Minx

"I don't tell you everything, you know."

"Just about," Mrs. Simpson snorted.

Henry smiled sheepishly. It was true that she and the housekeeper were much closer than one would expect. She absentmindedly twirled her fingers around a lock of her long, brown hair, one of her few concessions to vanity. It would have been more sensible to cut it short, but it was thick and soft, and Henry just couldn't bear to part with it. Besides, it was her habit to wind it around her fingers while she was thinking hard about a problem, as she was doing now.

"Wait a minute!" she exclaimed.

"What?"

"He can't sell the place, but that doesn't mean he has to live here."

Mrs. Simpson narrowed her eyes. "I'm not certain I understand your meaning, Henry."

"We just have to make sure that he absolutely, positively doesn't want to live here. Chances are, it won't be difficult. He's probably one of those soft London sorts. But it certainly couldn't hurt to make him slightly, er, uncomfortable."

"What on earth are you thinking of, Henrietta Barrett? Putting rocks in the poor man's mattress?"

"Nothing so crude, I assure you," Henry scoffed. "We shall show him every kindness. We shall be politeness personified, but we shall endeavor to point out that he is not suited for country life. He could learn to love the role of absentee landlord. Especially if I send him quarterly profits."

"I thought you poured the profits back into the estate."

"I do, but I'll just have to split them in half. I'll send half to the new Lord Stannage and reinvest half here. I won't like doing it, but it will be better than having him in residence."

Mrs. Simpson shook her head. "Just what exactly are you planning to do to him?"

Henry twirled her finger in her hair. "I'm not certain. I'll have to give it some thought."

Mrs. Simpson looked over at a clock. "You'd better think fast, because he'll be here within the hour."

Henry walked over to the door. "I'd better wash."

"If you don't want to meet him smelling like the great outdoors," Mrs. Simpson retorted. "And not the part with flowers and honey, if you know what I mean."

Henry shot her a cheeky grin. "Will you have someone fill a bath for me?" At the housekeeper's nod, she dashed up the back stairs. Mrs. Simpson was right: she smelled rather unsavory. But then, what could one expect after a morning overseeing the construction of a new pigpen? It had been messy work, but Henry had been glad to do it—or rather, she admitted to herself, to supervise it. Getting knee-deep in muck was not exactly her cup of tea.

She stopped suddenly on the stairs, her eyes lighting up. It was not her cup of tea, but it was just the thing for the new Lord Stannage. She could even bring herself to get more actively involved in the project if it meant convincing this Dunford fellow this was what country lords did all the time.

Feeling much enthused, she bounded up the rest of the stairs to her bedroom. It would be several minutes before the tub was filled, so she picked up her hairbrush and walked over to the window to look out. Her hair had been pulled back like a pony's tail, but the wind had whipped it into snarls. She untied the ribbon; it would be easier to wash detangled.

As she pulled the brush through her hair, she stared out over the green fields surrounding the house. The sun was just beginning to set, tinting the sky like a peach. Henry sighed with love. Nothing had the power to move her as these lands did.

Then, as if timed just to spoil her perfect moment, something glinted on the horizon. Oh, God, it wasn't... It was glass, glass from a carriage window. Damn and blast—he was early. "Stupid wretch," she muttered. "Deuced inconsiderate of him." She glanced back over her shoulder. Her bath wasn't ready.

Pressing closer to the window, she peered down at the carriage that was now rolling down the drive. It was quite elegant. Mr. Dunford must have been a man of some means even before inheriting Stannage Park.

Either that or he had wealthy friends willing to loan him a conveyance. Henry stared at the scene quite unabashedly, brushing her hair all the while. Two footmen dashed out to unload the trunks. She smiled proudly. She had this house running like clockwork.

Then the carriage door opened. Without realizing it, she moved even closer to the glass of her window. A booted foot emerged. A rather nice, manly boot, Henry observed, and she knew her boots. Then it became apparent that the boot was attached to a leg that was every bit as manly as its footwear. "Oh, dear," she muttered. He wasn't going to be a weak sissy. Then the owner of the leg hopped out, and she saw him in his entirety.

She dropped her hairbrush.

"Oh, my God," she breathed. He was beautiful. No, not beautiful, she corrected, for that would imply some sort of effeminate quality, and this man certainly had none of that. He was tall, with a firmly muscled body and broad shoulders. His hair was thick and brown, slightly longer than was fashionable. And his face... Henry may have been looking down at him from fourteen feet up, but even she could see that his face was everything a face ought to be. His cheekbones were high, his nose straight and strong, and his mouth finely molded with a slight wry quality to it. She couldn't see what color his eyes were, but she had a sinking feeling they would be filled with shrewd intelligence. And he was much, much younger than she'd expected. She'd been hoping for someone in his fifties. This man couldn't be a day over thirty.

Henry groaned. This was going to be much harder than she'd anticipated. She was going to have to be very crafty indeed to fool this one. With a sigh, she reached down for her hairbrush and walked back to her bath.