The sound of hoof beats faded into the distance.
A bruising rider herself, she could not help but admire his skill. And he looked so good on a horse. Dashing. Oh, no. She was not going to think of him that way. She shook herself free of such musings. He was simply a new neighbour with whom she had made an acquaintance.
She stomped out of the bushes and heard the sound of tearing. Blast, she’d caught her apron and now she would have to mend it. Well, it would be something to do when she had finished making the jam.
Hopefully she would be busy enough that it would take her mind off his face and that lovely smile. Smiles like that caused nothing but trouble and heartache, yet it seemed that she had still not learned her lesson.
Good Lord, he might even be married. A man didn’t stop being charming to ladies, just because he was wed. If anyone knew that, she should.
* * *
He’d called her a wench! Mortified heat scalded the back of Ethan’s neck. How was he supposed to recognise her as a lady? Not a ribbon or a ruffle to be seen. Tangled up in a blackberry bush, her legs displayed for all to see and with deep red juice staining her full lips, she’d looked like a roundheeled lass ready for a spree.
He was lucky he hadn’t given in to the urge to kiss those luscious, ripe lips. Not something he was in the habit of doing or even thinking as a general rule, but in her case, for some reason he could not quite understand, he had been very tempted indeed. Fortunately, the lady’s tart remarks had reminded him that no matter how attractively dishevelled a woman might be, he was an officer, a gentleman and an earl with duties and responsibilities to King, country and his family name.
But there really had been something deliciously pretty and alluring about her... He winced. He had thoroughly deserved the sharp edge of her tongue when she caught him ogling the slender legs bared to his gaze. Right now, he did not need the added complication of any sort of lass, common or noble, in his life.
Honestly, though, what sort of lady went about the countryside without even a maid?
Dash it, kissing her wouldn’t have crossed his mind under normal circumstances. His army duties had kept him too busy to worry about the ladies, except for the occasional foray when he was on leave, until Sarah had begun to pay him particular attention. Her own husband had been killed, but she had remained on the Peninsula as companion to her sister, the wife of one of his fellow officers. Sarah had stirred up feelings he thought he’d long buried in response to a childhood fraught with drama. A sense that perhaps he did warrant affection from someone. His parents hadn’t thought so. They had been far too involved in themselves to pay attention to their only child.
When Sarah had entered his life almost a year ago, she’d been attentive and, well...loving, if he even understood the meaning of the word. There was no denying he’d been smitten. He should have known better than to believe a woman could actually care for him in the way he had thought Sarah did.
Fortunately for him, a brother officer had heard her talking to her sister about how life as the wife of an earl would suit her very well. How she liked the sound of being called Lady Longhurst and would enjoy the privileges a title brought, even if it did require marriage to him. His friend had teased him about how popular he was among the ladies now he was an earl.
Ethan had come to his senses with a jolt and only just in time, because if their relationship had gone much further, he would have been honour-bound to take Sarah to the altar. A lucky escape indeed.
Bitterness rose in his throat like gall. How had he not seen through Sarah’s smiles to the truth beneath? It was the first time any woman had trapped him with her wiles and it would also be the last. But apparently, those few weeks of so-called affection had left him feeling that something serious was lacking in his life and made him vulnerable to the first pretty lady he came across now he was back in England.
Damn it! Didn’t he have enough to keep him occupied, adjusting to his new position in life without the sort of distraction a pair of blackberry-stained lips brought? He hadn’t even known he was the heir to the Earldom until he received a letter from a lawyer hired by some busybody third cousin twice removed who had searched down every line of the family tree, going back as far as his great-great-grandfather to search him out.
Apparently, it had taken some digging to discover that his great-grandfather, the fifth son of the Earl, had been bribed to take his wife’s name in order to inherit the wealth of an old Cornish mining family. With only daughters to their name, the Trethewys had thought they were getting a nobleman, but instead Great-Grandfather Trethewy had been a ne’er-do-well gambler who had lost most of the family fortune the moment he got his hands on it. As a result, both families had cut the connection. Certainly, if Ethan’s father had known he was related to an earl, he would have used it to his advantage in some way.
Even after Ethan learned of the title, he had put off returning to England for as long as possible. The army was his life. All he had known since he was a youth. He hadn’t mentioned the inheritance to anyone, but somehow the news must have reached Sarah’s ears and she had decided to set her cap at him, and make him think she genuinely cared for him. Not once had she mentioned knowing about the title.
He’d been cut to the quick when he realised that was all she’d really cared about.
Not long after he uncovered her deceit, the same busybody third cousin, Lady Frances, had written to Wellington, asking why the General was keeping the last Longhurst Earl captive on the battlefield when he ought to be taking up his duties at home.
Wellington, damn his eyes, had insisted Ethan return to England and take up the reins of his estate. The moment Ethan had put things in order here, he intended to get back to what really mattered. War with the French.
As he galloped up the drive of Longhurst Park, a grand old house with a winding drive lined with trees, his mood darkened further. The previous Earl had left the estate in a wretched mess, as evidenced by a pile of unpaid bills his man of business had presented to Ethan with the expression of a man who saw disaster looming.
Paperwork. Ethan hated it, but he’d been battling his way through it every day since, determined to bring things into some sort of order.
At the stables, he handed Jack over to O’Cleary. The handsome black-haired Irishman narrowed his gaze on Ethan’s face. ‘What has you so hot under the collar?’
Ethan didn’t get hot under the collar. He never unleashed his temper on anyone. He was a big man and, out of control, could do a lot of damage. It was why he had decided to become a soldier in the first place. He gave O’Cleary a look that ought to make him shrivel in his boots, but only made the fellow glare back.
Ethan didn’t know when it had happened, but at some point O’Cleary had become more friend than servant. They were of a similar age and Ethan respected the man’s skill with horses, but O’Cleary’s perceptiveness and frank speaking had also earned his admiration and, yes, a sort of friendship.
Ethan sighed. ‘I met a lady on the way back. I thought she was a dairymaid or some such stealing my blackberries.’
‘Your blackberries, is it? Since when do you care about brambles?’
Since a lovely young lady with lips stained red had come to his attention. ‘She was trespassing on my land.’
‘Ah.’ He gave Jack a pat.
‘Ah, what?’
‘Who is she,
