Page 2 of The Nabob's Designing Daughter
But she liked how it felt. She didn’t want it to stop.
“Are you injured?” he asked, sounding more himself.
Was she? How could she possibly tell when she was lying atop a gentleman…
“No,” she said, pushing herself up on her forearms. Errol grinned up at her, eyelids drooping wolfishly over eyes that had gone impossibly black. He’d lost his hat, and his tawny curls stuck out like the start of a lion’s mane.
Heat flooded her cheeks yet again. He was, as usual, impossibly handsome, but this was something more.
“I beg your pardon. But thank you for… for breaking my fall. Areyouinjured?”
He raised up on his elbows. “How could I be injured by you falling on me, Mouse?”
“Right.” The hated nickname. It was clear he’d lost his mind for a moment and he regretted that kiss. Even if she was one to brew love potions—and she wasn’t—he’d never think of her as a desirable woman.
“By all that’s holy, what are the two of ye doin’?”
Her cousin, Edme Beecham, her dearest friend in all the world, stood there, mouth open in shock.
Ann fumbled to her knees. “It’s not—”
“And on the day of da’s funeral.” She reached for Ann and helped her up, her mouth grim, but her eyes beginning to twinkle.
“Ann fell off the ladder,” Errol said. “She was… what the devilwereyou doing up there?”
They were back to normal. “There’s no need for foul language. I was trying to cut the tree branch.”
“The gardener could have—”
“William had to let him go.” Ann shook out her sodden skirts. “Finances, he said.”
Errol’s face fell, and she remembered: Uncle was paying his university fees.
“Iwould have paid the gardener,” she said. “I do havesomemoney.” More than some. Her godmother had died only a few weeks ago—another sorry loss—leaving her a tidy inheritance, one that the rest of the family knew nothing about. And she intended to keep it that way for now.
She was of age. She loved her aunt and her cousins, but it didn’t seem that her father would ever return from India. Mayhap it was time for her to travel there and meet the man who’d left when she was no more than a wee thing.
She could even have paid the gardener his pittance out of the pin money she’d saved. He only worked part time. She’d done much of the planting and pruning and plucking here.
The boys might call her mouse, but she was strong. She carried buckets, and beat rugs, and climbed ladders to clean windows and swat at flies. Her mother and aunt had been a farmer’s daughters, and there was no slacking allowed in the household. Everyone pitched in, even the littlest Beechams when they were old enough. She’d even helped Aunt through childbirth with the last three of her babes, and nursed Uncle those last days of his illness. His death had come hard upon that of her mother and godmother. After the funeral reception, she’d had to escape to her plants.
The general grief and exhaustion had made her clumsy, and well, the axe had slipped from her fingers. Lucky that Errol hadn’t passed below five minutes earlier. It might have dropped on his handsome, opinionated head.
Leaving him sputtering, she hurried into the small shed that she called her greenhouse. Broken pottery, dirt, and wee green stems with curly white roots lay strewn on the table under the broken window.
She swore under her breath. “Mynigella sativais done for.”
“What was it for?” Errol asked.
“She’s making a medicinal oil with it,” Edme said.
Ann gently righted a clump with a seedling and set it into an intact pot. “The oil is said to be effective against infections of the lungs.” She held her breath, waiting for him to laugh at her. When she looked, she found him examining the plants.
“Nigella sativa,” he said. “Ihaveheard of it.”
“Here, Ann.” A warm woolen shawl settled over her shoulders. “Please can you come back to the house? Mum is beside herself and I can’t find your valerian root tea. She’ll want it to sleep.”
“Valerian root?” Errol said. “It’s been known to cause heart palpitations. Perhaps some hot milk—”
