he should not be looking at her curves. “Good morning, Miss Gifford,” he grunted. He intended to skirt around her and escape. He assumed she had as little desire to speak to him as he did with her.
She stood in his path, hand on her hip, barring his way while his coffee cup burned against his palm.
“You will soon learn that your brother denuded half the flowers in your greenhouses, Your Grace,” she said, in her firm, husky American voice. “The gardeners had nothing to do with it. They’d better not be punished. I won’t stand for men being wrongfully abused, simply because one group of people considers them to be of a lower class.”
Could they not spend a moment together without an argument ensuing? He had not even finished his coffee. “I assure you, I do not punish either blindly or unjustly—” Then her words filtered in. “For what purpose did my brother do this?”
“Something pretty foolish,” she began. Then she peered at his face, a gesture that made him step back and twist away from her. “You have a stunning set of bruises, Your Grace.”
“And you are dressed like...like a gardener.”
“I often wear trousers when I’m tinkering with an airplane engine. Or riding.”
He had started to walk away, but he found his steps slowing. Last night, she’d been glossy and beautiful, with scarlet lips and a glimmering silver dress. “You tinker with aeroplane engines? In the grease and oil?”
“That’s what an engine requires to run smoothly.”
He frowned. “Isn’t that what mechanics are for?”
She walked with smooth, confident strides to the buffet and picked up a plate. Taking the silver lid off the eggs, she glanced at him. “I like to know how my plane is going to perform when I’m betting my life on her. Have you never fiddled with an engine?”
He wouldn’t know where to begin. That was why they had chauffeurs. In houses where they had electrical generators, a man was employed full-time to wrangle with the contraptions. Yet now Nigel hated admitting he did not tinker. “No,” he said abruptly. He had cursed any number of seized machine guns and bogged-down tanks, but he had not the skill to deal with the blasted things.
Miss Gifford bent to spear a sausage, and her trousers pulled snugly against her derriere.
Nigel was equally speared with an image of how she would look, bent over an engine, her heart-shaped bottom the only thing visible beneath the hood.
“I could teach you,” she said.
He had the distinct impression she was making an attempt to scare him away. Dukes did not scare easily. “Thank you, Miss Gifford. I would love the opportunity to have you teach me how to tinker. Let me know when you would find it convenient to begin.”
With that, he tossed back a slug of coffee. Too hot, damn it, but he refused to flinch as he swallowed. Then he left the breakfast room, dignity intact.
* * *
Zoe approached the stables prepared to shock first, then defend herself. It was how she negotiated New York society, and her first night at Brideswell had shown her that stuffy English society behaved in the exact same way.
She could refrain from being shocking. But since she would never fit in and it would hurt too much to try and fail, she was determined to stand out.
Lady Julia was already atop a black Arabian mare. Her eyes widened, but before Zoe could speak, Lady Julia smoothed her pretty features into an expression of elegant calm. Perched in a side saddle, Julia wore a long skirt of blue velvet, a snug jacket, white silk at her throat, a black hat and veil on her sleek jet-black hair. Smiling politely, she said, “Good morning, Miss Gifford. Your trousers look so much more comfortable and easy for riding.”
Zoe hadn’t expected this. Unflappable manners. “Thank you. I do find them that way.”
“O’Malley,” Lady Julia called, “you will have to change Miss Gifford’s saddle.”
“Wot’s wrong with the one that’s on Daisy, m’lady?” A broad-shouldered, redheaded man emerged from the stable, leading a pure white mare by the bridle.
He stared at Zoe as if Lady Godiva herself had strolled down nude to select a horse. “Trousers? Ladies use the side saddle, miss.”
“I would prefer not to since I am not wearing skirts.”
The groom gave a desperate look to Lady Julia. “Don’t know if this is right, m’lady.”
“It’s a saddle,” Zoe pointed out firmly. “Hardly the end of civilization as we know it. I am sorry if it is additional work, but in the future, you will know how to saddle my horse.”
“Yes, O’Malley. Let’s change the saddle and be done with it.”
Lady Julia’s polished, smooth tones gave the final word. The groom unbuckled the saddle on the mare and carried it back to the tack room, muttering under his breath all the while. He continued to mutter while fastening an English saddle intended for trouser-wearing gentlemen.
The servants were every bit as supercilious and snobby as the duke and the dowager. Maybe more so.
“Let’s go, shall we?” Lady Julia flicked her reins.
Zoe followed. They set off along the gravel path together, and she had her first view of Brideswell that was not obscured by rain.
The lawns stretched endlessly, a carpet of lush green and bluebells, dotted here and there with stone benches and statues. In the distance, water rippled on a small lake. Deer grazed at the edge of a forest, and in the distance, the spires of a church struggled to be noticed over the trees.
Her father, Thaddeus Gifford, had built his own country house outside New York. He’d filled it with everything she could see around Brideswell, as if he’d asked a duke to give an inventory for his grounds. But these statues were evidently much, much older than her father’s.
“I am being derelict in my duty,” Lady Julia said. “I promised you a tour. You look as though you’re an accomplished rider, Miss Gifford. Can you take jumps?”
Zoe liked Lady Julia. There was an air of reserve about Sebastian’s sister, but also of genuine welcome. She could count on one hand her female friends, and that made her say impulsively, “Call me Zoe, please, my lady. I rode like a fiend when I was younger, but it’s been years since I last did it. Once I learned to drive I spent most of my time in my car. Then when I learned to fly... Well, I find it dull to keep my feet on the ground now.”
“You can fly?” Lady Julia pulled up her horse. “An aeroplane, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen them. Goodness, they look as if they are made of paper and string, but they are marvelous. I should be absolutely terrified to go up there—” Lady Julia broke off. Her face became as still as a pond, as colorless, too. “No, I would never be able to do anything so brave.”
“Lady Julia, I am certain you would. You’ve lived with your two brothers and I should think that has given you a lot of courage.” Lady Julia looked at her in surprise. Zoe’s
