North said, “Thought earls had servants to clear their paths.”
“He does,” Randall confirmed. “But he said since he had a pair of lazy lummoxes for grandsons, they could make themselves useful.” Hoping to lighten the atmosphere, he added, “I’ll get the pictures.”
Once out of sight upstairs he leaned back against the wall and let out a long breath. This was going to be tougher than he’d thought. Well, at least it would make life interesting.
He found the photographs and headed back downstairs. As he descended he heard the sound of laughter, followed by Claire’s voice, reproving but on the verge of a chuckle.
“Cut it out, Dave. He’s not that bad.”
Dave’s donkey bray of laughter made Randall wince. He stayed where he was, shamelessly eavesdropping.
“Not that bad?” Dave roared. “He’s the best entertainment we’ve had around here in months. Did you feel his hands? Not a callus anywhere.”
“He’s a lord,” Claire observed. “They don’t have calluses.”
“Then he sure came to the wrong place,” Dave observed.
“He won’t last here,” Olly said. “Fifty dollars says he’s on the first plane out tomorrow.”
“You don’t have fifty dollars,” North observed mildly.
“No sweat. I won’t need it.”
“Give him a chance.” That was Claire.
“Sure we’ll give him a chance,” Dave said. “A chance to ride Nailer.” He brayed again.
“No way,” North broke in, his mild voice sounding unexpectedly firm. “Claire, you can’t let him ride Nailer. Not until you know if he can ride.”
“All aristocrats can ride,” Claire said. “But you’re right. I don’t want to have to explain to Gabe how his cousin got a broken neck.”
“That Gabe!” Olly chuckled. “Trust him to think of a joke like this. Boy he must be laughing!”
“Did you hear his voice?” Dave chortled. “Did you hear his
He seemed totally overcome with mirth, which turned into a coughing fit. There was the sound of hands slapping a back, as if the rest were trying to stop Dave from choking to death.
“Don’t try too hard, folks,” Randall murmured.
He stayed sunk in thought for a moment. By the time he went down the rest of the stairs he’d come to a decision. If that was how they wanted to play-Fine!
He returned to the table, seemingly unaware of how the talk stopped at the sight of him. He laid the pictures down with an air of lofty indifference. Dave grunted, but the others spread them out with interest.
“Who’s Santa Claus?” North asked, pointing to a gleeful, red-cheeked figure.
“That’s my grandfather, Lord Cedric, Earl Stanton, Viscount Desborough, Baron Stornaway and Ellesmere, hereditary lord of the manor of Bainwick,” Randall said coolly.
“Don’t look like an earl,” Olly observed.
“That is not necessary,” Randall observed in his most disdainful voice. “What matters is to possess the lineage, and to have people know that you possess it, eh? What?”
That would show them, he thought. If they expected him to talk as though he was chewing nettles, then that’s what he’d do. Eh? What?
Claire was frowning at him as though wondering why he’d suddenly started to talk the kind of English normally heard only in bad stage productions. He was going to wink at her and share the joke, but North claimed his attention, and when he looked back she’d returned to the kitchen to get bacon and eggs.
“Sleep well?” she asked him when she returned.
“Excellently!” he said in a robust voice. “Except for being rather too hot. But after I threw off a couple of blankets I was fine.” He saw the others staring at him, and said blandly, “We learned to be hardy at Eton, dontcha know?”
“You’ll need to be hardy out here,” Dave said. “Can you ride?”
“Dave!” Claire muttered in an undervoice of protest. “I told you-”
“I was in the army, old bean,” Randall declared in a bored voice. “In the Household Cavalry. Guardin’ the Queen.”
Dave looked about to be overcome with mirth again, but a glance from Claire kept him quiet. Susan went around refilling coffee cups, doing Randall’s first, and the moment passed.
At last they all got up from the table. Randall went upstairs. North and Olly went to the bunkhouse. Dave stayed behind muttering to Claire.
“Even Susan’s all over him because he’s a lord.”
“It’s not that,” Claire said. “I think it’s because he spoke to her so nicely. Some people act like she’s part of the furniture.”
She turned a significant eye on Dave, who was the chief offender. He grunted and quickly moved off. Claire had to admit that she’d been impressed by the way Randall had put himself out to be pleasant to Susan.
Just like Gabe, she thought quickly. In fact, Gabe probably advised him to do it.
Susan bustled in to clear the table, casting an appreciative eye on Randall’s empty plate. “What a nice boy.”
“Of course, he’s Gabe’s cousin,” Claire reminded her.
“He’s more handsome than Gabe,” Susan said slyly.
Claire bristled. “He is not.”
Susan chuckled and withdrew under a mountain of plates. Claire looked around, then reached into her shirt where she’d hidden the picture of Gabe that she’d secreted from the pack. Susan’s switch of allegiance gave a new poignancy to the face that laughed back at her from so many thousand miles away.
Randall, coming downstairs a moment later to retrieve the photographs, stopped, held by the sight that met his eyes.
Claire was standing there, regarding Gabe’s picture with a look more piteous than words. For once her face was soft, defenseless, and Randall felt as though he’d had a blow to the heart.
Poor Claire, he thought. What a rotten thing to happen to her, being landed with me. I shouldn’t have come.
Randall wasn’t more sensitive than the next man, or especially in tune with the feelings of women, as several ex-girlfriends could have testified. But something about Claire’s dumb anguish got under his radar, and reached his heart before he knew it.
He’d never felt this kind of empathy for anyone. She was almost alone in a household of men. His Aunt Elaine, though a kindly soul, had a robust attitude to life that might make her hard to confide in. From what he recalled of Martha, she was much the same. Besides, she wasn’t around now. Claire was isolated, trying to be one of the boys while coping with a woman’s feelings, knowing them unrequited.
She was rough, awkward, bristly. But she was also unhappy and lonely, and his heart went out to her.
She moved and he quickly retreated back up the stairs. It would be fatal for her to find him intruding on her private sadness.
In his room he finished getting dressed, and was about to leave when an
