Agents Of The Throne : The viscount

Chapter 11

"Do you suppose she slept in?" James asked. "I imagine she must be quite tired after her ordeal."

"It wasn't an ordeal."

"For you, perhaps. The poor girl was kidnapped."

"The 'poor girl,' as you so sweetly put it, had me running around in circles for days. If anyone suffered an ordeal," Blake said rather firmly, "it was I."

While they were discussing Caroline's absence, Mrs. Mickle bustled into the room with a plate of scrambled eggs. She smiled and said, "Oh, there you are, Mr. Ravenscroft. I met your new house-guest."

"She was here?"

"What a lovely girl. So polite."

"Caroline?"

"It's so nice to meet a young person with such a sweet temperament. Clearly she was taught manners."

Blake just raised a brow. "Miss Trent was raised by wolves."

Mrs. Mickle dropped the eggs. "What?"

Blake closed his eyes—anything not to see the yellow eggs splattered on his perfectly polished boots. "What I meant, Mrs. Mickle, was that she might as well have been raised by wolves, given the pack of guardians to which she was subjected."

By then the housekeeper was on the floor with a cloth napkin, trying to clean up the mess. "Oh, but the poor dear," she said with obvious concern. "I had no idea she'd had a difficult childhood. I shall have to make her a special pudding this evening."

Blake's lips parted in consternation, as he tried to recall the last time Mrs. Mickle had done the same for him.

James, who'd been grinning to himself in the doorway, stepped forward and asked, "Do you have any idea where she went, Mrs. Mickle?"

"I believe she's working in the garden. She took with her quite a bit of equipment."

"Equipment? What kind of equipment?" Blake's mind was flashing with horrific images of mangled trees and hacked up plants. "Where did she find equipment?"

"I gave it to her."

Blake turned on his heel and strode out. "God help us."

He wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Holes.

Big, gaping holes, all over his formerly pristine lawn. Or at least he'd thought it had been pristine. In all truth, he had never paid much attention to it. But he did know that it had definitely not looked like this, with brown clumps of earth littered across the grass. He didn't see Caroline, but he knew she had to be there.

"What have you done?" he bellowed.

A head popped out from behind a tree. "Mr. Ravenscroft?"

"What are you doing? This is a disaster. And you," he said to James, who hadn't made a sound, "stop laughing."

Caroline emerged from behind the tree, her dress liberally streaked with dirt. "I'm fixing your garden."

"You're fixing my—You're what? This doesn't look the least bit fixed to me."

"It's not going to look so wonderful until I finish with my work, but when I do—"

"Your work? All I see is a dozen holes."

"Two dozen."

"I shouldn't have said that, were I you," James commented from a safe distance.

Caroline stuck the end of her shovel in the dirt and leaned on it as she spoke to Blake. "Once you hear my explanation, I'm sure you will understand—"