From Ruin to Riches

Chapter Thirteen

‘Coom oop, Daisy! Get along there, Molly!’

‘What the hell?’ Will sat up and Julia scrabbled at her rising hem. ‘Oh my lord, the herd is coming in. Up you get.’ He hauled her to her feet and began to bat at her skirts as Julia brushed straw off his coat-tails.

‘Too late…here they come. For goodness’ sake, Will, tuck in your shirt!’

The dairy cows pushed through the wide entrance from the field, bringing the smell of grass and manure as they stared with wide, curious black eyes at the interlopers in their milking parlour. ‘Go on, get along with you.’ Julia waved her hands and they wandered off placidly, each to its own stall, blinking with their preposterously long eyelashes.

‘My lady! Oh, and my lord too. Never realised you was in here.’ Bill Trent, the dairyman, stood in the doorway, staring at them with as much surprise, and rather more speculation, than his cattle.

‘We came up against the quagmire out there, Trent,’ Julia said. ‘And we rather misjudged the distance when we tried to get across it. Have you seen our hats? They must have fallen off when we jumped.’

‘There they be, my lady.’ Bill pointed to the ground behind the straw pile. There was no way the hats would have fallen in that position except from their heads as they sprawled there. On the other hand, she comforted herself as she went to retrieve them, Bill Trent was not perhaps the brightest of the farm workers and might not have the imagination to draw the very obvious conclusion about what the baron and his wife had been doing.

‘Come along, my dear.’ Will sounded so pompous that she could not decide whether he was perishing with embarrassment, fighting the urge to laugh or was unfairly furious with her for landing him in such a position.

‘Of course. Thank you, Trent.’ Julia managed as dignified a nod as she could under the circumstances and let Will usher her out of the milking parlour into the main yard. Fortunately there was no one in sight and Will strode across to the drive with Julia in tow. ‘Oh dear. I am afraid that was not very decorous.’

‘It was, however, exceedingly amusing.’ His voice was shaking with laughter.

‘Will!’

‘And arousing. I assume, my lady, that you will now find it necessary to take all your clothes off in order to remove the lingering traces of the farmyard?’

‘Indeed, my lord. And you will doubtless wish to take off your clothing also to assure yourself that no harm has come to those fine boots. Or your breeches. And I fear your shirt may be torn.’

‘Quite. This is obviously an emergency. Can you walk any faster?’

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‘No, but I can run.’ Julia took to her heels with Will beside her, burst through the front door and was halfway up the stairs before Gatcombe emerged to see what the commotion was.

‘My lady?’ He took one look at Will and effaced himself.

‘We will have scandalised the entire staff at this rate.’ Julia fell panting on to her bed as Will came in behind her and turned the key in the lock.

‘I have no intention of having anyone else as an audience,’ he promised as he threw his coat on to a chair and began to untie his crushed neckcloth. ‘One yokel and one butler is more than enough.’

Julia watched appreciatively as he dragged his shirt over his head, then bent to unlace her boots. ‘I am not a very dignified baroness, am I?’ she asked, studying the muddy, battered footwear. A real lady would not have been seen dead in those boots, or in a cow shed, either. She would probably have no idea how milk was extracted from a cow and would faint at the sight of a dung heap.

Julia chided herself for the negative thoughts. For the first time I feel at ease with him, for the first time this feels like a normal marriage. They had shared secrets and painful memories and, for the first time, Will had been clear about his feelings over the management of the estate.

If only she did not feel so guilty whenever she thought about the secret she was keeping from him. He was coming to trust her and yet what she was hiding from him was awful beyond anything he might imagine.

‘Do you think so?’ Will said, jerking her back to the moment. What had she said? Oh, yes, something about not being dignified. He sat down to pull his own boots off. The muscles in his back rippled as he moved and tugged and Julia felt her mouth go dry. ‘Rolling about in the straw is not dignified, I will agree, but it is perfectly suitable for a milkmaid and her rustic swain. Why do you want to be dignified, anyway? I don’t want you to turn into a sober matron, Julia.’

‘My clothes are not very… I suppose I should dress better.’ Julia pulled up her skirts and untied her garters, conscious of Will’s eyes on her hands.

‘That footwear is suitable for walking around the yards or the fields,’ Will said, standing his boots by the chair and pulling off his own stockings. ‘But do you not want to buy new gowns? Or slippers or hats? Some feminine frivolity?’

‘Frivolity,’ she said blankly, then hauled her concentration back from the contemplation of Will’s bare feet—who would have thought that feet could be so attractive?—and thought about his question. ‘I did not like to spend the money on frivolities. It did not seem right.’

He had saved her life, given her hope. It had seemed immoral to indulge in what seemed like luxury with his money into the bargain. And even the fleeting thought of wandering around a large town, visiting shops amidst a crowd of strangers, brought back that feeling of panic and foreboding. She shrugged. ‘I do not like shopping much.’

‘I cannot believe that I have married the only woman in the country who doesn’t enjoy it.’ Will stood up to unfasten the fall of his breeches. His eyes narrowed and she realised she had run her tongue along her lips in anticipation. ‘We will go shopping together in Aylesbury and then in London and I will teach you to be frivolous.’

‘You want me to buy lots of new clothes?’ She slid off the bed as he came towards her.