A Lord for Olivia (6 page)

“Miss Ormhill.” Lord Edmund pulled her sharply toward him, dragging her against his chest and holding her there to steady her.

“Lord Edmund. You startled me!” She pushed against
him. “What do you mean, sneaking around my office like that?”

“I stepped out to admire the moon. As you did, I don't doubt. But I have found something even more magnificent to admire.”

His eyes swept her face with wonder. “Tomorrow will decide my fate, Miss Ormhill. I will become your employee, or be on my way. One way or another, everything will change.”

“You don't mention the third possibility,” she said, tilting her head and looking up at this handsome man, fascinated against her will by what she saw in his eyes.

“That Jason will also manage to fill his wagon and get it to the barn? I think that as unlikely as you do.” He grinned, and she felt her lips turning up in an answering smile.

She had apologized for her insults, soothing his raw pride. Now she stood smiling up at him in a beguiling way. Edmund felt again the attraction that had swept over him upon first catching sight of her.

“Will you grant me something I've wanted all the long years of soldiering, something I could obtain only in England?”

“What might that be, Lord Edmund?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows disingenuously, for she had a good idea what it was he wanted.

“To hold a lovely English miss in my arms and give her just . . . one . . .” He lowered his head slowly, giving her time to evade him if she wished. When she held still, he pressed his mouth to hers, breathing out the word
kiss
on a long sigh as he buried his lips in the soft pillows of her own.

For a long, enchanted moment Olivia let him press his lips to hers in a kiss so gentle and yet so fiery she felt longing spread throughout her body. It was he, in fact, who broke off the kiss. Their lips clung for a moment as he pulled away, and she lifted her hand to touch her mouth with wondering fingers.

“Magic,” he proclaimed. “Everything I yearned for as I fought.” He pulled her close once again, and bent for another kiss.

She pressed against his chest, though, stopping him. “You said one kiss,” she reminded him. The pounding of her heart and the sweet yearning in her body told her she must deny him what she herself wanted far too much.

“But I didn't say I'd not ask for another.”

“I, however, think one was entirely too many.” She broke away, determination to resist him giving strength to her shove. “You think to take by seduction what you could not accomplish by wager. But I'll not wed you, so you may as well desist.”

He drew back as if slapped. “So our bet is off?”

She hesitated a moment. “No, but as you said, that particular outcome is extremely unlikely.” She turned her back on him and virtually raced through her study and upstairs to her room, where she forced herself to read a boring treatise on drainage until the urge to return to him for the second kiss was overcome by sleep.

Edmund remained a while, staring out over the countryside, struggling against bitterness over his situation. Never had he yearned so much for a woman, and never had he been less likely to win her over. It wasn't just his lack of fortune that put her out of his reach. He had forfeited hope of her respect last night when he had made that foolish wager.

 

When Edmund joined Jason at the breakfast table, he laughed at his host's reaction to his clothing. “I asked Morton to bring me some workmen's garments, rather than ruin my own clothes.” He modeled the old leather breeches and smock shirt. “These will be more comfortable, too. You'd best do the same.”

“Rot! I can't appear dressed like that among my own workers. I would look and feel a right fool. I will anyway, you know. Me, the squire, on a hay wain.”

Edmund grinned. “You'll get a nice view of the countryside from up there.”

“Yes, and that's another thing. Been thinking about that. Why do they stack the hay so high? Just bound to tumble off, isn't it?” Jason looked a little uneasy.

“Your sister explained yesterday. Unless you have a fleet
of wagons and battalions of workers, it would take too long to carry the hay to the barn if the wagons were not loaded to the skies.”

“Well, it seems to me it would be better to make a number of trips than to risk dumping a load of hay on the way.”

“And she also explained that a good worker can load a wagon in such a way that that doesn't happen.” He studied Jason's expression. “What is it, lad? Don't like heights?” Edmund challenged as he loaded his plate with ham slices and coddled eggs.

“Don't call me lad! And I'm not afraid of anything,” Jason snapped.

“Nonsense. Everyone's afraid of something. The bravest man I ever saw in battle was terrified of mice. Jumped up on a chair like a girl whenever one came near.”

“Like a girl?” Olivia Ormhill swept into the room, her voice chiding. “I never mind mice, nor snakes, nor bugs. Not all females are so hen-hearted, my lord.”

“I daresay they are not.” Edmund looked at her appreciatively. Miss Ormhill looked a treat in a green riding habit and a gleaming white habit shirt. She carried the train looped over her wrist with an ease that was obviously second nature to her as she stepped briskly up to the buffet. She filled her plate, then sat next to her brother.

“Well, at any rate, I'm not afraid of heights.” Jason returned to his original topic. “I'm afraid of not being able to keep the hay on that wagon. I want to win this bet!”

Olivia grinned wickedly. “You have good reason, brother! Yesterday my newly recruited crew dumped their loads as they climbed the hill to the barn. If it had not been so inconvenient it would have been quite amusing.”

Jason did not find this information humorous. But before he could voice his feelings, Edmund interrupted him.

“Where are we going to be working? I did not see any cut fields yesterday.”

“On my farm, near the river. When it begins raining, that area will become damp, possibly even flood, so we must get the hay made there first. 'Tis a half hour's ride, no more. We have a lovely day, so we'd best finish our breakfast and be
off. Forgive the truism, but we must make hay while the sun shines.” She then focused single-mindedly on demolishing the hearty plateful of food in front of her.

When the elder Miss Ormhill entered the room a few minutes later, she looked puffy-eyed and out of sorts. “I don't see why you could not have held this event later in the day,” she groused as she took a cup of coffee and a plate of buttered toast from the servant.

“Oh, Aunt, you had no need to get up for this.” Olivia stopped eating to look pityingly at Lavinia. “I know how you hate to be up before ten of the clock.”

“As if I would not be there to observe what very well could determine the fates of my niece and my nephew.” Aunt Lavinia nibbled uneasily at the toast before pushing it away.

Both the Ormhill siblings stiffened at this reminder of the importance of the wager. Jason scowled at his plate; Olivia gnawed at her lower lip.

Edmund made himself look away. He had realized last night how hopeless his situation was. So why was he thinking only of again kissing that full lower lip, of gently nipping with his own teeth where Olivia's white eyetooth indented her pink flesh?

 

B
y the time they left their breakfast, the sun was up and the day already promised to be warm. Edmund mounted Storm and rode alongside Jason and Olivia. They were followed by a gig driven by Lavinia Ormhill, and a farm wagon loaded with provender for the midday meal. When they reached the field where they were to work, Edmund stood in the stirrups and looked around, wondering how extensive Miss Ormhill's holdings were. No fences showed where Jason's lands ended and Olivia's began.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Jason pointed to a large stone marker. “From here to the woods at the head of the valley,” he said, sweeping his arm in a wide arc, “is Olivia's property. That is her manor house, Wren Hall. It has a fine view of Norvale.” He leaned toward Edmund and whispered hoarsely, “The hall and grounds are rented to some friends of ours, but, coincidentally, they are vacating at Michaelmas. You newlyweds can live at Melmont till then; I plan to be on my way to France as soon as your vows are said.” He winked at Edmund, for Olivia had heard every word and was glaring at him.

She wagged her finger at him. “I'm not ready to cancel my search for new tenants just yet.” She urged her horse toward the knot of workers ahead.

He was amazed at the small number of people awaiting them, rakes and pitchforks at the ready.
She really
is
hard up for workers! She never will get all of these fine meadows cut and stored if this is all she has to help her.

Two hay wains stood empty, and a murmur of surprise swept through the workers as they watched the young squire and his friend climb into them. But when Olivia told them to begin loading the wagons, they fell to with a will, and soon a veritable blizzard of fragrant dried meadow grass flew at the men in the wagons.

Edmund had reviewed over and over in his mind the few times he had actually assisted in loading a hay wain. It began that magic summer of his thirteenth year, when his father gave up trying to make a scholar of him and turned him loose with the admonition to learn how to do every task on the farm, however unpleasant. Bartlett, the manager of the home farm, had grinned mischievously when told what Edmund's plans were. “I'll take him in hand, m'lord. I don't doubt he'll be a-wishin' to be back at his books before the summer ends.”

But Edmund hadn't. He took mucking out stalls philosophically, thinking that even that was better than struggling to decline Latin verbs. He learned how to curry, comb, saddle, hitch up, and doctor horses, and then moved on to fieldwork just as the haymaking began. He had sweated gleefully while wielding a scythe, earning the grudging respect of the farm workers. Then he had stood side by side with doughty old Chester Crabton, an aptly named man in his seventies who seldom had a good word for anyone, but who yielded to none in his ability to load a hay wain so high he had to lie flat as it passed under the huge barn doors to be unloaded.

He remembered thinking that in a way the loading resembled weaving, with swathes of hay lain crosswise of one another in a spiral around the wagon, narrowing ever so little with each layer. Now he followed this long-ago learned pattern, sweat pouring from him as he labored to keep up with Miss Ormhill's workers while stacking the hay so that it would hang together once it rose past the high sides of the wagon. He had little chance to observe Jason's struggles, but could not forbear to grin as he heard the youth crowing, “Nothing to it,” when they began.

He'll sing another tune once the mound rises high,
Edmund thought. Sure enough, after they had been at it for
almost an hour, he heard Jason's voice, loud and furious, using extremely impolite language. He paused in his task long enough to watch as the boy followed a sliding avalanche of hay over the side of the wagon. What was left of the pile unceremoniously followed, covering him entirely.

The workers laughed as they dug him out, spluttering with frustration. “Leave me be,” he growled, shaking them and a quantity of hay off and stalking up to his sister. “You think you've beaten me, don't you? Well, I'm not done yet!”

Edmund nodded in approbation of the lad's determination before returning to his task. He tested the load with his feet to see if there was any tendency to move in one particular direction. If so, he knew he had to alter the pattern of the next layer to knit the growing tower of hay more firmly together.

At last he stood atop a veritable mountain of hay, too high to receive any more from the workers so far below. He put his rake carefully in the center and used it to brace himself as he tested the load all around. Then he looked around to see how Jason was doing. His stack was only half as high, and leaning to one side, for which reason Jason was desperately adding new bundles of hay to the other side. Edmund had mixed emotions as he watched the youth struggle to balance the load.

It will never make it to the barn, particularly as it must go up an incline to do so,
he concluded. That thought should have given him pleasure, for it meant he could learn about agricultural management from Miss Ormhill, and would have a roof over his head for a year.

This practical point of view did not keep him from regretting, when he looked at the lovely Miss Olivia Ormhill, that she would not be his bride. So he reminded himself of her tart tongue and low opinion of him.

He looked around, and found that she had ridden near and was looking up at him. “You still have to get it into the barn, you know,” she said, her eyes flashing a challenge.

“True enough! Lead on,” he commanded the boy who had been entrusted with keeping the pair of oxen from wandering, not that they had any interest in doing so, with all of
the sweet fresh hay they could ever desire right beneath their noses.

“No, not yet,” Olivia said, stopping the boy with a gesture. “I want to wait until Jason's wagon is ready to move, too.” She didn't want any of the workers coaching him while she followed Edmund up the hill.

Edmund leaned on his rake and watched as Jason stacked the hay higher and higher. Perhaps the boy had caught on. He glanced down to see Olivia looking up at him, a frown on her face, and her lip caught by one eyetooth again. He smiled slowly, and gave her an elaborate bow.

 

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?”