The Governess Was Wild by Julia Kelly

Author:Julia Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Star

Being only tired as opposed to tired and hungry can do a great deal to change a woman’s outlook. After their meal and a tankard of ale Mr. Pritcher insisted she take, Jane was floating on a cheery haze of tipsiness and exhaustion. Her back still hurt from jostling in the saddle all day, but she was dry and fed, and she knew that Nicholas had arranged a place for her to rest that night. That was enough for now.

They’d sleep in the barn—or above it, rather, in the hayloft. Mr. and Mrs. Pritcher had tried several times to convince them that they’d happily give up their bed to accommodate Jane and Nicholas, but both flatly refused to force the kind farmer and his wife from their bed or, for that matter, confront the awkward truth that they weren’t actually married. Nicholas made a great show of saying how much he looked forward to sleeping rough, as he once had when he was a boy, but it wasn’t until Jane insisted that she was so tired she would doze off in her chair that the Pritchers finally agreed to stay in their home. Mrs. Pritcher sent them out to the barn with a mountain of knit blankets and patchwork quilts so they wouldn’t be cold.

There was no chance of that, Jane thought as she climbed the stairs to the hayloft. The natural warmth from the animals was enough to keep the enclosed loft warm. Fortunately for them, Mr. Pritcher and a local boy had mucked out the stalls that very afternoon and spread fresh hay. With the pitter-patter of rain on the roof, it felt almost homey in the barn.

“I’ll sleep over here,” said Nicholas, pointing to the far end of the hayloft.

She nodded and carried her blankets a respectable distance away.

As she began to make up a bed for herself, he got the cord out of his bag and looked for a hook to string up a divider. She folded a blanket over and over again to make a pillow and tucked it at the end of a thick quilt that would protect her from the sharp ends of hay she’d lie on. They lacked the privacy of a room, and so she’d sleep in her corset that night—an uncomfortable prospect—but there was little she could do about it. At least she’d be able to slide off some of her petticoats and undo the ties of her crinoline behind one of the hay bales.

“Damn,” Nicholas muttered from the far end of the loft.

She looked up and saw him standing with the cord in one hand and the other end hooked to a beam. He was scowling at it as though it were the devil itself.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s too short.” He held up the cord and shook it. “By about ten feet.”

“Oh.”

He scrubbed a hand over his day-old beard and rocked back on his heels. “I’ll think of something. Maybe there’s another rope I can use.”

“Nicholas,” she called, stopping him as he was about to step foot on the top rung of the ladder.

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