To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney Page A

become the head of a large and complex domestic staff, and she was almost pathologically unfit for the post. Any one of her new charges was better qualified than she, including the footboy who cleaned the lamps and washed bottles.
    And if she failed, she would lose much more than a job. She'd made a decision two nights ago in the Tavistock lockup, and nothing had happened since then to change her mind. If they tried to put her in prison again, she would find a way to take her life.
    *   *   *   *   *
    Sebastian spurred his sorrel stallion along the bias of a soft, fertile field, still unplowed, and listened to the meadow pipits and skylarks singing in the hedges, greeting the burgeoning spring all around. The beauty of the morning had tempted him almost to the edge of Dartmoor; he didn't turn back until he heard the croak of ravens in the tors, the gleaming rock summits dazzling bone-white in the sunny distance. It was the first time he'd been out riding on his own since before Lili's visit. She'd never let him out of her sight, not being the kind of person who got along well on her own resources. Come to think of it, Lili didn't have any resources.
    The cattle had recently been freed from their winter cowsheds and let out to graze in the new green pastures, and the novelty hadn't worn off yet: full grown dairy cows cavorted like calves in the fragrant fields, with udders so milk-heavy they almost dragged the ground. Flocks of shaggy, raddle-daubed sheep followed along after them, cleaning up the meadows in their boisterous wake. In an expansive mood, Sebastian stopped on his way to speak to a passing shepherd or farm laborer, introducing himself and exchanging the time of day. To a man, his tenants were respectful but not obsequious, and definitely more curious about than awed by him. Beneath the courtesy, he sensed a reservation of judgment, a wait-and-see caution he attributed to the relative incompetence of his two predecessors, cousin Geoffrey and his father, Edward Verlaine—that and whatever reputation he himself came with, which was undoubtedly a cause of grave concern to these simple souls.
    "Simple souls"—it had a patronizing ring, didn't it? It or something like it was how Sebastian and his friends usually spoke of the lower classes, particularly rural working folk. But the condescension in the phrase had never struck him until now.
    South of Wyckerley, at the point where the village main street crossed the Tavistock road, he met his bailiff. Holyoake was mounted on a short-legged gray cob, as strong and honest-looking as he was. He said good morning, tipping his dented felt hat.
    "Where are you bound for, William?"
    "I'm for Swan's smithy, m'lord, to tell 'im o' the harrower we spoke of orderin'."
    "Well, ride home with me a ways first, will you? I've something to ask you.''
    Holyoake nodded and turned his horse, and the two men began to tread the red, narrow, leafy lane to Lynton Hall at a comfortable pace. "Are you a Devon man, William?" Sebastian opened, reaching up to rub his stallion between the ears.
    "I am, sir. My father was the bailey at Lynton before me."
    "Was he? I didn't know that. So you've lived all your life in Wyckerley, have you?"
    "Never been east of Exeter nor west o' the Tamar, and no farther south than Plymouth." He sounded proud of |t, as if his insularity made him a better man than one who chose to go traipsing all over the globe. Which it may have done, for all Sebastian knew.
    "William, I've hired a new housekeeper," he said after a pause.
    "I made 'er acquaintance this morning, sir."
    "Did you? And what did you make of her?"
    "My lord?"
    "How did she strike you? Will she do? Ought we to cover our backs when she's about?"
    Holyoake looked unamused by his levity. "I should think she'll do all right after she gets 'er feet wet, so to say. At the present, she's very raw, m'lord."
    He meant "new," but Sebastian thought she was raw in another way as well: she was tender, as unprotected