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simply hire a thatcher?
    “I... Thank you. It won’t be too difficult, will it?” she asked anxiously, inching toward the door.
    He strode briskly for the exit. Maybe she thought
all Americans were barbarians who ate ladies for midnight snacks. Or
maybe she just thought he was the barbarian.
    “Don’t know until we look. What else needs work?”
    “Well, oh, dear...” She hurried to catch up.
    Her soft scent wafted around him as they stepped
into the evening air. She stood shoulder high to him, and should he be
so inclined, he could comfortably wrap his arm around her waist without
bending to accommodate her. Surreptitiously, Mac eyed her waist. Maybe
it was some trick of the full skirts that made her look so trim in the
middle. His gaze drifted higher. She might be a snob, but she was
definitely all woman.
    Why the hell hadn’t some proper English gentleman
come along and claimed a prize like this one? Proved they were all
namby-pamby idiots.
    “I’m not certain what needs doing most,” she said
with a helpless gesture. “Father told me my place was in the house, and I
needn’t worry about such things. And now I—”
    Her voice broke, and Mac shoved his hands in his
pockets and gazed at the first star appearing on the horizon rather than
watch her wipe away a tear. Fine pair they made. They’d both be weeping
in a minute.
    He used to wipe away Marilee’s childish tears.
    “I’ll take a look around in the morning, all right?”
he said gruffly. “Then I’ll come talk to you, and we can decide what
needs doing.”
    “Thank you,” she whispered. She had rich brown eyes, the kind that could melt a man’s heart. “I can learn. If you will explain things to me...”
    “You could hire someone,” he pointed out. “That’s what most people do.”
    The warmth left her eyes, and she turned away again. “And then I’d be just as ignorant as I am now. Good night, Mr. Warwick.”
    Ah, hell, he’d stuck his foot in it again. When would he learn that he had no place in the company of ladies?
    He stared up at the towering mansion on the hill as
she hurried toward it. Against the evening sky, it soared majestically
in a fantasy of turrets and gables that swept the stars. Lights twinkled
in mullioned windows. An oil lamp swung outside, illuminating the
half-timbered stone wall of the older block, shadowing the ivy-covered
stones of the new.
    The house was as lush and provocative and haughty as its owner.
    ***
    Mac rubbed his forehead and sighed as Percy
clambered to the back of what was probably an antique sofa and reached
for what was most definitely an antique Black Forest cuckoo clock. Even
the steward’s cottage in this place came with expensive ornaments.
    “Get down, Buddy,” he yelled as he dragged his
exhausted body into the front room. As time passed, he had more and more
sympathy for the nursery maids. He hadn’t had a moment’s rest since
he’d left London.
    “My birdie,” Percy declared firmly, reaching for the
swinging wooden pendulum. The cuckoo warbled one final note and
withdrew behind closed door. Smart bird.
    Mac crossed the room and scooped the boy up before
the entire clock fell on his head. Percy screamed in fury. From the
floor, Pamela joined in.
    “Are you murdering them?” a female voice asked through the open parlor window.
    Oh, hell. Holding a
wiggling, screaming Percy, Mac glanced out to see his hostess framed by
the multi-paned windows. This morning she wore a complicated pin of jet
at the throat of her high-necked abomination of a gown. An enormous
bonnet covered her hair and hid the better part of her face.
    “I’m saving this one from breaking his neck. The
other is apparently disturbed that I didn’t do the same for her.” Mac
shoved the kicking, cursing child through the open window. “Here. You
shut him up. I’ll look to the other.”
    Holding Percy at arm’s length, Miss Beatrice
Cavendish of Cavendish Court looked properly