To Have A Heart (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 7)

Mallory shook her head. The words: ‘please leave me alone’ lodged in her throat. She daren’t tell the man to stop pestering her in case he told Mrs Cummings or Edward that she had been rude.

“I doubt the washing will dry on a cold day like today,” the man continued in his usual gentle tone.

Mallory knew it wouldn’t, but that didn’t matter to Mrs Cummings. The spiteful housekeeper would get a thrill out of watching Mallory struggle in the chilly autumnal weather. She would undoubtedly be waiting for Mallory to finish and go back inside where it was warm but only so she could send her outside again to fetch the washing in. It was something Mrs Cummings had done to Jemima on several occasions, before Jemima had disappeared. Now that she was no longer in the house, Mallory suspected that all of Jemima’s jobs would be hers, as would the torment.

“Are you all right?” the man asked softly.

“Will you go away?” Mallory hissed impatiently.

It irked her that she was so worried about what Mrs Cummings would say not least because it left Mallory in little doubt about just how much control the housekeeper and Edward had over her. She hated it. She hated them, with a ferocity that made her shake more violently than the wind.

Sucking in a breath, Mallory had to content herself with sliding a furtive look at the window. Mentally willing herself to keep calm, she turned to the man and looked him in the eye.

“You are going to get into trouble if they catch you talking to me.”

The man’s brows lifted. He slid a look at the window. Together, he and Mallory watched the shadows shift. Mallory hastily turned her attention back to the washing. Inside, she was a seething mass of fear and helpless desperation that was suffocating.

It took a moment or two before she realised that the man was still watching her, apparently waiting for her to talk to him.

“What do you want? Why are you staring at me like that?”

Indeed, the man’s acute scrutiny was decidedly unnerving. Mallory slid a gaze to the window. To try to hide the fact that she was talking to the gardener, Mallory picked up a large sheet and stood directly behind it as she hung it so that her upper body wasn’t visible from t

he house. Only then did she glare at the stranger more forcefully.

“What do you want? Do you know how much trouble you are going to get me into if they see you standing out here talking to me?” Mallory cried. “Do you work for him?”

“Him who?”

Mallory knew the second her question was out of her mouth that it was foolish to ask it. Of course the man worked for Melrose. All the staff did, except her – willingly of course.

“You need help,” the man announced, as if she didn’t already know.

In that moment, his gaze hardened. Their gazes clashed. Mallory frowned at him while she tried to comprehend whether he was being serious.

“There is no help for me,” she murmured in a voice that was little more than a plaintive wail.

“Really?” The man’s lips twitched.

“I don’t find anything funny about it.” Mallory’s chin tipped up.

She glared angrily at him, aware that he was likely to start mocking her just like Mrs Cummings and the servants did.

“I am not laughing,” he assured her.

“Well, it seems that way. Why are you smiling?”

“I am not smiling,” the man objected.

Mallory scowled and decided not to argue with him. Instead, she flicked out another sheet and moved along the washing line to peg it out. She desperately wanted the man to mean something more by his statement than she needed physical help to peg the washing out, but she daren’t ask him.

“It is my job to peg the washing out. Please don’t help me,” she pleaded purely because any help that he gave her was only going to double her workload and make her situation worse should Mrs Cummings see him.

The man watched her for several moments more.

“Please go away,” she hissed again when she couldn’t stand his silent scrutiny for a second longer.

It hadn’t been until this man appeared that Mallory had realised how little she had conversed with anybody in the last several months. She had been talked to, ordered, commanded, scolded, and ridiculed, but nobody had ever spoken properly to her like she was a person.