His mouth tightened. ‘I did, but other, far more important matters engaged my attention.’
She looked shocked.
Could no one truly understand that he did not want this title? He was an army man through and through and here he was struggling with information about yields and labourers and bushels and baskets and... Bah! It was his duty and he would do it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Well, he would get it licked into shape, provide it with a countess and an heir and get back to what really mattered in short order.
‘The French. The war.’
She coloured. ‘Yes, of course.’ She did not, however, sound convinced. But then she might not, considering how she had lost her husband.
O’Cleary entered with the tea tray, picked his way around the clutter and set it down on the table in front of Lady Petra with a smile and a wink. ‘The shortbreads are a bit singed. But I cut off the worst of it.’
Ethan cringed at the sight of jagged edges and burnt crumbs. ‘You will have to excuse us, Lady Petra. We are bachelors used to army tack. Take them away, O’Cleary.’ O’Cleary was still not used to the newfangled oven in the kitchen. He was more used to cooking over a campfire.
O’Cleary reached for the plate, but Lady Petra Davenport put out a hand to forestall him. ‘Thank you, Mr O’Cleary, I am sure they are fine.’
The smile she gave O’Cleary and the grin he gave her back made Ethan want to grab his batman by the collar and heave him out of the door. He blinked at the odd urge. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. Deliberately so. He’d learned early that it was a pointless emotion.
‘That will be all, O’Cleary,’ he said gruffly. ‘I think Lady Petra can manage from here.’
O’Cleary walked out whistling. The idiot.
The lady poured out cups of tea and added milk. ‘The village will be delighted that you have finally moved in.’
‘I am glad they are pleased.’ He picked up his cup and took a sip. Somehow, she’d got it exactly the right strength.
‘You do not like the idea?’
‘No.’ He squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Why on earth was he telling her this? But now he had said it, he could hardly call a halt to the conversation. Even he knew that was the height of rudeness. ‘I know nothing about farming or managing an estate. The army is my life.’ He sighed. ‘I am not cut out for this.’ He made a gesture to encompass the house, the land and the whole of Kent.
He’d also been a fish out of water in his father’s house, never knowing how to please the man who had sired him, never knowing whether his mother would react to her husband’s rants by blaming Ethan for whatever it was Father had decided was wrong that time. Joining the army at fifteen had been a welcome relief from the mayhem in his home. Since then he’d seen himself as a confirmed bachelor. A free spirit.
Lady Petra offered him the plate of biscuits.
He munched on one absentmindedly until he hit a burnt bit. He grimaced, glad to see she had not taken one.
‘A good bailiff should be able to help you,’ she said. Was that a note of encouragement in her voice? Surely not. She was simply making conversation.
‘Indeed. But how does one tell good from bad? Looking through my cousin’s estate diary, I have the feeling the man he employed was a charlatan.’ What was it about her that had him revealing his concerns? She would think him a terrible bore. It just wasn’t done. Unless she was deliberately trying to lure him in with kindness as Sarah had done. He inspected her expression, but could detect no ulterior motive. But then he wouldn’t, would he? Ladies were experts at hiding their real thoughts and feelings.
‘Perhaps you could ask around among your fellow peers,’ she said.
Fellow peers? Did he know any? There was the chap the Vicar had mentioned, Compton, who also served as the local magistrate living near the next village over. Perhaps he should ride over and introduce himself. Though what they would have in common, he could not imagine. ‘Good thought.’
She looked surprised and pleased.
He frowned. Had she not expected him to acknowledge her idea as helpful?
She sipped at her tea. ‘If I might offer another suggestion...’
He tensed. No doubt this was where he learned the real purpose for her visit. He did not relish making his lack of interest plain. ‘Please do.’
‘Well... If I were you, I would mow the field where we met as soon as possible. It is perfect for harvesting and if you cut it right away you may get another crop before the winter.’
Why hadn’t he thought of that? Because while his horses ate hay, and he made sure they had enough, he’d never questioned how it arrived in the stable. It was not his concern when he had a war to fight. The commissary looked after those sorts of details. ‘I will certainly look into it, thank you.’
She gave him an odd look and finished her tea. ‘And now if you will excuse me, I really should be getting home before my sister wonders what has become of me.’
Ethan glanced out of the window. ‘My carriage awaits you.’ To his surprise, the old coach looked in a lot better shape than it had looked the last time he had inspected it and with Jack between the poles it looked almost lordly.
‘Truly, my lord, I am quite happy walking.’
‘Nevertheless, Mr O’Cleary will be pleased to drive you since Jack is in need of the exercise. I have not had time to hack him out today.’
‘Very well. Since you make it impossible to refuse without seeming disobliging, I will avail myself of your kind offer, my lord.’
He blinked at the forthright speech. No beating around the bush or simpering for this lady. He liked it. He knew where he stood. Unless she was using it as a ploy? Well she would not find him easy to gull, so he would just take her words at face value until he discovered the truth.
And thank heaven she had accepted his offer of the carriage. If she had not, he would have had to walk her all the way home, using up a great deal of time which he really did not have. And yet... He glanced out of the window. A walk with a pretty widowed lady on his arm would be very pleasant indeed.
And just the sort of entanglement in which he would not allow himself to indulge.
He escorted her outside and helped her aboard. Once he had shut the door he went forward to speak to O’Cleary seated on the box. ‘No racing, not on the way there or on the way back.’ He glanced up at the sky. The clouds didn’t look particularly threatening, but one never knew for certain in England. ‘Not even if it rains.’
O’Cleary grinned, touched his hat in acknowledgement of the jibe and set Jack in motion.
Lady Petra lifted her hand in farewell as the coach swept away.
Mow the hay. It was the first helpful suggestion anyone had given him and that it had come from such a pretty lady who looked as if she would be more at home in a London drawing room than in the wilds of Kent was quite a surprise.
Although she had not looked quite so ladylike when she’d been picking his blackberries. He squashed the image that popped into his mind.
Likely someone had encouraged her to make herself useful to a bachelor earl. After all, why would the sister of an earl march about the countryside delivering jars of jam if it wasn’t to get his attention?
* * *
Two mornings after her visit to the Earl, Petra set out to collect mushrooms for the stewpot before the dew was off the grass. She had noticed a fairy ring of them, as they had called them as children, in the same hedgerow where she’d picked the blackberries. She certainly was not going with