If Miss Briggs had not come along, he would have had to learn to fly. He’d never seen a more level-headed, courageous lady, and even if she was a tart-tongued hoyden, he needed her. Verity needed her.
“Don’t go.” He tried not to plead, but he could see disaster written on his future unless he kept this woman with him. “We haven’t thanked you. I don’t suppose it’s proper to invite you in for tea.” He hated being uncertain but he was too overwrought at the moment to care. He just didn’t want her to go until his heart stopped pounding in his ears.
“I think it might be a good idea for Verity to go inside and wash up and lie down for a little while. Keeping up with her cousins is very tiring.”
Davy was one of Verity’s older cousins. Lucas caught the lady’s implication. He’d left his baby girl to compete with three older male cousins. His fault. Everything was his fault. It was up to him to undo what he had wrought.
“We will be just a minute,” he told her, looking for some way to persuade her to stay. “There is some pie left. We can eat it under the tree, where everyone can see we are very respectable.” He started for the house, trying not to notice as Miss Briggs brushed her skirt and petticoat back where they belonged.
She had long, lovely legs.
And shapely arms that cuddled a child the way he wouldn’t mind being held.
He wondered if Miss Briggs might ever rest her head against his shoulder as Verity did. That wasn’t a proper or respectable thought.
“I don’ wanna take a nap.” Verity hiccupped on her protest.
“Just lie down and rest your eyes a little,” Miss Briggs said soothingly, matching Lucas’ stride with ease. “And if you’re good and rest long enough, I’ll have a surprise waiting for you in the kitchen.”
“A surprise?” Verity lifted her damp cheeks. “For me?”
“Yes, just for you. Are you big enough to run upstairs and wash and take off your dress or do you need help?”
“I’m big enough!” Verity pushed off Lucas’ shoulders and wriggled to get down. When he let her go, she raced ahead of them.
“I’ve never seen her hurry so to take a nap,” he said wryly. “I hope you really do have a surprise for her.”
“You’ll hate it, but I do. She needs to feel she’s important, so I brought her a kitten. Learning to take care of a pet will teach her that others rely on her, and that she’s very important, indeed. But you’ll have to put up with the mess.”
“You’re laughing at me,” he said accusingly, steering her towards the tea table his mother had set up beneath the beech tree.
“Perhaps, only a little, because I’m still quaking in my shoes. She could have been killed!” Miss Briggs wailed, almost collapsing into the chair he held for her.
“Exactly my thought twenty times a day. Wait here, and I’ll bring out the cups and things, after I see Verity into bed. Did you leave the kitten in front?” At her nod, he made a mental note to fetch it. He doubted Verity’s ability to take care of a kitten, but his heart warmed that Miss Briggs had thought of her.
He could foresee cat hairs in his future, but Verity was more important than tidiness. Somehow, he must learn to rearrange his priorities.
His daughter had already stripped off her grubby and ruined Sunday dress and was splashing cold water as if she were a duck at play. Lucas scrubbed off some of the grime on her face and hands and watched her climb between the covers, before returning downstairs to the kitchen and setting on a kettle of tea. He supposed he should have done that first. He needed to hire a maid to think of these things, but it seemed awkward unless he had a wife first. He missed his batman.
He had imagined a sweet little woman ordering his household about, one who smiled cheerfully and arranged for delightful meals to appear on the table and pottered about keeping order, until it was time for her to come up to his bed. He could see now that his imagination was considerably rosier than actuality, rather like his youthful idea of war.
Life had a habit of not living up to his expectations. He could not even live up to his own. In the military, it had been relatively simple to follow orders, understand his men and take action. Women, on the other hand, were a mysterious universe he might never comprehend. How did he persuade one that he needed her without sounding desperate?
Remembering the kitten, he stopped at the front to pick up the basket. It smelled of lavender and sported pink ribbons and a little black nose was pushing aside a gingham cloth. He hoped it was a male cat or he’d be outnumbered.
Carrying basket and tea tray, Lucas geared up his considerable courage to approach the intrepid Miss Harriet Briggs. He needed a wife who could rescue children from barns more than he needed a lady to look pretty and make tea. He simply had to find some way of asking her
Harriet thought about running and hiding before Lucas returned. Just the fact that she was thinking of him as Lucas instead of Major Sumner spoke much of the familiarity of her thoughts.
She had no mirror and couldn’t straighten out the frizzy mess her hair had become when the pins loosened in her climb. She shoved as much as she could inside her bonnet, then discovered she’d left her gloves in the barn. Her hands were bare, revealing her broken nails and dirt from the leather. She was an unmitigated hoyden, just as her father claimed.
Fine, then, she had nothing about which to worry. Major Sumner would not be interested in anyone as indecorous as she, so she could simply sip tea and discuss Verity’s welfare.
She hurried to rescue him from tea tray and kitten as soon as he appeared. She couldn’t help her heart from making an odd leap at the sight of the big strong man biting his lip while attempting to balance tray and swinging kitten basket at the same time. Even though he’d properly donned his Sunday cutaway coat and looked beyond dashing, the self-confident Major wasn’t quite as intimidating or perfect in domesticity.
She had already dusted off the old table and now used the gingham from the kitten basket to cover it before she set the tray down. “Is Verity all settled in?” she asked nervously when he hovered too close, forcing awareness of how large he was. He’d lifted her from the ladder, while holding Verity! Her heart did another little jig.
“I think she was frightened enough to be glad of a moment alone.”
“She’s a bright child, with a strong imagination. Once you learn of what she’s capable, you’ll enjoy her company, Major Sumner,” Harriet said stiltedly. She’d been to London and had learned to make polite small talk with gentlemen about the weather and the music and the company. She’d never had to pretend restraint in the village. Until now.
“Please, call me Lucas. I am no longer in the Army and, after this episode, I would like to call you friend, if I might.”
She nodded and poured the tea, aware of how ugly her hands looked. “I am Harriet, although everyone calls me Harry. I fear my name is as unladylike as I am.”
“Ladylike is not a quality useful in dealing with Verity, I fear.” He sat uncomfortably in the small wrought-iron chair. Even the teacup looked frail and useless in his hand.
Harriet winced at his unintended insult and sipped her tea. She was good at caring for animals but not so quick at witticism. Still, she tried. “Real ladies would not be so inclined to ruck up their dresses and climb ladders,” she agreed with innocence.
He nodded. “That is precisely what I mean. Action and quick thinking is what is required around Verity. Polite manners and pretty dresses are irrelevant.”
Thinking polite manners might prevent her from dumping the tea over his head for implying she wasn’t a lady because she could think, Harriet bit back an impolite retort. “I daresay ladies are irrelevant on all counts,” she agreed maliciously. “They are merely decorative, are they not? Rather like stained-glass windows. Perhaps they should be left in church.”