Two Lady Scoundrels and a Duke - Tessa Candle Page 0,7
best of men, perhaps, but I am certain she thinks me far worse than I am.”
The dog said nothing, but happily lapped up the gruel and licked his lips.
Foxleigh lay back with a sigh. “Good lad.” It was enough for now to know where she was, that she was alive and still free. There was yet a chance. He would find a way to make her love him again. But it would have to wait, for his eyelids were drooping and his head throbbed badly.
Chapter 7 Three French Hens
Kat walked through the crunchy snow to the chicken coop with an uncharacteristic sense of relief. Cleaning up after the chickens was a welcome change from tending to Foxleigh. It was exhausting to have her moods swinging from temptation, to anger, to fear for his life. He was sleeping a lot, although he showed no signs of having a fever. At least when he was awake he seemed lucid enough, if plagued by the delusion that her finding him half dead in the snow was some sort of blessing from God.
Her heart beat faster at the recollection. He seemed genuinely glad to see her and sincere in his claim to have thought of her every day. It irritated her how much she loved to hear him say these things. She should be slapping him for toying with her heart all over again.
Did he really think she would overlook the fact that he was consorting with his mistress while also courting her? Even if he did still love her in his own corrupt way, it did not change her reasons for ending the engagement and leaving London. And he may have now cast Marie and his son aside, but however much Katherine disliked the insinuating harlot, she could not think well of a man who could abandon his own child. And yet his turning up in her life again fueled a flame that, in all this time, she had not managed to extinguish in her heart. It was infuriating to be so out of control.
Katherine shook her head, picked up a shovel, and entered the warm stink of the coop.
How perverse that she should have these feelings dredged up again, just in time to watch him struggle to regain his strength. She should be fetching him a doctor, but she simply did not have anything with which to pay. She swore to herself that the next time he awoke, she would make him tell her where she should send directions for assistance. She would even swallow her pride and ask if he had the money to hire a physician.
Her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she spied the hens happily picking stray kernels out of the horse dung. The horse stood calmly nibbling on the wild grass that Katherine had cut and put up over the summer to have bedding for her chickens. He nickered at her, cocking his ears forward curiously, then continued to munch.
“Hello, ladies. Hello, Horse. I apologize for the poor fare, but at least you have something to eat.” Unlike the rest of us.
She mucked out the small building, gathering the leavings in a pile to be removed later, then went about searching the nests for eggs. It was a faint hope as the hens’ laying had slowed over the winter. Poor things were only barely scratching out an existence. It was too much to expect many eggs from them. And yet, as she gently raked her fingers through the dried grass in each box, she found one, two, three eggs. It was a miracle! One egg for her, one for Foxleigh and one for Dog. Now if only they laid golden eggs, she would have something to pay the agent when he came for the rent.
The agent’s voice sounded from the doorway behind her. “Good day, Mrs. Sheldon. I hope I do not disturb your solitude.”
Apparently for someone with her infernal luck, even thinking of the devil was enough to summon him. She sighed, tucked her eggs into her apron and turned to face the hateful man.
“Good day, Mr. Atherton. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?” It was bad form to sound so sarcastic, but she didn’t care.
He chuckled in an insinuating way that made Katherine wish to slap him. “Well, I know you are all alone out here, and I like to check in now and again to be sure you are well.”
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