Courting His Countess (A Historical Romance Novella) (10 page)

He raced to the nearby woods and retrieved
his pack from the inside of a hollow log where he'd left it. He
didn't need to change clothes and he wasn't hungry, having dined at
the village inn before coming to Stoneleigh, so he slung the pack
over his shoulder. A few minutes later, he was once more leaving
the woods and heading for Stoneleigh. This time he didn't creep. He
whistled. Loudly.

As expected, Lady Lynden came to the arch of
the walled garden to investigate. "Lo?" she called out. "Who is
it?"

"Madam, my humble apologies." He removed his
hat and bowed low, sweeping the brim across the gravel path. "I
didn't mean to startle you."

"You didn't startle me. I simply came to see
who whistles out of tune near my garden." Her voice was like
honeyed wine, sweet and thick, but with a hard, flat edge.

"Out of tune? Dear lady, you wound me."

She rolled her eyes, and he was pleased to
see he'd been right. They were as blue as a bright summer sky.

"Why are you smiling at me like that?" she
snapped, stamping one hand on her hip. The other was tucked behind
her back.

"I can't help it. You're a vision of beauty,
a balm for my travel-weary eyes."

She didn't blush or smile coyly or do any of
the things ladies did when paid a compliment. She merely scowled,
scrunching her pretty little nose up as if she found his words, or
his presence, distasteful. "You do not put balm on eyes, young man,
unless you wish to go blind."

"Young man? I suspect I am older than you."
Lady Lynden was four and twenty and already a widow twice over.
Orlando was four years her senior, yet he knew when he smiled his
dimples gave him the appearance of youth. Those bloody dents in his
cheeks were the object of much teasing ever since he'd reached
manhood. The only consolation was that women of all ages seemed to
take joy in them.

Lady Lynden revealed the hand previously
hidden behind her back. It clutched a rather vicious-looking
short-handled gardening fork. "I asked who you are," she said.
"Answer me."

He held up his hands. His pack slipped down
his arm and hung in the crook of his elbow. He wasn't in any danger
from the shrew. She might be stronger than the average woman thanks
to her gardening, but he was larger and had been trained by Hughe.
Women were no match for him.

"Orlando Holt at your service." He bowed
again. When he straightened, she was still scowling. It didn't make
her any less beautiful. "I was hoping you could give me work,
madam."

She lowered her weapon and her stance
relaxed. "No, I'm sorry, Mr. Holt. There's no work available here.
Try up at Sutton Hall over the fields." There was no flutter of her
lashes or wistfulness in her voice when she spoke of her previous
home. She had given it up and moved back to her father's
neighboring house of Stoneleigh when her second husband died and
Sutton Hall had passed to his heir, a cousin. That had been a year
ago and she was still at Stoneleigh and still unwed. Orlando
wondered when her father would find her husband number three.

"I was at Sutton Hall earlier," he said.
"There's no work for me there either." He held his breath. Waited.
But his lie seemed to slip by unnoticed. She merely shrugged and
turned to go. "Wait!" He caught her arm but dropped it when she
tried to jerk herself free with such force that he probably bruised
her. He cursed under his breath. He hadn't let go when he should
have. Instinct had made him hang on. Instinct and training.

Lady Lynden's eyes narrowed, and if it
wasn't for the slight tremble of her hands, he would have thought
her unafraid. "I told you. There's no work here."

He nodded at her garden fork. "Then why is
the lady of the house doing men's work and dressed in men's
clothes?"

"Who says I'm the lady of the house?"

He liked the way she tilted her pointy
little chin and the way anger made her eyes grow darker, like the
Mediterranean Sea in the late afternoon. He smiled again because he
couldn't help himself. She was a shrew, and he enjoyed a
challenge.

Pity she was a potential murderess and not a
candidate for keeping him warm at night. Although there were no
Guild rules stipulating the former precluded the latter, Orlando
liked to think even he had enough moral conviction to stay out of
her bed.

"You speak like a lady," Orlando said,
hefting his pack up onto his shoulder, "walk like a lady and have
the bearing of a lady. In my book, if a rose looks and smells like
a rose, it probably is a rose."

One side of her mouth lifted in a sardonic
smile. "In that case..." She pointed the fork at his face and
scanned it down his length to his muddy boots. "You look like a
vagrant..." She sniffed the air and pulled a face. "...and smell
like a vagrant."

He sniffed his armpit. The stink wasn't
that
bad considering he'd been traveling for three days. "I
am not a vagrant. I am, however, in need of good, honest work.
Garden work," he added. "I'm a gardener."

She raised both brows. "Really?"

He nodded. "I was most recently employed at
Collier Dean, a grand house in Sussex. You've probably heard of
it."

"I haven't. Do you have a letter of
recommendation?"

"No, alas. I didn't think to get one before
I left."

"That was foolish."

"What can I say? I'm a fool." He grinned and
received a frown in return.

"Why did you leave?"

"I'm traveling to Salisbury to visit my
sister."

"You're from Salisbury? That explains the
accent."

His accent was a London one, but she seemed
to know no better and he saw no reason to enlighten her. "I thought
it time I visited her, but I ran out of money. I used my last coins
dining at The Plough in the village." Lie upon lie upon lie, all
smoothly spoken. He was an expert at them, as were all the members
of Hughe's band, past and present. It was vital for survival to be
able to act in any role at any moment with no preparation.

"What type of garden work did you do at
Collier Dean?"

"Digging, weeding, pruning." What else did
gardeners do? There wasn't much call for it working in the
Assassins Guild or at his family's London house. They had a small
garden to service their kitchen, but it consisted of a few herbs
and such. Certainly nothing like the exotic trees he'd seen backed
up against her garden wall. He shrugged. "Whatever was required of
me."

"You weren't head gardener then?"

"Head, body, hands and feet." She didn't
even crack a smile, so he forged on. "I was under the direction of
the lady of the house, a keen gardener like you, madam."

"Did she grow oranges?"

"What?"

"Oranges. Did she grow them?"

"Uh, no." Only a madman would try to grow
oranges in England. They were a fruit more suited to warmer climes
like Spain. Surely they weren't the trees he saw in her garden. Why
would she want to grow them when she could have perfectly good
English fruit trees like cherry or apple?

"Then you are of no use to me," she said.
"Not that I need a gardener."

He thought it best to keep his mouth shut.
Lady Lynden didn't look like she would appreciate him pointing out
that her hands were covered in hard calluses and she had dirt
smudged on her forehead, or that the pails of soil looked much too
heavy for her to drag around. This last he could not admit to
having witnessed anyway.

"I'm very busy. Good day, Mr. Holt." She
marched off, giving him a fine view of her shapely calves. When she
reached the far wall and the dark green leafy trees, she turned
around. A flicker of either surprise or irritation crossed her face
before she waved him off, as imperial as any queen. "Try Cowdrey
Farm," she called back. "It's quite a walk to the west, but Farmer
Cowdrey will have work for a strong lad like yourself."

"I'm eight and twenty, not a lad. And I'm a
gardener, not a farmer, but thanks anyway."

She turned her back to him once more but not
before he heard her muttering, "Beggars can't be choosers."

"I'm not a beggar either. Or a vagrant."
I'm an assassin
.
And a bloody good one.

He trudged back along the gravel drive to
the road leading into the village. Lady Lynden might have been the
most beautiful woman Orlando had ever seen, but she was as prickly
as a hawthorn. Ordinarily he would avoid shrews like her but not
this time. He had to thoroughly investigate the claims against her
and if she were guilty, then he would have to assassinate her.

Women who went about murdering their
husbands could not be allowed to escape justice.

***

Susanna Lynden sat on the ground under her
largest orange tree and watched the retreating back of Orlando Holt
through the garden arch. It was a broad back attached to the sort
of shoulders that would be useful for hoeing garden beds and for
sinking one's teeth into if she felt so inclined. Which she
absolutely did not. She was not ready to take a lover, and she
suspected Orlando Holt would make a terrible one anyway, or
terrible for
her
at least. Too handsome for his own good and
certainly too charming. Men like him never stayed true to their
women, and she'd had enough of straying men.

Good lord, she must have been lonelier than
she thought. She'd met Holt only briefly, yet her mind had stripped
him naked. Perhaps it was time she got a lover. How did a
gentlewoman go about obtaining one? Nail a handbill to the post
outside The Plough announcing the vacancy? She threw her head back
and laughed, startling a yellow butterfly perched on a leaf.

No, there would be no lover for her, or a
gardener. Not even a laborer. Pity, because Holt would have been
perfect with his experience and his size. She'd be lucky if she
could afford the wages of the three servants they currently kept as
well as food enough to feed them, her father and herself. The
little money they had needed to stretch until she'd found a city
shopkeeper to stock her marmalades and succades. Finding someone
was taking longer than she expected.

She drove her fork into the soft earth and
pushed herself to her feet. Her head touched one of the low-hanging
green oranges, and she ducked out from under the canopy. She
slapped on her hat and stood back to survey her oldest and
strongest tree. Its leaves were a healthy green and the fruits
almost the same color. They would turn orange soon and need
protecting from the winter. Already the air felt chilly even when
the sun was out.

How cold would it get this year? She'd only
lost one tree last winter, but the others had dropped most of their
fruit. She hadn't been able to give them the full attention they
needed while living up at the Hall, and her father hadn't the
strength to do what was necessary to protect all of them from
frost. This year she'd wanted to try a new housing technique for
ensuring their safe wintering, but time was growing short along
with the days, and there was still so much to be done. The
temporary and somewhat flimsy shelter would have to do for now.

She picked up her pruning knife and lopped
off the straggling branches to make it easier to cover the trees.
It grew more and more difficult to reach the higher ones, and soon
her arms and neck ached. She removed her gloves and massaged her
shoulder.

"Those trousers really don't suit you,
Susanna."

She ground her back teeth together then
turned around with what she hoped was a genteel smile on her face
for her late husband's cousin. She had to remind herself that he
meant well, but it didn't make his stupidity any less, well,
stupid. "I find skirts too restricting in the garden."

Jeffrey—Lord Lynden—squinted and stretched
his neck. With the high collar and his chin resting on the stiff
ruff, his neck appeared unnaturally long. "Is that dirt on your
forehead?"

"Probably. I find I can't escape the stuff
out here."

"I suppose not." He indicated the pruning
knife. "What are you doing with that?"

"Pruning."

"And what's in the pails?"

"Dung from Cowdrey Farm's cows mixed with
soil."

He pulled a face. "It looks like hard
work."

"I can manage, and I enjoy being out here
with my orange trees." It was true, she did like gardening, but she
could certainly use some help. Not that she would tell Jeffrey she
couldn't afford a laborer. Any mention of money, or her lack of it,
would only bring up the topic of her marrying again, something she
wished to avoid. With Farmer Cowdrey having asked her countless
times already, she was becoming an expert in avoiding the subject
altogether. And avoid it she must. Two disastrous marriages had
proved to her it wasn't a state she wanted to enter into again,
ever.

"I can provide one of my gardeners to help
you if you like," Jeffrey said.

He'd never offered her staff before.
Considering he loathed spending money on things that didn't
directly improve his own estate, it was quite a generous offer.
What did he want in return? "Thank you, but I can manage."

He regarded her closely, still frowning.
Jeffrey was always frowning it seemed, so unlike her late husband,
his older cousin. Phillip had been dark-haired and silver-tongued,
a combination that meant everyone liked him, particularly women.
Jeffrey was more serious, hardly ever laughing with abandon as
Phillip used to do, and flirting wasn't an art he'd mastered. Most
of the village women crossed the road to avoid speaking with
him.

Susanna knelt down on the ground and dug
through the fertile mix of dung and earth in the pail.

"That reeks," Jeffrey said. "Must you do it
now?"

"I have to put it around the trees."

"This moment?"

"I can think of no better one." She stood
and eyed the nearest tree several feet away. Her lower back ached
just thinking about moving the pail and digging through the dung
and soil. "Would you mind dragging the pail over there?"