Page 27 of Miss Dashing
“Planting usually sees him larking about in Town, thank God, and the steward does his best with harvest. Even an earl can see when fruit’s ripe in the orchards. Himself isn’t a bad sort—pays a fair wage, does his bit with the Christmas baskets—but he’s alord.”
Meaning the tasks Hecate could reach—the Boxing Day baskets, the wage book—were in good order. “And the woods?”
Travers cast an eye over his shoulder. “I’m not a woodsman, but my cousin is the ranger for a family in Surrey. Says Nunn’s woods are a mess. Hedgerows just as bad. Those oaks will take over a field in twenty years flat, but himself must have his shady bridle paths.”
“Do you run the hogs down those bridle paths in autumn and winter to clean up the acorns?”
“You’d have to talk to Silas Grove about that. He manages the home farm. Have you had enough of playing farmer, Mr. Vincent?”
The form of address jarred. For all of his life, Phillip had been Master Phillip, Master Heyward, Mr. Heyward, Young Heyward… then, recently, Lord Phillip. The Vincent part, the part that bound him to Tavistock and the whole peerage… He’d be a long time adjusting to that.
Phillip had already had enough of playing lordling. This morning of honest work had proved that, if nothing else.
“If I leave, Mrs. Riley will take up her scythe, won’t she?”
“She’ll take it up tomorrow if she doesn’t take it up today. She’s good with a blade. Steady and even. Not like the lads who try to storm through a field.”
But to wield that blade this late into pregnancy had to take a toll on a woman’s back. “I’ll return tomorrow morning,” Phillip said. “I’d take it as a favor if you’d keep her sharpening blades for the first few passes after nooning.”
“Aye, and we’ll send her back to the spring to give the horses a drink and refill the waterpot. Mavie can handle the reins as competently as she does the scythe and the lads. A proper Hampshire lass, that one. If I were ten years younger…” Travers’s gaze landed on something behind Phillip. “Here now, look sharp. We’ve company from the manor house.”
Those men without their shirts were putting them on, and the ladies had risen from blankets spread in the shade.
Phillip turned to see Gavin DeWitt at the reins of a dog cart, Hecate Brompton seated beside him.
“I see we’re late,” Hecate said. “And I’d hoped last night’s leftover tarts wouldn’t go to waste. Mr. Travers, good day.”
She looked so pretty perched beside DeWitt on the bench, a straw hat tied in a fetching lopsided bow beneath her chin. She had seen Phillip—he was sure of that—and recognized him and was for some reason avoiding—
Where the hell is my shirt?The thought erupted in his mind like flames exploding from a rotten hayrick.
Mavis Riley flapped a voluminous quantity of white linen several times, then folded it neatly over her arm and brought it to Phillip at the slowest walk she’d evidenced for the entire morning.
“Your shirt, Mr. Vincent.”
DeWitt had stepped down from the gig and was assisting Hecate to alight while Phillip shrugged into his shirt. The buttons were beyond him. Coherent speech was behind him, while DeWitt was grinning hugely.
“You brought tarts, Miss Brompton?” Henry Wortham asked. “I do fancy a tart.” One of the other young men chuckled at Henry’s word choice, and Henry’s ears turned red.
“So do I,” Mavis Riley said, “and I’m sure Miss Brompton brought along a few sandwiches and possibly a cake or two. Ladies, if you’d bestir yourselves?”
The next few minutes were absorbed with serving a second luncheon and gave Phillip time to do up some buttons and get his waistcoat on.
“If you don that jacket in this heat,” Mavis Riley muttered as she passed him a piece of lemon cake, “I’ll know you’re dicked in the nob. And don’t think to put on the neckcloth either.”
“But a gentleman doesn’t appear before a lady in his underpinnings.” Much less naked from the waist up, God help him.
“A gentleman should not be too quick to deprive a lady of a chance to appreciate God’s handiwork. Bring her a glass of cider before that other strutting nitwit can think to do it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Phillip took the glass Mavis shoved into his hand, thanked heaven for proper Hampshire lasses, and made his way to the back of the gig, where Hecate was handing the last tray of tarts to one of the women.
“You’ve been hiding all morning here in the hayfield,” she said. “Is that for me?”
Phillip passed over the glass. “Go slowly. Might have a kick.” He waited for a lecture on proper attire, on gentlemanly pastimes, on fraternizing with the locals… He’d truly erred and deserved a dressing down for indulging in a morning of hard work.
“Travers says you inspired his crew to get twice as much done in half a day.”
That was the initial flattery intended to soften a series of blows. A scold would follow, and Phillip would bear up like the gentleman he longed to be when Hecate Brompton was on hand.
