Ethan Delaney kissed her hand with a flourish. Built like a bruiser, tall, and with a deep barrel chest, he could not be called handsome with his scarred and battered face, crooked nose, and an ear that looked . . . chewed? But when he smiled at her, a brilliant, lopsided slash of white in his tanned face, and greeted her in a soft Irish brogue, she instantly felt the appeal Lady Helen had mentioned. A ladies’ man. She wondered what his wife was like.
Conversation over the soup course was general—about horses, mainly, and the exchange of news. Apart from answering the few polite questions directed at her, Maddy didn’t say much.
She was too interested in watching Nash with his brother. The family resemblance was very obvious, but Harry was more strongly built than Nash and a shade shorter, with wider shoulders. Nash was the taller, loose-limbed and elegant, and in her eyes, the handsomest of the three brothers she’d met.
It was a hearty country-style meal; after the soup came steak and kidney pie, baked ham, creamed potatoes, and mushrooms.
Maddy hadn’t seen so much food on a table in years.
“So, Nash, lost your luggage, eh?” Luke asked.
Nash looked up from the pie, which he was enjoying as much as Maddy. “No, I sent it ahead with Phelps when I left Bath nearly a fortnight ago. Why?”
Luke raised his brows. “Riding clothes? At dinner? Not like you.”
Nash glanced at Maddy before he responded. “I’d planned to ride back to Maddy’s cottage tonight.”
“Good Lord, why?”
Nash explained the problems Maddy had experienced with the man who dressed up as the Bloody Abbot. “And two nights ago, he destroyed her vegetable garden and burned all her beehives. Marcus is there now, with a groom, ready to waylay the ruffian if he comes back.”
Harry gave a sharp laugh. “Marcus? Lurking in a cottage? I wish I might see it!”
“How did you arrange that?” Luke asked.
Nash gave a wry grin. “I, er, talked him into it.”
The others laughed. “Talked him into it? Press-ganged him, I’ll wager,” Harry said.
Ethan shook his head. “I’ve said it before, the lad’s part Irish, there’s no other accounting for it. He can talk anyone into anything.”
Nash glanced at Maddy with a rueful smile. “Not quite. Anyway, I’ve changed my mind, I’m not going. Marcus will have to manage on his own.”
He wasn’t going? He’d listened to her after all? Maddy was shocked. She’d spent half the dinner silently marshaling arguments to convince him. She caught his eye, and he winked, and a small bubble of happiness rose in her.
He’d listened. He cared about her opinions.
“Well, of course, you’re not going,” Lady Helen spoke up. “You can’t just abandon Miss Woodford like that and ride off on some adventure.”
To Maddy’s amazement, the other men agreed. “I’d be in it like a shot,” Ethan admitted, “but with young Patrick fretful with the colic, I’ll not leave Tibby.”
“Don’t look at me,” was all Harry said, but the look he gave to Nell almost took Maddy’s breath away. The gray eyes she’d first thought so cold and hard blazed with love and pride.
Nell hid a smile but her face glowed, too, with secret pride, and suddenly Maddy knew what they weren’t saying—Nell was increasing. That’s why Harry wouldn’t leave her.
Oh, to be on the receiving end of a look like that . . .
“Well, I’m free to go, and I wouldn’t mind a bit of adventure,” Luke declared. “Life’s wretchedly tame at the moment, and it’s worse now, since all you fellows have turned into staid married men. But if you give me the directions, I’ll happily join Marcus and catch this villain for Miss Woodford.”
“Excellent,” Nash said. “Thanks, Luke, much appreciated.”
The evening broke up soon afterward as Nash and Harry went off to see Luke on his way, Ethan returned to Tibby and the baby, and Maddy and Nell went upstairs to check on the children.
“Torie’s been asleep for hours,” Nell told Maddy as they reached the nursery level. “Still, I always check on her before I go to bed. Would you like to come in and see her?”
Maddy nodded. The nursery area took up almost half of the top floor of the house and was one big room, with a number of smaller rooms, presumably bedchambers, coming off it. Clearly at one stage this house had been filled with children.
Like many of the rooms in the house, it was spotlessly clean and well cared for, but well worn and comfortably shabby. “We’re slowly fixing up the house,” Nell explained. “But we’re very busy with the horses.”
