The Lie and the Lady (11 page)

Margaret shot a glance to her father, who nodded. She took the proffered arm and led them all outside.

The rest of the party went ahead, while Leticia kept pace with Sir Barty—thankful for the protection of his presence. Right before they got to the front doors, however, Jameson appeared.

“Sir, there is . . . a bit of business that needs to be discussed,” Jameson said to Sir Barty.

“Oh yes, of course,” Sir Barty said, releasing Leticia's arm. “Forgive me, m'dear.” And with that he left.

Leaving Leticia to catch up to Margaret, Turner, and Helen, all by herself.

And she did, finding them in the side garden, gazing at the flower beds that lined the walk to the greenhouse.

“Where is Sir Barty?” Helen asked as soon as she arrived.

“I daresay the countess has been abandoned, Mother. I'm sure she's used to it,” John Turner said. It was practically the first thing Turner had said all afternoon—and it was certainly the first thing he had said to her.

But no, he hadn't said it to her. He'd said it about her. And from the smirk (so like his mother's!) he'd meant it cruelly.

“John!” Helen admonished before coming over to take Leticia's arm. “He thinks he's so clever, doesn't he?”

Leticia's eyes zipped to Turner's. “It seems he does.”

“I wager he had Jameson do it, am I right?”

“Jameson?” She turned back to Helen.

“Sir Barty has always been too proud. He knows full well the apothecary says to keep off his foot, but instead of using that as his excuse for not coming out to walk with us, he has Jameson pull him away.”

“Oh. Yes. How did you know?” Leticia replied.

“He's been doing it for ages,” Helen said. “Tell me, what excuses did he use in Paris?”

“Usually that he was waiting for his guide,” she said, earning a startling cackle from Helen, causing Leticia to smile.

“If it weren't for you, my dear, I'd be tempted to stay inside with him and play out another hand of cribbage—we are very close to declaring a winner—but to have you be forced to chaperone the children on your second day on the job? Leaving you would be unconscionable.”

Leticia decided to ignore that. “How long have you and Sir Barty been playing cribbage?”

“This current game? About twelve years, I should think. And soon enough, he'll admit defeat. Come now, let's catch up to the others.”

Leticia had to admit she liked the intelligent, pushy woman. If circumstances had been different, perhaps Helen could have been the confidant that Leticia would find herself longing for. But as it was, Helen was not quite the ideal person to whom to confess secrets of her son's romantic life.

Especially since she was far too preoccupied by that son's romantic life already.

“Tell me, Leticia,” Helen said, whispering a confidence, “what do you think of the two of them?”

She nodded toward where Margaret and Turner were walking ahead of them. Thankfully neither seemed to be angling to be closer to the other than propriety allowed.

Margaret had at some point acquired a plain starched apron, whose use Leticia was surprisingly glad of, since at that moment the girl dropped to her knees, reached between Turner's ankles, and began digging out a root, making better space for her violets.

Turner simply watched.

“I . . . am not certain what to think,” Leticia said cautiously, her eyes uncharacteristically glued to the back of Turner's head. “I only met Margaret yesterday.”

“And you only met my son this morning,” Helen replied. “But surely that is enough time for someone shrewd, who has lived in the world as you have, to see if two people have a spark of interest between them.”

Leticia kept the smile on her face. She was getting markedly better at keeping that bubble of hysterical laughter down in her belly. Soon she would be able to sail through Helmsley, convincing even herself that she had never met Mr. John Turner before.

But Helen was waiting for her answer. “I see nothing untoward in their manner. But on the man's side, that is not always a good thing.”

“How so?” Helen asked.

“A man who was enamored would make it known. He would find an excuse to be in her presence, to touch her ungloved hand . . .” To kiss her, claim her in the middle of a crowded ballroom.

To come to her room later that night . . .

Helen's brow came down. “My son is simply reserved. He is respectful of Margaret because he is utterly respectful of Sir Barty. But what about the girl? Do you observe some interest on her end?”

Aside from the fact that Margaret had told her of her interest? Well, at that moment she was showering Turner with a rendition of her growing practices, using more words in a single breath than Leticia had heard from her in twenty-four hours.

“And these barrels here, they are filled with my own special formula—they irrigate down into the beds, you see . . . And this set I grew from cuttings . . .”

But instead of admitting it, Leticia simply shrugged.

“I think that Margaret is a lovely young woman, but she does not know much of the world. If she spent a season in London, perhaps she would find her eyes opened to many new things.” Eyes opened to see that a gentleman's daughter does not marry a mill owner, perhaps. “But she seems to have no interest in it.”

Helen's eyebrow went up. “No, I daresay not. Miss Margaret has always been a bit of a homebody—her mother understood her, and indulged her. Ever since Hortense passed, I've tried to act as the girl's friend, but she seems to prefer solitude. Always has.”

“Yes,” Leticia said on a sigh. It was somewhat worrying that Margaret's shyness had fixed her character as “odd” in the town she'd grown up in. There was little chance she'd ever outgrow it.

Helen's voice became low, confiding. “I know you will be good for the girl. And Hortense would have liked you, of that I'm sure.” Helen patted her hand. “I'm also sure it must be uncomfortable to be here suddenly, thrust into a new role, but the awkwardness will pass.”

“I'm sure it will,” Leticia replied, a bit clipped. Although she was more certain that her comfortableness was inversely relative to her proximity to John Turner, but Helen didn't need to know that.

“For you, for Sir Barty, and for Helmsley. I'd be more than happy to pay calls with you to the ladies of the town, and show Mrs. Emory that she's making a complete cake of herself setting herself up against you—oh! Oh, look at that!”

Helen grabbed Leticia's arm so hard she jerked to a sudden stop. She nodded in the direction of Turner and Margaret. There, she saw that Margaret had picked one of the violets and was pointing to its petals. She was giving some kind of dissertation on the petals—likely the shape or color was of note—but in the process, she invited Turner to lean very close. And in leaning so close, his hand fell to the small of Margaret's back. A gentle touch. An intimate touch.

Margaret started when his fingers landed. And if possible, she blushed deeper than ever.

“There!” Helen crowed. “You were right, Leticia. Any excuse to be closer.”

While Helen kept her triumph to a whisper, something violent coursed through Leticia.

He should most certainly not be touching Margaret in that way! A miller? She, a gentleman's daughter? Leticia had to do something—to protect Margaret, of course.

And her toe hit upon the answer. One of the potted trees that lined the gravel walk through the flower beds.

Leticia eyed the tree. “Oh my—Margaret!” she called out. “It seems someone left a bottle in this—”

“No, don't!”

But it was too late.

Leticia had picked up the bottle, which for some odd reason was buried neck down in the soil—not realizing it was filled with liquid.

Brown liquid.

Brown liquid that spilled all over her favorite curry-colored dress.

Everyone froze. Everyone except . . .

“Oh dear!” Margaret cried. “My tea!”

“Tea?” Leticia asked, unable to look up from the splash on her skirt.

“Yes—well, that's what I call it, anyway. That bottle is my gravitational fertilizing system. The vacuum created by the dirt and the bottle allows the tea to seep into the soil only as needed. It's the same as I have in the barrels that feed the flowers.”

“Margaret—” Leticia asked, still as a statue. “What precisely is in your . . . tea?”

“It's a specific formula. I soak a burlap sack full of compost in water for several days. I'll have to get more horse dung from the stables, whip up another batch . . .” Margaret cocked her head to one side, a whisper of a smile on her face. “I guess it is not possible for either of us to walk through the gardens without ruining our gowns, is it?”

Leticia stopped listening to Margaret. Because a different sound filled her ears. The distinct rumble of male laughter. Her eyes rose and met Turner's. He was struggling to contain his mirth. No, not struggling—absolutely relishing it.

“Well, I think perhaps we should return to the house,” Helen said.

“Quite—” Leticia replied, planting the bottle back in the potted tree's soil. “Margaret, come along.”

“Oh no,” Helen began to protest. “Surely my son can—”

“I think it best—” Leticia interrupted. At least she could find a silver lining to this situation, and use it to separate Margaret and Turner.

“One moment,” Turner said, clearing his throat of laughter. His face moved not a muscle, but his eyes locked on to Leticia's. And they lit with an angry mischief.

“May I, Miss Babcock?” he said then, with a flourish worthy of the audience. Then he took the forgotten violet from her hand and tucked it into the ribbon across the crown of her bonnet.

“Violets become you,” he said with an easy nod. Then he raised her hand to his lips.

“I . . . I . . . thank you.” Margaret managed this basic politeness without jumping out of her skin, as it seemed she very much wanted to.

Turner's gaze found hers again, and the blank stare he gave her made her veins go icy.

He was determined to hate her.

He was determined to not care about her.

In that instant, she determined the exact same thing.

7

Y
ou couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?”

Turner found himself pacing the sitting room, that same space in which they had passed a ludicrous interlude of teacakes and tepid conversation just a few hours ago. Why the hell was he still here, listening to his mother jabber and confined to this tiny room, when he could be at the mill, doing work, calibrating weights, and pounding his fists against the walls?

That was unfair. He knew perfectly well how he had ended up in this situation. He had provoked Leticia with that violet and by kissing Margaret's hand.

And Leticia had provoked him right back by insisting everyone stay for dinner.

John didn't quite know how it had happened. One minute he'd locked eyes with Leticia and the next Margaret was whipping her hand out of his and declaring, “I think it's time to go back to the house!” with a voice so high and cheeks so pink that there was little else to do but follow the girl back to the house.

He'd nodded as he passed his mother and Leticia, barely pausing to enjoy (or rather, not enjoy) the stench covering her gown from Margaret's “tea” formula. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head as he moved.

“Well that is certainly promising!” he'd heard his mother say in happy tones. “Although, 'tis a pity it comes at such an inconvenient time!”

He was likely the only person who could hear the slight hesitation in Leticia's voice. “How so?”

“We are so close to the next harvest,” his mother explained. “The mill is nearly complete, and John is determined to be open for business when the first crop of grain comes in. Usually, the crops from Sir Barty's estate are among the first to be produced, did you know? Previously, he's had to take his business to Blackwell's mills—some as far as ten miles away. But with the Turner mill reopening surely he will be happy to move his business closer to home again, don't you think?”

Turner picked up the pace. He did not need to hear his mother's subtle-as-a-sledgehammer sales pitch for Sir Barty's business to Leticia. He had known his mother's true object in wedging them into Sir Barty's hospitality today. Certainly, she would like to see her son settle down with an eligible young lady, but . . .

Sir Barty's estate produced more grain than any other landowner in the county. Being the processor of said grain would mean the Turner Grain Mill would not only survive, but thrive. And courting the daughter of Sir Barty would certainly make him look favorably on their business.

Turner told himself that he would be happy—thrilled!—to go along. After all, there was some chance he would like Margaret. True, he'd known her for years and hadn't found himself madly in love as of yet, but perhaps he would find something new to pique his interest.