so kind." She quickly led the way to the kitchens.
Amy looked around and realized she was alone with Harry Crisp. "Oh dear."
"My dear Miss de Lacy," Harry said with a teasing smile, "you are surely not nervous to be alone with me. We've weathered worse than this after all, and the door is safely open."
Amy could feel her cheeks heat. She found herself fiddling with her apron and stopped. "Yes," she said. "I mean we have, and I'm not..." This would never do. She wished he weren't here. She wished the room weren't so shabby. She wished she were still the wealthy Amy de Lacy, dressed in modish style and receiving a handsome gentlemen without thought of her duty to marry riches.
She realized she was still in her work apron and pulled it off. Then, unsure what to do with it, she tucked it under a cushion. "It is a lovely day, isn't it? I do hope you had a pleasant ride."
He was looking at her with warm amusement and considerable tenderness. It was as if they were back at Coppice Farm. Her anxiety melted away and she laughed. "That was ridiculous, wasn't it? I don't know why I should be ashamed to be seen in an apron when the whole world knows we have to do for ourselves. Won't you be seated, Mr. Crisp."
She took a straight-back chair and he took another close beside it.
"We are all driven by convention," Harry said. "I don't think the worse of you for having to do menial work. But I think it a shame."
Amy smiled ruefully and looked down at her hands - not ruined yet, but rougher than they used to be. "So do I, but then I think that there's no reason I should be exempt. Why should one woman heave furniture and another idle her days away?"
"Is that what you've been doing?" he asked, startled. He picked up her right hand and studied it with a frown, tracing a line of dirt with one finger.
Amy tried to pull away. "I must go and wash."
He held on. "That doesn't matter. But you do have servants," he said. "I surely saw one yesterday."
He continued to hold her hand, and the warmth of his skin against hers was... distracting. "Pretty and Mrs. Pretty," she said unsteadily. "But they are more pensioners than servants. They have worked at Stonycourt all their lives and deserve a pension." His thumb was rubbing against her skin. "There's... there's no money to pay for it. So they live on here. It's that or the... the workhouse. Please let me go!"
"Why?" he asked.
Amy could have cited propriety but instead she said weakly, "My hands are so dirty."
"I don't mind," he said and raised her hand for a kiss. Then he released it.
She was a regular Cinderella, Harry thought, having to struggle not to show his anger at her lazy servants and her ugly sister. More than ever he wanted to sweep her into his arms, kiss her, and carry her off to Hey Park, where she could idle her days away in peace.
She leapt to her feet and moved away from him. How shy she was. "Jasper and Jassy help," she carried on. "But Jasper is at school most of the time - he boards at Uppingham - and Jassy has her lessons, too. Aunt Lizzie does a great deal of the cooking, but she's too old to do heavy work."
"You're too delicate to do heavy work," Harry said firmly.
She turned to him in surprise. "I'm not the slightest bit delicate," she said. "You mustn't be deceived by my appearance." She walked over and picked up a sturdy chair, raising it above her head. By the time he was on his feet to assist her, she had already set it down again. "See?"
"So you're a female Atlas," he snapped, filled again with a burning desire to claim her and put an end to such foolishness. "That doesn't mean you should be doing such things."
"Rooms need to be cleaned," she pointed out, "and that means furniture must be moved. So, we move it."
"This is all nonsense," he said. "You maybe in straightened circumstances, Miss de Lacy, but this degree of hardship cannot be necessary. You are being shamefully ill used."
"By whom?" she asked, appearing to be genuinely at loss. She was such an innocent darling.
He hesitated to name her hard-hearted family since she seemed devoted to them, but he had noticed that the sister had been wearing quite