook her concerns about his motives. Could he control them?
After a few minutes of tense observation it appeared that skill was what mattered. As Julia watched the thin hands, light and confident on the reins, she released her surreptitious grip on the side of the seat and managed not to exhale too loudly.
‘The day I cannot manage to drive a phaeton and pair I shall take to my bed and not bother to rise again, Miss Prior,’ he remarked, his voice dry.
How embarrassing, he must have sensed her tension and probably showing a lack of confidence in a man’s ability to drive was almost as bad as casting aspersions on his virility. And, safe as he was in his weakened condition, she had a strong suspicion that Lord Dereham’s prowess in the bedroom had probably been at least equal to his ability as a whip. The thought sent a little arrow of awareness through her, a warning that Lord Dereham was still a charismatic man and she was in danger of becoming too reliant on his help.
She repressed a shudder at the direction of her thoughts: she was never going to have to endure a man’s attentions in bed again. Another blessing.
‘Cleveland bays?’ she asked. Best not to apologise. Or to speculate on the man beside her as anything but a gentleman offering her aid. Or think about that inn bedroom, not if she wanted to stay calm and in control.
‘Yes, they are. They were bred here. Now, Miss Prior, what do you think I should do about this row of tenants’ cottages?’ He reined in just before they reached a range of shabby thatched cottages. ‘Repair them or rebuild over there where the ground is more level, but there is less room for their gardens?’
‘Why not ask the tenants?’ Julia enquired tartly, her temper fraying along with the dream-like quality their conversation was beginning to assume. ‘They have to live in them.’ Really, she was extremely grateful to Lord Dereham for rescuing her, but anyone would think she was being interviewed for the post of estate manager!
He gave a grunt of agreement that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. Julia bristled as he drove past the cottages with a wave of the whip to the women hanging out sheets and feeding chickens. Was he making fun of her because she claimed to have run her family estate? He had been polite enough about it last night, but most men would find her interest in the subject laughable, if not downright unfeminine.
‘I also have views on poultry, the management of dairies, sawmills and crop rotation,’ she said with false sweetness. ‘I know a little about sheep, but more about pigeons, pigs and the modern design of farm buildings, if those are of any interest to you, my lord.’
Again that scarcely repressed chuckle. ‘They are, but I think I had better explain myself before you lose all patience with me, Miss Prior. Would you care to look at the view from the temple over there?’
They