Lady Petra’s presence out in this particular field so early in the day certainly seemed highly suspect. A lady of her stature would have no need to grovel around in the fields to put food on the table. No, there must surely be some ulterior motive for her appearance today.
He needed to be careful. ‘Suggest away.’ He braced for what might next come out of her mouth.
‘You are chopping at the hay, rather than mowing it. You need to take wider, slower swings. It will go much faster and will be a lot less tiring.’
His mouth dropped open. She was now instructing him on how to use a farm implement? Given her petite form, he doubted she could even lift a scythe, let alone swing it. The damn thing was as heavy as it was awkward.
No doubt she was one of those females who liked to pretend she knew something about everything and hand out orders to large and apparently slow-witted men like himself. ‘I see.’
She coloured delightfully and for a moment he forgot his annoyance. Which irritated him even more. ‘Perhaps you would like to demonstrate, Lady Petra?’ he challenged.
‘Yes, that might be of more use than trying to explain.’
He stared at her in astonishment and followed her when she pushed through the long grass to where O’Cleary was back to plying his scythe.
She stood watching him for a moment.
‘Have you never seen anyone mow grass?’ she asked.
‘Of course I have,’ Ethan said. He certainly couldn’t wait to see what sort of hash she was going to make of this with her tiny arms and hands and in her long skirts and fancy bonnet.
She put her basket aside, lifted her skirts and tucked the hems up at the sides into the waistband of her apron, once more revealing those charming calves and finely turned ankles.
His mouth dried.
O’Cleary turned around and dropped his scythe with a low whistle.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve seen lasses working with their skirts hiked up before now.’
O’Cleary turned bright red and Ethan knew exactly what sort of work he was thinking of.
Lady Petra frowned reprovingly. ‘Dairymaids and such.’
O’Cleary lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Give me your scythe.’
O’Cleary handed it over. It was nearly as tall as she was. ‘I usually use a smaller one,’ she said. ‘They make them in various sizes.’ She grasped the handles. ‘Stand back, please.’
She took a long slow swing at the stems at ankle height and a swathe of hay keeled over. She took a step forward and swung again and another swathe went down in defeat. In two swings she’d cut as much as he had with ten.
Clearly growing up in the city with a customs clerk for a father had not prepared him for the life of an earl with a country estate. Neither had life in the army.
‘I see what you mean,’ he said, relieving her of the scythe and handing it back to O’Cleary. ‘May I try?’ He didn’t want her exhausting herself.
‘Certainly. Before you start always make sure there is no one close by. Swung with force, the blade can do considerable damage to a human limb.’
To his nonsensical male disappointment, she stepped back, untucked her skirts and brushed them down, looking perfectly demure.
‘O’Cleary,’ Ethan growled, ‘stay well back.’
He picked up the scythe he’d been using and swung as she had done. The damn thing nearly flew out of his hands.
‘It is more about the swing than the force,’ she said.
He tried again, this time achieving a smooth half circle that was not nearly as tiring as what he had been doing before. He tried a few more swings and was surprised by how much progress he made.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Mr O’Cleary, it is your turn to try. Move a little to the right so you are parallel to His Lordship but well clear of his blade.’
O’Cleary touched his forelock and did as instructed. Soon he, too, was swinging in great form and moving forward steadily.
So much for his cynicism. Lady Petra really did know what she was talking about. He leaned on his implement. ‘Thank you, Lady Petra. We will have this field done in no time.’
She beamed at him and he grinned at her. Her smile faded. ‘With only the two of you it is going to take a few days, even so.’
‘It will,’ he said, unsure what he had done to wipe the smile from her face. Women, they were all the same. He just did not understand them. Indeed, he had no wish to understand them, even if they were as pretty as a picture. ‘I ought to get back to work. Thank you again.’
He hefted the scythe and joined O’Cleary, swinging his scythe in easy arcs. The next time he looked up, she was gone from view.
* * *
Over the next few hours, he and O’Cleary made amazing progress, but every now and then the vision of a tiny lady with her skirts caught up, expertly swinging a scythe, popped into his mind.
He felt like he’d been ambushed and had not yet got his troops back into proper order.
Perched on an upturned bucket, Petra watch Jeb groom Patch with a critical eye. When she had lived at home, she’d had her own riding horse, Daisy, and had learned how to care for her. She enjoyed working with horses, but this was another thing Jeb had decided was too lowly to be undertaken by a lady. So, having helped Becky make the bread first thing this morning, she’d come out to watch Jeb work, mostly so she would not disturb Marguerite at her drawing.
‘How old are you, Jeb?’ she asked.
He straightened and turned to face her. ‘Sixteen, my lady.’
So young! Yet hadn’t she known exactly how her life should be at sixteen? Wife to Harry, whom she’d assumed would become a gentleman farmer.
Why had she not seen that, while Harry had enjoyed his visits to her brothers, he was not the least bit interested in the land? He’d liked the hunting and the rollicking around the neighbouring villages getting up to all sorts of tricks, which she had known nothing about. After their marriage, he had made it perfectly clear that residing in the country would be a sort of living death for him. He declared he belonged in town, where he could continue to enjoy the company of his friends and, as she discovered later, any female who happened to come into his orbit.
A pang seized her. She quelled it. She never allowed herself to think about his unfaithfulness. It was simply too demeaning.
She sighed. Red had been right in cautioning her against setting her sights on Harry, but in those days, she had been so sure of everything. Now she felt as if she knew absolutely nothing, although her stupid body seemed to be attracted to the first handsome man to cross her path since Harry died.
Which was nonsense. She hadn’t given a thought to that sort of thing before she married, so why would she need to think it about it now she was a widow? She was a lady after all, not some lowly maiden.
Jeb was staring at her. Oh, yes, he’d told her his age. She frowned. ‘That means you started working here when you were fourteen. Isn’t that rather young?’
Surprise filled his expression. ‘Why, no, my lady. Me da started work up at Longhurst Park when he was nobbut ten. Under-groom he were then. He said we were spoiled going to school and not working till we were fourteen as our ma insisted upon.’ He grinned. ‘To hear tell, it was a fine life up at the Park till the old lord