She tried to dig up something deep and meaningful to say, but instead blurted out, “I think I have changed my mind about growing pineapples. What sort of plant thrives in such hot and torturous surrounds?”
He made the noise in his throat, but when he turned to regard her fully for the first time in their acquaintance, humour sparkled in his grey eyes. “Perhaps suffering such torment is what makes their flesh so juicy and sweet?”
She couldn’t help herself, she laughed. Not only was she relieved to not be greeted with a frown of disapproval, but it was funny. Assuming he did indeed jest. If it were a joke, it was the first she had heard him make.
He flashed a rare smile, and a comfortable warmth flushed through her torso. Not the unbearable heat from the glass roofed frames, but something deeper and more sustainable. Like a bath exactly the right temperature to lull one’s mind. Oh, a bath! Why did she have to think of a lovely, long bath?
“I think you should continue with your plans to grow pineapples. My family has long believed in looking after the Alysblud community, and the fruit would be a treat to share with the other families.”
The exact reason why she wanted to grow them. “First I need to have one of the men sand back the rusty hinges and remove all the pins from the latches. We also need to discover how the hedgehog made his way inside, to make sure no others try to follow and close any gap that might create a draft.”
They entered the house through the French doors that led to what Dawn thought of as the soothing drawing room with its earthy green and brown palette.
The earl led her to a sofa covered in a fabric woven with autumn leaves. “Please be seated, Miss Uxbridge, and I will have the maid fetch you a cool lemonade.”
Dawn stared at the softly padded sofa. An ache settled into her bones, and her knees wanted to buckle. But she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. “I am terribly dirty, Lord Seton. I have been working alongside the men all morning.”
He glanced at the back of her skirts. “You’ll be fine. It is nothing that won’t brush off. But there is a delicate matter I would raise while I have you away from the workmen.”
Dawn gathered her skirts to one side and sat with relief.
“A delicate matter?” she repeated back at him. No doubt he was going to express his dissatisfaction with her inability to work like a man. And then chastise her for unladylike behaviour and flights of fancy with running from screaming trees and becoming trapped in a pineapple pit. She curled her hands into her apron, letting her nails bite into her palm to hold back any tears as he told her she was dismissed.
It seemed that once he started smiling he couldn’t stop, and another one tugged at his full lips. Unless all employers grinned as they sacked a useless employee, he must be taking pleasure in her torment. “There is no bath in the cottage. Would you like to have one here, or would it feel too improper?”
The sigh of relief escaped her throat before she could hold it in. Her employment wasn’t going to be terminated prematurely, but instead he offered her something marvellous. The chance to scrub herself clean.
“Oh, yes please.” She met his gaze and a tingle travelled from the top of her scalp down to her toes.
12
Dawn wanted nothing more than to remove her dirty clothes, climb into a bath immediately, and disappear beneath the bubbles. But quitting work at lunchtime wouldn’t improve her employer’s already dim opinion of her. Nor would it set a good example for her workmen who still laboured under the hot sun.
Instead, she drank a refreshing glass of lemonade, allowed her erratic heart to return to a semblance of a normal beat, and then she headed back out. First she stopped at the cottage and took another mouthful of her tonic to bolster her constitution after the morning’s exertions.
Dawn took a more managerial role for the rest of the afternoon, and it lightened her mood to see most of the vegetable beds wrested under control. Weeds were pulled, soil dug over, and all they needed was some rotted matter to work through as compost. She could now plan the winter plantings. If she were to lose her position at week’s end, at least she had made one positive change at the estate.
With Mouse at her side, Dawn walked over to the maze to find progress non-existent. Hector stood scratching his bald head, and one man sat on the ground holding a cut and bleeding arm. The others stared at the close-knit vines, hedge clippers dangling from limp fingers.
“What happened here?” Dawn asked as she stopped next to Hector.
“Damn vine is a tough old thing, you’d swear it had iron in its core. It’s slow going, Miss Uxbridge.” He plopped the boater back on his skull to protect both head and face from the sun.
She let out a sigh of disappointment. The men had barely filled one wheelbarrow, and there were no perceptible gaps in the twisted wall. The entrance was still fiercely guarded, and one man was injured. She never imagined the vine would fight back. At this rate it would be months before she could push through the dense hedges of the maze.
She turned to the fellow clutching a torn off shirt to his bloody arm. “Are you badly hurt? Do we need to summon Dr Day?”
“Thorns ripped right through the leather gloves, miss,” he said and gestured to the shredded items next to him.
Her hand went to her wrist, where the mark the vine gave her itched and grew heated. There was a slim possibility the vine’s thorns had poisonous tips. “Hector, do you know if the vine is poisonous?”
“Plenty of men have been scratched by it over the years, but I’ve not known one to suffer more than a bit of blood loss to it. Bill here is lucky the scratches aren’t too deep. Just needs to be cleaned up and bandaged. Funniest thing though, it’s like the vine knows we’re trying to get past it and it seems to move of its own accord.” Hector narrowed his eyes at the plant that hugged the entire maze tight, as though he expected it to be ashamed of its actions.
“Move in what way?” Dawn peered at the mass. A couple of smaller offshoots showed the raw edge of being recently cut.
Hector pointed to the left side of the entrance. “We started there ’cause it looked thinner, but when we started to cut the main bough, the vine slithered away and more strands of it laced through with the others.”
“It just fell in on itself when we pulled it. A vine can’t move, can it, miss?” the worker on the ground asked.
“It is a living thing. It might be protecting itself by instinct, rather like a Venus flytrap can snap shut over an insect.” Dawn stared at the thick layers of vine.
Anything was possible in the strange garden, and until she found the vine in a botanical book, she could only guess at what abilities it might have. The thorns might sense an attack, and perhaps the vine tightened by reflex to fill the gaps in its defences? Some flowers could turn their heads to track the progress of the sun across the sky, so this vine might track the men in a similar fashion. People were too quick to dismiss them as only plants and forget they were living things.
She should really tend her injured worker before she considered how to combat an armed opponent. “We should take him to Nurse Hatton to bathe and bind the scratches.”
She wasn’t sure of the exact depth of medical knowledge possessed by the nurse, but washing a scratch and applying a bandage would be within her ability.
Hector perked up and winked at her. “Grand idea. I’ll deliver the lad myself.”
The injured man was helped to his feet and Hector walked him back to the house.
Dawn turned back to the closely guarded maze. The vine had now cast itself as her nemesis, but it would not win the battle. She needed time to consider a different tactic. “Let’s leave this until tomorrow, gentlemen. Could you lend a hand in the walled garden instead?”