A Lady without a Lord (The Penningtons Book 3) by Bliss Bennet

Author:Bliss Bennet [Bennet, Bliss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bliss Bennet Books
Published: 2017-02-13T18:00:00+00:00

“Ah, Miss Atherton, aren’t you kind. But you know there’s no need to be hauling hot food about, not when we’ve a strong young lad like Laban here to bear the load.”

Harry smiled as gray-headed Mrs. Dawber slapped at her son’s hand, warning him against stealing a tasty morsel off the platter he carried. Hoped the waning daylight might hide his theft, no doubt. Too bad for Laban, his mother’s eyesight had faded far less quickly than her hair.

“But many hands make light work, do they not?” Harry took a firmer grip on her own platter as they stepped from the gravel walk to a dirt path that led to the home farm’s shearing shed. “And if I help, there will be no need for another trip.”

“Indeed, miss. You always was a quick, heppen child. How pleased your dad must be, to have you home again. Ah, Laban, don’t you be feeding my good cooking to the dogs!” Mrs. Dawber squawked, setting down her armful of dishes on the table to give her son a yank on the ear.

Happily for Harry, Laban’s distraction meant there was no need to respond to his mother’s kind but mistaken assumption. Since rising from his sickbed three days ago, Harry’s father had been anything but happy with her. Leaving home before she awoke, spending dawn to dusk supervising the shearing gang, then falling into his bed each night with a frown, he’d not granted her even a moment to inquire about his well-being, let alone to inform him of her request to Mr. Thrapson from the bank to come and discuss the Saybrook accounts.

But Mr. Thrapson had not come. And Haviland had sent no word about the progress of the audit, either. One could only be stretched on tenterhooks of impatient uncertainty for so long.

So this evening, she’d used the pretext of delivering newly made preserves to Mrs. Dawber to walk out to the home farm. And then joined in preparing and bringing the food out for the shearing gang, too, all in the hopes of seeing and judging for herself what her father was too stubborn to share. And, if she could convince him to walk home with her, to warn him of Thrapson’s impending visit.

Rough voices raised in song joined the chorus of Mrs. Dawber’s scolding as Harry set her platter down on the table. One by one, men began to trickle out of the shearing shed, wiping greasy hands on shirts, batting away stray bits of wool that still swirled in the surrounding air.

Searching the group for her father, her eyes instead lit upon the surprising sight of Theo Pennington. Yes, she’d purposely not told her father when the sheep shearing gang arrived unexpectedly on Monday, had even kept him busy with the doctor for far longer than was necessary, all to ensure Theo would be forced to take some small charge of the running of his own estate. But she’d not expected such involvement to encompass his overseeing the actual shear.

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