Fool for Love by Eloisa James

Author:Eloisa James [James, Eloisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061798290
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-24T10:27:32+00:00

23

An Island, a Nymph, and Thou

There was the menu to plan. The chef had requested yet another conference, as he was unable to obtain sufficient trout, and the menu would have to be changed. She needed to discuss precedence with the butler, and dinner cards with the housekeeper. Why on earth had she asked even one guest to the house? She was supposed to be in retirement, not giving supper parties. But it was too late. Fired by loneliness in the first month after Miles’s funeral, she had asked Carola to visit just as soon as the initial mourning period of six months was over.

Esme sighed and lay back on her bed again, looking at the list of guests. Perhaps there was time for just a short nap. After all, Carola wasn’t arriving until tomorrow.

Her brain was so slow. She couldn’t seem to think what to do about the fact that she’d received a note from Rees Holland, Helene’s loathed husband. Darby must have invited him to stay, and that was a disaster, because Helene was arriving any moment. If Helene didn’t want to stay at the house due to Darby’s presence, Esme could just imagine how she’d feel when Rees himself made an appearance.

Perhaps she should wander down to the apple orchard. Marquess Bonnington was exquisitely aware of the intricacies of personalities and precedence. He was certainly the best person to consult about such matters. Unless he was busy digging a ditch, she thought with a drowsy chuckle.

He wasn’t. Esme found the hut without any problem. It seemed snug enough, a little one-room structure at the very bottom of the gardens. It was made of rough-hewn wood, and smoke was wisping out of a little crooked chimney. She almost didn’t knock. Lord knows, the mistress of the house was not supposed to visit a gardener in his home. It simply wasn’t done.

An image of Sebastian’s censorious face before he became a gardener flashed across her mind, and she pushed open the door without knocking.

He was sprawled on a rough bench to the side of the fire, head propped up on his arm, reading. The image of him caught in her mind: the comfort, and the ease in his long body. The intentness with which he was reading. The happiness that seemed to cling around him.

“A bucolic scene,” she said mockingly.

He looked up and didn’t instantly leap to his feet. Instead he sighed and put his book down, and then swung his feet to the floor in a leisurely sort of way. The proper marquess was well and truly gone, Esme thought with wonder.

With a broad-shouldered gardener on his feet, the hut was suddenly much smaller. She managed to stop herself from drifting forward to touch his chest and see if it was as muscled as it appeared in a work shirt.

“Esme. What a delightful surprise.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, abandoning the idea of questioning him about precedence. Instead she strolled over to the bench and sat down. She would have reached for his book but there was no way around her stomach.

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