Page 23 of Adeline

“And the turkeys?” she asked.

Bloody hell, he’d all but forgotten about the birds tied to their saddles. “I will send word to Cook, and she will have them brought in.”

Adeline’s stare flitted about the gathering of men before settling once more on Jasper. “Then I suppose I am no longer needed.”

“It was fine having you on the hunt, Miss Adeline,” he said with a curt bow. “I will bring you word shortly regarding the status of the repairs. Oh, and I will have your equipment returned to your room.”

“Thank you, Lord Ailesbury.” She dipped her chin, still stalling her departure to the Abbey when another thunderous boom echoed. Leaping in fright, she turned and hurried to the main house.

Her departure left three sets of eyes following her progress. There would have been a fourth, but Jasper noted Maxwell attending to the woman’s bow and quiver.

“Fine having you on the hunt?” Watson mimicked Jasper’s refined accent.

George slapped his open hand to his mouth to hide his own smirk.

Jasper had expected as much from his servants. “The pair of you were not there to witness it, but Miss Adeline is an expert markswoman. If I told you her skill could, on any given day, best my own, would you believe me?”

“Are ye certain it not be her fine English beauty ye be more taken with, m’lord?” Watson asked. “Because, she be one a the prettiest flowers we be see’n in these parts.”

Jasper’s stomach hardened, and he took a deep breath to stifle his need to rebuff the man’s accusations or, at the very least, demand that he not speak of Miss Adeline in such a scandalous manner.

Instead, he calmed his flash of anger. “Miss Adeline Price is the epitome of a proper London lady. She is above reproach, and will remain as such for the duration of her stay at Faversham Abbey. Make no mistake, the punishment will be swift and severe if I hear word of anything spoken to the contrary where Miss Adeline is concerned.”

Both George and Watson took a step back at Jasper’s curt words.

“Yes, m’lord,” George muttered, keeping his stare on Jasper’s Hessians.

“Of course, m’lord.” Watson waved George back toward the damaged carriage as the rain went from a light falling to a consistent drizzle. “We be get’n ta our duties now. I will hurry ta town as soon as the carriage be outta the storm.”

With the woman disappearing into the house, Jasper turned to assist his men—giving his mind something to concentrate on besides the English beauty waiting inside his home. The fact was, she would be departing as soon as Jasper and his men finished with their task. What was said between them—all she’d shared about her family and friends—and what was not said—anything about his past—would mean nothing to either of them. She would return to London and society, and Jasper would remain in Kent. She would wed a noble lord, and he would care for the people who called Faversham home. Their lives could not be more different from each other.

Jasper ignored the emptiness that resurfaced in his being for the first time in years.

All four men began pushing the carriage toward the open stable doors where a place had been cleared to work. The hay and equipment normally taking up the common area of the stable had been pushed toward the horse stalls to accommodate another conveyance beyond his own coach. The stable boy had led Jasper and Miss Adeline’s horses into the long corridor to the left, preparing to remove their saddles and brush the beasts as was required after each mount was removed from their stall. The kitchen staff must have collected the turkeys; though Jasper hadn’t noticed when.

On the surface, it was a day like any other at Faversham Abbey.

His servants completed their tasks and chores as they always did with their master at their sides. Each man, woman, and child at his estate carried the burden of making certain all was taken care of, and Jasper was no exception. It gave him a sense of fulfillment he would certainly be despondent and empty without—as he’d been immediately after his parents’ deaths and before his aunt and uncle had been summoned to care for the young lordling.

Jasper would never return to that helpless, lost, and broken child.

If it took working until he fell into his bed exhausted without any energy to go on each day, then that was what he was prepared to do.

“M’lord!” Watson rushed back into the stables. Jasper had been so preoccupied, he hadn’t realized the man had departed for the blacksmith’s shop in town. “Jasper! Come look!”

Jasper, along with several other stable hands, ran from the building into the rain.

In the distance, a lone rider on horseback rode at a breakneck speed across the meadow he and Miss Adeline had crossed less than an hour prior. The man arrived in the stable yard within minutes, his mount frothing at the mouth from the hard trek—his rider in no better condition.

Jasper recognized the man as one of the villagers in a position of leadership at the gunpowder plant, yet, Jasper had been very specific that operations at Home Works be shut down for the duration of the storm. The flooding made it nearly impossible for most workers to make the journey to the plant on foot, and it was precarious on horseback. Why ever was the man coming from the direction of the plant and not the village?

The man leapt from his horse, and a stable boy rushed forward to take the reins when the man doubled over, struggling to gasp for breath. “M’lord…Lord Ail…Lord Ailesbury,” the villager stammered.

“Slow it down, Landers.” George stepped forward and patted the man’s back. “What have ye ta say?”

“It be—” Landers took a deep gulp of air, inhaling through his mouth and exhaling through his nose as he stood straight to face Jasper. “It be Grovedale, m’lord. He be trapped at the plant.”

“At the plant?” Jasper demanded, his words laced with both anger and fear. Anger that someone had openly disobeyed his orders, and fear because Jasper knew that Grovedale and his servant, Emily, had wed the year before. “Tell me what happened.”