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He picked up the soap in his free hand and met her eyes again. “May I?” he said.

“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He lowered her hand into the bucket. The water was cold, but she did not flinch. He lathered the soap, then ran it gently across the palm of her hand. When he was sure it was clean, he tenderly rotated her hand beneath the water and washed the dirt off her fingers. Neither of them spoke.

Reaching for the rag, he withdrew her hand from the bucket and wrapped it in the cloth. He felt her gaze and looked up to meet it.

“Thank you,” she said.

The intimacy of the moment shook him. He cleared his throat, wishing the action would also clear his head.

“Is there someone at Charwell Park who can make you a salve should you need one?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “I shall wear my gloves tomorrow.”

It was not the day of rest he had asked of her, but it was something. “It may not be the most comfortable, but it would be for the best.”

A smile hovered on her lips, and for a fleeting moment, he wondered what it would be like to kiss them. Then the indefensibility of their situation hit him with full force. That he was alone in the shed with Miss Hadford was bad enough; kissing her would be inexcusable.

He released her hand and stepped back a pace. Confusion showed in the furrow of her brow, but she used the rag to pat her hand dry and then set the rag on the barrel beside the soap.

“I should return to the orchard,” she said, starting toward the open doors. “I promised Henry that I would not be gone long.”

He nodded. “As soon as I have added the last cheese to the press, I shall join you over there.”

She stopped, and he half hoped she would offer to wait, so they could walk over together, but then he noticed that the crease had returned to her forehead.

“I realize that it is none of my concern,” she began, “but have you given any consideration to what may become of Miss Glover when Emily is married?”

He looked at her blankly. Tackling Emily’s first Season was a sufficiently new and terrifying topic; he had no desire to think beyond that.

“I cannot say that I have.”

“Might I suggest that you do? And that you talk to Miss Glover about it.”

Adam ran his fingers through his hair. His sister and her companion had been far removed from his thoughts during the last few minutes. “And may I ask what has prompted this suggestion?”

Miss Hadford hesitated, as though choosing her words carefully. “Miss Glover does not like me. At first, I hoped it was simply a wariness of someone new, but her disapproval is no less now that it was before.”

Adam went to deny her assertion only to remember Miss Glover’s vehement and cautionary words regarding Emily’s friendship with Miss Hadford.

“At first, I tried to ignore her attitude toward me,” she continued, “but this morning, I decided upon a new approach. I thought that perhaps if I could discover more about her, I might understand what it was about me that she took exception to.”

She took a small step back toward him. “Did you know that Miss Glover has no real family? None but a brother-in-law and a nephew whom she has not heard from in over a decade. She . . . she has nowhere to go when her usefulness at Dunsbourne Manor is over.”

Guilt that he had not taken the time to learn more about the woman who had been in his family’s employ for so many years pricked at him.

“That is regrettable, but I fail to see how that would affect her opinion of you.”

“I am a threat.”

Adam stared at her. He was obviously missing a huge piece of this puzzle.

“A threat?”

“Do you not see? Miss Glover’s position at Dunsbourne Manor is only secure as long as Emily needs her. When you decided that it was time for Emily to experience Society, Miss Glover saw it as the beginning of the end of her usefulness. She knows that gentlemen will notice someone as lovely as Emily—how could they not? They will come courting, and she will marry. For someone in Miss Glover’s position, that scenario would be frightening enough. But then to have Emily invite a friend to the house—someone she has begun looking to for all the things she once relied on her governess for—well, it must be a bitter pill to take.” Miss Hadford lowered her voice. “I do not blame her for hating me.”

Adam took a moment to rein in his reeling thoughts. He had always known that at age twenty-two he had been ill prepared to take over his father’s role, but in the years since then, he had rarely felt it more keenly than he did now. He knew exactly what it was to fear the future—the emotional toll it took on a person. And yet, he had not recognized it in someone else within his own household.