“Those are my orders, Mr. Cox. Carry them out. A fortnight from now, if he is still in ill health, I want to see some of his fellow tenants bringing his crop in so it does not rot in the ground. Pay them in ale from the brewery. That should make them willing enough to help.”
“Very good, sir.” Cox rose from his chair and departed. Anthony was glad of it, for eviction decisions were finished for another year. He glanced at the window, frowning at the rain pouring down outside. Rain like this played merry hell with the excavations.
He thought of Miss Wade throwing her trowel and berating the English mud, and it made him want to laugh. It was so unlike her. Yet, as she had pointed out yesterday, he had been wrong to think her a milk-and-water miss. She was proving to be far more unexpected than that.
He walked to the window, leaned one shoulder against the window frame and looked out. He lowered his gaze to the huge expanse of lawn below, and what he saw confirmed his thoughts. Standing in the middle of the lawn, without even a macintosh and hat to protect her, was Miss Wade, her head tilted back and the rain washing over her.
What was she on about, standing outside in this sort of weather? Though August had been quite warm, September had brought autumn into the air, cooling the temperatures considerably. If she stayed out there in the rain much longer, she’d catch a chill.
Anthony turned away from the window and left his study. Several minutes later, clad in an oilskin cloak and carrying an opened umbrella like any sensible person out in the rain, he was striding across the lawn toward her.
She was in the same place he had seen her from the window, standing between a pair of flower-filled urns in front of the fountain with her head tilted back. She was not wearing her glasses and her eyes were closed. She stood motionless, hands outstretched, almost as if she were mesmerized by the feel of the rain on her face.
“What are you doing out here, Miss Wade?” he asked.
She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice and straightened to look at him. “Good morning. Did you come out here to join me?”
“God, no. I came to fetch you.” He halted a foot in front of her, holding his umbrella over both of them, observing the smile on her face in puzzlement. What did anyone who was soaking wet on a cool autumn day have to smile about?
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He felt compelled to point out the obvious. “You are standing out in the rain.”
“Yes, I know,” she agreed, and to Anthony’s amazement, she began to laugh. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I believe you have gone quite mad, Miss Wade. That is the only explanation for your unaccountable behavior of late.” He put a hand on her arm, intending to lead her back to the house.
“No, no.” She pulled away from him. “I’ve not gone mad, I assure you. I just want to stand out here a little bit longer.”
“You are joking.”
She shook her head and took a step back, out from under the protection of his umbrella. “I am perfectly serious,” she told him as the rain poured down over her in rivulets. Her clothing was soaked and wet tendrils of hair that had escaped from her bun were plastered to her cheeks. “I love rain. Don’t you?”
“No, I do not. And neither do you. Were you not cursing the English mud just yesterday?”
She laughed. “Well, yes. I hate the mud because it makes my job more difficult. I do love rain, though. I can see that does not make much sense to you.”
“You are correct. If you do not come inside, you will catch cold.”
He stepped forward, again trying to protect her with the umbrella and steer her toward the house, but she seemed determined to stay beneath the downpour. Shaking her head in refusal, she began walking backward away from him as he moved toward her. “No, really. Thank you for your concern, but I don’t want to go inside. Not yet.”
He was still frowning at her, for her smile faded and she stopped evading the protection of his umbrella. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I have lived in deserts most of my life, with only a few short months in Naples or Rome each year to provide a respite. Do you know what it is like to spend nine months in never-ending heat and drought?”
He shifted the umbrella to his left hand. “No,” he answered. “I have never been to a desert.”
“It is so hot in summer that the air shimmers over the horizon in waves, so hot it’s hard to breathe. The heat makes your skin feel stretched so tight over your bones that it hurts.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her wet cheeks with the tips of her fingers as if in remembrance of the hot desert sun. “And all you feel is your own sweat turning the dust on your face to caked mud. Your mouth is dry, and you keep licking your lips over and over, but it doesn’t help. They are so chapped and dry.”
Anthony lowered his gaze to her mouth, watching as she ran the tips of her fingers back and forth over her moist, parted lips. Though they may have been chapped in the desert, there was nothing but softness to them now.
Lust hit him with such unexpected force that he could not move.
“Sand blows all the time,” she went on as he watched the tip of her finger slide down over her chin and along the column of her throat. His throat went as dry as her desert.
“The sand blows in every direction and rubs your skin like sandpaper. All your clothes have to be drab colors that hide the dirt. There’s so little water, you can only bathe once a week, and it is never a full bath, just a tin pail of water, soap if the supply caravan has come through, and a sponge.”
He tried to say something, anything, but he made the mistake of looking down, and the thought of any sort of reply vanished from his mind. For once, she was not wearing that apron of hers and her beige cotton dress was plastered to her form, molding to every curve of her body, the rain making the cotton fabric seem almost transparent. She seemed blissfully unaware of the view he had of her, the round fullness of her breasts beneath the cotton layers of her clothing, the deep dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the fold of wet fabric between her thighs. And her legs. God. How long were they?
This was Miss Wade, he reminded himself. Not a goddess by any means. And yet, he could see for himself that she had a body like one. Never in a thousand years would he have dreamed that such a luscious shape was concealed beneath that horrid apron and drab cotton.
