ictoria awoke early the next morning to the sound of birds chirping in the tree outside her open windows. Rolling over onto her back, she gazed at a bright blue sky filled with huge, puffy white clouds, the sort of sky that positively beckoned her outdoors.

Washing and dressing hurriedly, she went downstairs to the kitchens to get food for Willie. Jason Fielding had sarcastically asked if she could push a plow or drive a nail or milk a cow. She couldn’t do the first two, but she had often seen cows milked at home and it didn’t look particularly difficult. Besides, after six weeks of confinement on the ship, any sort of physical activity was appealing.

She was about to leave the kitchen with a plate of scraps when a thought struck her. Ignoring the outraged stare of the man in the white apron, who Charles had told her last night was the chef and who was watching her as if she were a madwoman invading his pot-bedecked kingdom, she turned to Mrs. Northrup. “Mrs. Northrup, is there anything I could do—to help here in the kitchen, I mean?”

Mrs. Northrup’s hand flew to her throat. “No, of course not.”

Victoria sighed. “In that case, could you tell me where I will find the cows?”

“The cows?” Mrs. Northrup gasped. “What—whatever for?”

“To milk them,” Victoria said.

The woman paled but said nothing, and after a puzzled moment, Victoria shrugged and decided to find them herself. She headed out the back door to search for Willie. Mrs. Northrup wiped the flour off her hands and headed straight for the front door to find Mr. Northrup.

As Victoria neared the compost pile, her eyes nervously scanned the woods for a sign of the dog. Willie—what an odd name for such a large, ferocious-looking animal, she thought. And then she saw him, lurking just inside the perimeter of the trees, watching her. The short hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but she carried the bowl of scraps as close to the woods as she dared. “Here, Willie,” she coaxed softly. “I’ve brought your breakfast. Come get it.”

The huge beast’s eyes flickered to the plate in her hand, but he stayed where he was, watchful, alert.

“Won’t you come a little closer?” Victoria continued, determined to befriend Jason Fielding’s dog, since she could never befriend the man.

The dog was no more cooperative than his master. He refused to be coaxed and kept his threatening gaze focused on her. With a sigh, Victoria put the plate down and walked away.

A gardener directed her to where the cows were kept, and Victoria walked into the spotless barn, her nose tickled by the scent of sweet-smelling hay. She paused uncertainly as a dozen cows looked up, regarding her with huge, liquid brown eyes as she walked along the row of stalls. She stopped at one with a stool and bucket hanging on the wall, thinking that this cow would surely be the most likely prospect for milking. “Good morning,” she said to the cow, patting its smooth face reassuringly while she tried to bolster her courage. Now that the moment was at hand, Victoria wasn’t at all certain she remembered exactly how one went about milking a cow.

Stalling for time, she strolled around the cow and plucked a few pieces of straw from its tail, then reluctantly took down the stool and placed the bucket in position beneath the animal’s pendulous udder. She sat down and slowly rolled up the sleeves of her gown, then arranged her skirts about her. Unaware of the man who had just stalked into the barn, she stroked the animal’s flank and drew a long, hesitant breath. “I may as well be perfectly honest with you,” she confessed to the cow. “The truth is—I haven’t actually done this before.”

Her rueful admission stopped Jason in mid-stride at the entrance to the stall, and his eyes warmed with fascinated amusement as he gazed at her. Seated upon the milking stool with her skirts spread about her as carefully as if she were seated upon a throne, Miss Victoria Seaton presented a very fetching picture. Her head was bent slightly as she concentrated on the task before her, providing him with a delightful view of her patrician profile with its elegant cheekbones and delicate little nose. Sunlight from the window above glinted in her hair, turning it into a shimmering red-gold waterfall that tumbled over her shoulders. Long curly eyelashes cast shadows on her smooth cheeks as she caught her lower lip between her teeth and reached down to move the bucket an inch forward.

The action drew Jason’s gaze to the thrusting fullness of her breasts as they pushed invitingly against the bodice of her black gown, but her next words made his shoulders shake with laughter. “This,” she told the cow in a revolted voice as she stretched her hands forward, “is going to be as embarrassing for me as it is for you.”

Victoria touched the cow’s fleshy teats and jerked her hands away with a loud “Ugh!” Then she tried again. She squeezed twice, quickly, then she leaned back and gazed hopefully at the bucket. No milk dropped into it. “Please, please, don’t make this difficult,” she implored the cow.

Twice more she repeated the same process, and still nothing happened. Frustration made her yank too hard the next time, which brought the cow’s head swinging around as it glared reproachfully at her. “I’m doing my part,” Victoria said, glaring right back, “the least you could do is yours!”

Behind her, a laughing masculine voice warned, “You’ll curdle her milk if you glower at her like that.”

Victoria jumped and whirled around on the stool, sending her coppery hair spilling over her left shoulder. “You!” she burst out, flushing in mortification at the scene he had obviously witnessed. “Why must you always creep up on people without a sound? The least you could do is—”

“Knock?” he suggested, his eyes glinting with laughter. With slow deliberation, he lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles twice upon the wooden beam. “Do you always talk to animals?” he asked conversationally.

Victoria was in no mood to be mocked, and she could see by the gleam in his eyes he was doing exactly that. With as much dignity as she could muster, she stood up, smoothed her skirts, and tried to walk past him.

His hand shot out and caught her arm in a firm but painless grip. “Aren’t you going to finish milking?”

“You’ve already seen that I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Victoria put her chin up and looked him right in the eye. “Because I don’t know how.”

One dark brow lifted over an amused green eye. “Do you want to learn?”

“No,” Victoria said, angry and humiliated. “Now, if you’ll remove your hand from my arm—” She jerked her arm free without waiting for him to acquiesce. “—I’ll try to find some other way to earn my keep here.”

She felt his narrowed gaze on her as she walked away, but her thoughts soon shifted to Willie as she neared the house. She saw the dog, lurking just inside the woods, watching her. A chill skittered down her spine, but she ignored it. She had just been intimidated by a cow, and she adamantly refused to be cowed by a dog.

Jason watched her walk away, then shrugged off the memory of an angelic-looking milkmaid with sunlight in her hair and went back to the work he’d abandoned when Northrup rushed into his study to inform him that Miss Seaton had gone to milk the cows.

Sitting down at his desk, he glanced at his secretary. “Where were we, Benjamin?”

“You were dictating a letter to your man in Delhi, my lord.”

Having failed to milk the cow, Victoria sought out the gardener who had directed her to the barn. She went up to the bald man, who seemed to be in charge of the others, and asked if she could help plant the bulbs they were putting in the huge circular flower beds in the front courtyard.

“Stick to your duties at the barn and get out of our way, woman!” the bald gardener roared.

Victoria gave up. Without bothering to explain that she had no duties at the barn, she went in the opposite direction toward the back of the house to seek the only kind of work she was actually qualified to do—she went to the kitchen.

The head gardener watched her, threw down his trowel, and went to find Northrup.

Unobserved, Victoria stood just inside the kitchen, where eight servants were busily preparing what appeared to be a luncheon of stew complemented with fresh seasoned vegetables, flaky, newly baked bread, and a half dozen side dishes. Disheartened by her last two attempts to make herself useful, Victoria watched until she was absolutely certain she could actually handle this task; then she approached the volatile French chef. “I would like to help,” she said firmly.

“Non!” he screamed, evidently believing her to be a servant in her plain black dress. “Out! Out! Get out. Go attend your duties.”

Victoria was heartily sick of being treated like a useless idiot. Very politely, but very firmly, she said, “I can be of help here, and it is obvious from the way everyone is rushing about that you can use an extra pair of hands.”

The chef looked ready to explode. “You are not trained,” he thundered. “Get out! When Andre needs help, he will ask for it and he will do zee training!”

“There is nothing the least bit complicated about making a stew, monsieur,” Victoria pointed out, exasperated. Ignoring his purpling complexion at her casual dismissal of the complexity of his culinary skills, she continued in a bright, reasonable tone, “All one has to do is cut up vegetables on this table here—” She tapped the table beside her. “—and toss them into that kettle there.” She pointed to the one hanging above the fire.

An odd, strangled sound emerged from the apoplectic man before he tore off his apron. “In five minutes,” he said as he stormed out of the kitchen, “I will have you thrown out of this house!”

In the crackling silence he left behind, Victoria looked around at the remaining servants, who were staring at her in frozen horror, their eyes mirroring everything from sympathy to amusement. “Goodness, girl,” a kindly, middle-aged woman said as she wiped flour from her hands onto her apron, “what possessed you to stir him up? He’ll have you thrown out on your ear for this.”

Except for the little maid named Ruth who looked after Victoria’s room, this was the first friendly voice Victoria had heard from any of the servants in the entire house. Unfortunately, she was so miserable at having created trouble when she only wished to help that the woman’s sympathy nearly reduced her to tears.

“Not that you weren’t right,” the woman continued, with a gentle pat on Victoria’s arm, “about it bein‘ that simple to make a stew. Any one of us could carry on without Andre, but his lordship demands the best—and Andre is the best chef in the country. You may as well go and pack your things, for it’s certain-sure you’ll be turned off the place within the hour.”

Victoria could scarcely trust her voice enough to reassure the woman on that head. “I’m a guest here, not a servant—I thought Mrs. Northrup would have told you that.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open. “No, miss, she did not. The staff isn’t permitted to gossip, and Mrs. Northrup would be the last to do it, her bein‘ related by marriage to Mr. Northrup, the butler. I knew we had a guest stayin’ at the house, but I—” Her eyes darted to Victoria’s shabby-genteel black dress and the girl flushed. “May I fix you somethin‘ to eat?”

Victoria’s shoulders drooped with frustrated despair. “No, but I’d—I’d like to make something to ease Mr. O’Malley’s swollen jaw. It’s a poultice, made of simple ingredients, but it might lessen the pain of his infected tooth.”

The woman, who said her name was Mrs. Craddock, showed Victoria where to find the ingredients she asked for and Victoria went to work, fully expecting “his lordship” to come stalking into the kitchen and publicly humiliate her at any moment.

Jason had just started to dictate the same letter he’d been dictating when he learned Victoria had gone out to the barn to milk a cow, when Northrup again tapped on the door of his study.

“Yes,” Jason snapped impatiently, when the butler was before him. “What is it now?”

The butler cleared his throat. “It’s Miss Seaton again, my lord. She... er... that is, she attempted to assist the head gardener with his planting of the flower beds. He mistook her for a servant, and now he wonders, since I informed him she is not a servant, if you are displeased with his work and sent her there to—”

Jason’s low voice vibrated with annoyance. “Tell the gardener to get back to work, then tell Miss Seaton to stay out of his way. And you,” he added darkly, “stay out of mine. I have work to do.” Jason turned to his thin, bespectacled secretary and snapped, “Now, where were we, Benjamin?”

“The letter to your man in Delhi, my lord.”?

Jason had dictated only two lines when there was a commotion outside his door and the cook barged in, followed by Northrup, who was trying to outrun him and block his path. “Either she goes, or I go!” Monsieur Andre boomed, marching up to Jason’s desk. “I do not permit that red-haired wench in my kitchen!”

With deadly calm, Jason laid down his quill and turned his glittering green gaze on the chef’s glaring face. “What did you say to me?”

“I said I do not permit—”

“Get out,” Jason said in a silky-soft voice.

The cook’s round face paled. “Oui,” he said hastily, as he began backing away, “I will return to the kitch—”

“Out of my house,” Jason clarified ruthlessly, “and off my property. Now!” Surging to his feet, Jason brushed past the perspiring chef and headed for the kitchens.

Everyone in the kitchens jumped and spun around at the sound of his incensed voice. “Can any of you cook?” he demanded, and Victoria assumed that the chef had resigned because of her. Horrified, she started to step forward, but Jason’s ominous gaze impaled her, threatening her with dire consequences if she dared to volunteer. He looked around at the others in angry disgust. “Do you mean to tell me none of you can cook?”

Mrs. Craddock hesitated, then stepped forward. “I can, my lord.”

Jason nodded curtly. “Good. You’re in charge. In future, please dispense with those nauseatingly rich French sauces I’ve been forced to eat.” He turned the icy blast of his gaze on Victoria. “You,” he ordered ominously, “stay out of the barn and leave the gardening to the gardeners and the cooking to the cooks!”

He left, and the servants turned to Victoria, looking at her with a mixture of shock and shy gratitude. Too ashamed of the trouble she’d caused to meet their eyes, Victoria bent her head and began mixing the poultice for Mr. O’Malley.

“Let’s go to work,” Mrs. Craddock said to the others in a brisk, smiling voice. “We have yet to prove to his lordship that we can manage very well without having our ears boxed and our knuckles rapped by Andrew.”

Victoria’s head snapped up, her shocked gaze flying to Mrs. Craddock.

“He is an evil-tempered tyrant,” the woman confirmed. “And we are deeply grateful to be rid of him.”

With the exception of the day her parents died, Victoria couldn’t remember a worse day than this one. She picked up the bowl containing the mixture her father had taught her to make to ease the pain of an afflicted tooth and walked out.

Failing to find O’Malley, she went searching for Northrup, who was just emerging from a book-lined room. Beyond the partially open doors, she glimpsed Jason seated at his desk with a letter in his hand, talking to a bespectacled gentleman who was sitting across from him.

“Mr. Northrup,” she said in a suffocated voice as she handed him the bowl, “would you be kind enough to give this to Mr. O’Malley? Tell him to apply it to his tooth and gum several times a day. It will help take away the pain and swelling.”

Distracted yet again by the sound of voices outside his study, Jason slapped the paper he was reading onto the desk and stalked to the door of his study, jerking it open. Unaware of Victoria, who had started up the staircase, he demanded of Northrup, “Now what the hell has she done?”

“She—she made this for O’Malley’s tooth, my lord,” Northrup said in a queer, strained voice as he raised his puzzled gaze to the dejected figure climbing the stairs.

Jason followed his gaze and his eyes narrowed on the slender, curvaceous form garbed in mourning black. “Victoria,” he called.

Victoria turned, braced for a tongue-lashing, but he spoke in a calm, clipped voice that nevertheless rang with implacable authority. “Do not wear black anymore. I dislike it.”

“I’m very sorry my clothes offend you,” she replied with quiet dignity, “but I am in mourning for my parents.”

Jason’s brows snapped together, but he held his tongue until Victoria was out of hearing. Then he told Northrup, “Send someone to London to get her some decent clothes, and get rid of those black rags.”

When Charles came down for lunch, a subdued Victoria slid into the chair on his left. “Good heavens, child, what’s amiss? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Victoria confessed her follies of the morning and Charles listened, his lips trembling with amusement. “Excellent, excellent!” he said when she was finished and, to her amazement, started to chuckle. “Go ahead and disrupt Jason’s life, my dear. That is exactly what he needs. On the surface he may appear cold and hard, but that is only a shell—a thick one, I’ll admit, but the right woman could get past that and discover the gentleness inside him. When she does bring out that gentleness, Jason will make her a very happy woman. Among other things, he is an extremely generous man....” He raised his brows, letting the sentence hang, and Victoria stirred uneasily beneath his intent gaze, wondering if Charles could possibly be harboring the hope that she was that woman.

Not for a moment did she believe there was any gentleness inside Jason Fielding and, moreover, she wanted as little to do with him as possible. Rather than tell that to Uncle Charles, she tactfully changed the subject. “I should receive word from Andrew in the next few weeks.”

“Ah, yes—Andrew,” he said, his eyes darkening.