Page 14 of Scandalous Desires on a Summer Morning
Lifting her face to the golden rays of the sun, she smiled faintly. He had done more than spirit her away from London—he had extended a lifeline, offering her a respectable path forward when she had feared there were none left to take.
She and Sarah had traveled in the viscount’s expansive carriage, a luxurious conveyance lined in velvet and fitted with polished glass panes that caught the light as it rolled smoothly over the rutted roads. It was nothing like the cramped, jostling mail coaches she had previously endured. Lord Ranford had ridden his black stallion the entire way, seated astride with the effortless elegance of a man born to the saddle.
He had not spoken to her once during the journey, not even during their brief pauses at inns. She had been grateful. What could she have possibly said? How did one properly thank a man for delivering them from ruin?
Even now, a tremor of uncertainty stirred within her. Maryann could not say with any confidence that she would prove an able housekeeper. While she was well-versed in the duties of household management—capable of organizing staff, planning menus, and overseeing provisions—it had never been on such a grand scale.
Her father’s estate had been modest: a seven-bedroom manor staffed by a cook, a housekeeper, two footmen, a scullery maid, a valet, and a lady’s maid. In contrast, a viscount’s residence was considerably larger, requiring a full rotation of servants and far more exacting expectations.
“I shall do my best not to disappoint him,” she murmured, her fingers curling into fists.
A breeze stirred the trees overhead, and Maryann inhaled deeply. She tilted her head and gazed out across the manor’s broad lawn. The estate possessed a quiet beauty, although it was clear that the place had suffered from years of disuse. Crumbling garden borders, unpruned roses, gravel paths swallowed bycreeping weeds—it was all faded grandeur, forgotten but not beyond repair.
The manor house itself loomed behind her, a grand sixteen-room manor that was, at present, barely functioning. When the viscount had said the household was managed with “spare staff,” she had imagined a few servants. What he had meant, apparently, wasno staff at all.No maids or footmen, or butler, had been seen since their arrival a few hours earlier. A surly man came by once to tend the stables. And there was no cook. She had given the first floor a cursory inspection. The place was beautiful, yes, but it was also completely unkept. The drawing room hadn’t been aired in weeks. The linen closets were in disarray. Dust coated nearly everything that didn’t move.
She was deciding how to broach the topic of needing more staff when a sudden splash drew her attention. Startled, Maryann turned her head sharply and froze. Beyond the hedgerow and just below the slope, the lake shimmered like glass in the mid-evening light. And in the center of it, half-submerged in water and sunlight, was the viscount.
Swimming.
With only his trousers on.
Maryann’s breath caught. He moved through the water with effortless grace, strong arms slicing through the surface in long, steady strokes. He was all lean muscle and unapologetic freedom, the kind of man who had never once considered how improper it was to swim bare-chested where anyone might come across him.
Maryann’s cheeks heated furiously. She dropped her gaze and took an instinctive step back, her heart thudding far too fast. The man wasoutrageous. She had assumed, foolishly, that the viscount would act with a sense of decorum, but clearly, the privileges of bachelorhood had long since spoiled him.
She would make herself scarce. Maryann had no wish to explain what she was doing traipsing across the grounds, nor did she want to be caught staring like some wide-eyed ninny. Still flushed, Maryann quickened her steps back toward the house, trying to ignore the image now burned into her mind: water gliding over sun-warmed skin, dark hair slicked back, with sleek and rippling muscles to haunt a woman’s peace.
She entered through the servants’ entrance into the kitchens. The space was cavernous, with soot-streaked walls and iron pots dangling from hooks that hadn’t been dusted in what looked like years. A wide hearth yawned dark and cold at one end, and an enormous oak table stretched the length of the room. Maryann’s boots echoed against the stone floor as she stepped inside, taking stock.
Her belly rumbled, reminding her that everyone must be famished.
She was charged with making supper for a viscount. Maryann glanced about and clenched her jaw. She recalled his lordship’s remark that he needed a housekeeper and a cook. Did he mean for her to fill both positions?
“Wretched man,” she muttered under her breath, wiping her hands on the apron she’d found hanging behind the pantry door. “Where, I ask, does he imagine I would have learned to cook anything beyond porridge and toast?”
Maryann wrinkled her nose and smiled. She would try. True, she’d helped the cook back in Dorset toward the end, when funds had run so low even the scullery maid had been let go. But that had consisted of peeling potatoes, shallots, and stoking the fire until her face glowed red from the heat. She could manage a stew if it didn’t require anything overly ambitious. And bread. She had watched bread being made many times before and had often assisted their cook in the process.
She examined the larder and the icebox, blinking in surprise. They were well-stocked, if a little disorganized. There were several cuts of beef and lamb, a jug of milk, a slab of butter, some carrots and potatoes, and a few parsnips that looked like they were thinking about shriveling. It would do.
“Maryann!”
She turned just in time to see Sarah barrel into the kitchen, her cheeks pink from the brisk air and her hair tumbling from its ribbon. Her hands were cupped together, and something wriggled within them.
“I found a kitten!”
Maryann’s brows lifted. “A kitten?”
She crouched beside her sister and gently peeked into her hands. A scrawny little thing, mostly fur and blinking eyes, mewled faintly up at her. Its paws were comically oversized for its tiny body. “Oh, darling, we can’t just take babies from their mothers.”
“I didn’t!” Sarah declared proudly. “I brought the mama too. She’s sleeping now with three other kittens. She was tired.”
A laugh escaped Maryann’s lips. “Of course she is.”
She pressed a kiss to Sarah’s forehead. “You may set them in that old basket by the hearth. We’ll find some rags for bedding.”
Sarah skipped away, humming with triumph.
Maryann straightened and rolled up her sleeves. She set the kettle to boil, rummaged for flour and yeast, and began the slow, messy business of making bread dough. Her movements were hesitant at first, but she soon found her rhythm. Her hands, though unused to this work, remembered enough.
