Minx

The poor girl was probably terrified. And furious. He glanced up at her impossibly cheerful facade. He'd wager she was more furious than terrified. "You like it here a great deal, don't you?" he asked abruptly.

Startled by his sudden willingness to actually converse with her, Henry coughed a bit before finally answering, "Yes. Yes, of course. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just wondering. One can see it in your face, you know."

"See what?" she asked hesitantly.

"Your love for Stannage Park. I was watching you while you were watching the sunrise."

"Y-you were?"

"Mmm-hmm." And that, apparently, was all he was going to say on the matter. He turned back to his breakfast and ignored her completely.

Henry worriedly chewed on her lower lip. This was a bad sign. Why would he care about how she felt unless he were somehow planning to use it against her? If he wanted revenge, nothing could be so excruciatingly painful as being banished from her beloved home.

But then again, why would he want revenge against her? He might not like her, he might even find her rather annoying, but she'd given him no reason to hate her, had she? Of course not. She was letting her imagination get the better of her.

Dunford watched her surreptitiously over his eggs. She was worried. Good. She deserved it after hauling him out of bed this morning at a most uncivilized hour. Not to mention her clever little scheme to starve him out of Cornwall. And the bathing situation— he'd have admired her for her ingenuity if her manipulations had been directed at anyone but himself.

If she thought she could push him around and eventually off of his own property, she was mad.

He smiled. Cornwall was going to be good fun indeed.

He continued to eat his breakfast with slow, deliberate bites, fully enjoying her distress. Three times she started to say something then thought the better of it. Twice she nibbled on her lower lip. And once he even heard her mutter something to herself. He thought it sounded rather like "damned fool," but he couldn't be certain.

Finally, after deciding he'd made her wait long enough, he set his napkin down and stood up. "Shall we?"

"By all means, my lord." She wasn't able to keep a trace of sarcasm out of her voice. She'd been finished with her meal for over ten minutes.

Dunford wasn't above feeling some perverse satisfaction at her irritation. "Tell me, Henry. What is first on our agenda?"

"Don't you remember? We're constructing a new pigpen."

A singularly unpleasant feeling rolled around in his stomach. "I suppose that is what you were doing when I arrived." He didn't have to add, "When you smelled so atrociously bad."

She smiled knowingly at him over her shoulder and preceded him out the door.

Dunford wasn't sure whether he was furious or amused. She was planning to lead him on a merry chase, he was sure of it. Either that or work him to the bone. Still, he figured he could outsmart her. After all he knew what she was up to, and she didn't know he had figured it out.

Or did she?

And if she did, did that mean she now had the edge?

It being barely seven in the morning, his brain refused to compute the ramifications of this.

He followed Henry out past the stables to a structure he guessed was a barn. His experience with country life had been limited to the aristocracy's ancestral seats, most of which were quite removed from anything resembling a working farm. Farming was left to tenants, and the ton usually didn't want to see their tenants unless rents were due. Hence his confusion.

"This is a barn?" he queried.

She looked stunned that he would even ask. "Of course. What did you think it was?"

"A barn," he snapped.

"Then why ask?"

"I was merely wondering why your dear friend Porkus was being kept in the stables rather than here."

"Too crowded here," she replied. "Just look inside. We have lots of cows."

Dunford decided to take her word for it.

"There is plenty of room in the stables," she continued. "We don't have very many horses. Good mounts are very expensive, you know." She smiled innocently at him, hoping he'd had his heart set on inheriting a stable full of Arabians.

He shot her an irritated look. "I know how much horses cost."

"Of course. The team on your carriage was beautiful. They are yours, aren't they?"

He ignored her and walked ahead until his foot connected with soft mushy ground. "Shit," he muttered.

"Exactly."

He glared at her, thinking himself a saint for not going for her throat.

She bit back a smile and looked away. "This is where the pigpen will be."

"So I gathered."

"Mmm, yes." She glanced down at his now not-so-elegantly clad foot and smiled. "That is probably cow."

"Thank you so much for informing me. I'm sure the distinction will prove most edifying."

"Hazards of life on a farm," she said breezily. "I'm actually surprised it wasn't cleaned up. We do try to keep clean around here."

He wanted desperately to remind her of her appearance and smell two days earlier, but even in his supreme irritation he was too much of a gentleman to do so. He contented himself to saying doubtfully, "In a pigpen?"

"Pigs are actually not as slovenly as most people think. Oh, they like mud and all that, but not..." She looked down at his foot. "...you know."

He smiled tightly. "All too well."

She put her hands on her hips and looked around.

They had started the stone wall that would enclose the pigs, but it was not high enough yet. It was taking a long time because she had insisted the foundation be particularly strong. A weak foundation was the reason the earlier pen had crumbled. "I wonder where everyone is," she muttered.