After an hour and a half of hard labor with no sign of the riders, Kit threw his sickle down on the crumbling brick wall of the fishpond and scowled at it. His over-long hair kept sticking to his face, and burrs had worked their way beneath his shirt, scratching at his skin. With a grunt, he yanked off his straw hat, dragged off the old linen shirt, and thrust his arms into the cool water of the pond.
It smelled musty and foul but—oh—it was such a relief to bathe his overheated skin and soothe the irritation. Grass seeds clung to his shirt, so he dipped it in the water and swirled it about until it looked clean before spreading it out on the sun-warmed brickwork to dry. He ducked his head beneath the surface of the pond, splashing the water over his shoulders and chest, then straightened. Just as he was shaking the drops from his hair, the sound of hoofbeats made him stand stock-still.
Sir Thomas was trotting across the bridge on a massive black stallion. Kate Aspinall followed on a bay mare, with some of her ladies, several grooms, and Mistress Barchard bringing up the rear on a chestnut, a tiny merlin on her wrist.
One of the ladies, mounted on a skewbald mare, glanced around and her gaze fixed on Kit. Her gasp of surprise brought Kate to a stop, and thus all the others behind her.
“So much for not working with his shirt off.” The woman made no effort to lower her voice. Kit reached for his shirt, but it was still soaking, so he pretended to be absorbed in something he’d found behind the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mistress Aspinall idly stroke the breast of her peregrine.
“There is that mark I told you of. If you don’t believe I saw it under the circumstances I claimed, Alys, dismount and ask him. If he denies it, I shall give you back your pocket.”
What mark? What circumstances? He could feel the ladies’ stares on his back. They muttered and tittered behind their leather gloves as their hawks shifted, jingling, on their wrists. If he continued to ignore the group of women, Mistress Aspinall would cause a scene, and that was the last thing he wanted. He straightened up and bowed.
The lady on the skewbald raked his chest with her eyes before bursting into a fit of giggles. Mistress Barchard’s cheeks turned crimson. Kirlham, fortunately, had already passed out of earshot and the grooms had followed, leaving the ladies to their unabashed perusal of Kit’s damp, naked torso.
They were staring at his sword wound. He ducked his head, doing his best to look subservient and apologetic at the same time, scratching at the scar beneath his right breast as if it were of no significance whatsoever. If anyone asked, he’d say he was once attacked by brigands on the highway. One couldn’t tell the quality of a blade from the scar it left. Could one?
The sound of hoofbeats indicated that his moment of humiliation was over. The ladies had had their fill and continued on to find better sport. Heaving out a breath, he straightened, and drew his hand across his brow, only to find himself looking directly into the angry blue-grey eyes of Mistress Barchard.
“You, sirrah, have no place here. You have brought shame to this house, and I intend to remove you from it. Forthwith.”
Before he could ask how a servant being caught shirtless on a hot day brought shame to Selwood, she’d tossed her head, dug her heels into her mount’s flanks, and chased away after the others.
He scowled after her. There was more to her enmity than this present indiscretion. As he shouldered into his damp shirt, a shudder ran through him. There was stalwart determination in that charming little chin, sharp intellect in those blue-grey eyes.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Mistress Barchard already suspected him of being a spy. A fact that could cost him his life.
Chapter Eight
Alys hadn’t given up hope of curbing Kate’s outrageous behavior, but every time she attempted to speak to her cousin about it, she was ignored. None of the other ladies seemed worried—they were amused by the scandal of Kate’s liaison with the gardener. So, she decided to watch him like a hawk, find fault with his work, and encourage head gardener Jacob to dismiss him.
Before she was able to put her plan into action, distraction arrived at Selwood Manor in the shape of Sir Thomas’ brother-in-law, Richard Avery. The man’s wife had died in childbirth the previous year and, so rumor had it, he had taken to spending a good deal of time with Sir Thomas thereafter, as he couldn’t bear to be idle or alone.
Rumor had it right. No sooner had Avery arrived than he was devising entertainments for them all—hunting to hounds, a masque, minstrels, poetry reading. He carried everyone with him in his enthusiasm, exhibiting an apparent joy in life that made him excellent company. Kate preened and simpered appallingly in his presence. Unsurprisingly.
Avery’s first event was to be a costume party, to include Kate’s female friends and their swains, the local gentry, and some of Avery’s acquaintance who would come up from London. Alys hoped the presence of eligible gentlemen might turn Kate away from the gardener’s masculine charms.
In her role as housekeeper, it was Alys who had to cope with the influx of guests. This involved everything from balancing the tradesmen’s books to supervising the cleaning and laundering of rooms, ordering fresh lavender and flowers from the garden to make potpourri, and polishing the best pewter tableware. This gave her no time to participate in the merry-making—she’d be directing operations, like an actor’s prompter watching from the wings.
And just like the actor’s prompter, she was not meant to be seen by the guests. Such exclusion was a constant goad—Kate did it quite deliberately, by loading her up with tasks from dawn
