then swung to face Agnes, blowing an errant curl out of her eyes.
“I offered,” she argued mutinously. “And I offered because the lad isn’t sleeping. What help am I to him if I’m not there when the suffering is taking place?”
She brushed past the older woman, stomping toward the cottage and trying to control her temper.
In truth, she was only this angry because there was a kernel of truth in Agnes’s protestations. But not because Philip had any dastardly plot in mind when it came to her virtue.
Rather because of her own feelings, her own desires.
“And I might remind you that he offered to have you come and stay, too,” Selina shouted back as she banged the basket onto the table.
The trouble with living with Agnes was that they were both quick to temper, and it occasionally caused an almighty row between them.
“Oh, aye. And why would I want to go and live off his lordship’s charity, hmm?”
Selina sighed and turned to look at the woman who’d been a mother to her.
“You wouldn’t be going for him. You’d be going for me. And not because of anything so foolish as propriety.” She rolled her eyes. “But there’s not a soul in that house apart from Philip and Timothy who will want me there, Agnes. And I don’t think any of them would do me harm but –“
Selina felt her cheeks heat. She hated admitting any sort of weakness. Hated feeling like she needed someone. Even the wonderful, stubborn woman who’d raised her.
“This is hard for me,” she said. “What ails the lad. It’s strong. Perhaps stronger than me. And I want someone who loves me there.”
Agnes’s gaze softened for a millisecond before the shrewdness was back in force.
“Is he handsome? This English lord.”
Selina ignored the sudden racing of her heart and nodded. What would be the point in lying?
“Your mother fell for such a one. And look how that ended.”
“I’m not my mother,” Selina bit out.
But Agnes’s words had burrowed themselves into her mind.
Was this just history repeating itself? She definitely wanted to help the troubled boy, and she thought that she could do it.
But if she were being truthful, this wasn’t just about the boy. It was about the man. In part, at least.
And it was true that her father was an English lord. Agnes had told her that often enough over the years. Agnes didn’t know his name, and Selina didn’t want to find out in any case. All they knew about him was that he’d been a guest of the deceased Lord Breton, staying at Everwood Manor and, presumably, taking the opportunity that presented itself with no thought or care about the woman involved.
But that wasn’t Philip.
Perhaps she was naïve and foolish. As foolish as her mother. But she didn’t think so.
Somewhere inside she knew, or at least believed, that Philip wouldn’t use a woman so ill. Even a gypsy woman.
In any case, he’d never made her feel less than just because of the station she’d been born to. And he hadn’t allowed his staff to openly disrespect her, though she supposed there was nothing he could do about the glares or hostile grimaces.
But then, when had the opinions of strangers ever bothered her?
“Are you going to come then?” she asked, a little snippily. She didn’t mean to be harsh with the old lady, but all these questions about Philip and his intentions were unsettling in ways she couldn’t quite explain. Not even to herself.
“Hmm. And what has his lordship told the staff up there in the big house? To explain your presence.”
God, but she was a tenacious oul one when she wanted to be.
“I’m quite sure he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself to his servants. However, since most of my time will be spent with Timothy, I suppose that makes me a sort of nanny.”
Agnes scoffed.
“Whoever heard of a rich English lord hiring a gypsy girl as a nanny?”
Her disbelief stung a little, though of course it shouldn’t.
“Maybe he doesn’t just think of me as a gypsy girl,” she answered mutinously, but the bite had gone from her words.
Agnes suddenly marched over and took Selina’s face between her two, roughened palms.
“Perhaps he doesn’t,” she said intently. “And that’s what worries me so.”
“Mrs. Leary.”
Philip had been playing with a happy, rested Timothy at the lake that sat within the grounds of the manor house.
He should dry off and clean up before Selina and Mrs. Healy arrived, but first he needed to ensure that their stay