Hope by Lesley Pearse Read Free Book Online Page A

mind you go and see James before you leave.’
    Sir William was out riding Merlin, but James showed them Duchess and Buttercup in their paddock, and let them feed the carriage horses with some carrots. To Nell’s disappointment she couldn’t see Albert anywhere. ‘Is he still working in the garden?’ she asked James. ‘I thought he might show Hope around.’
    James grinned. He was twenty now, and since coming here to work he’d grown several inches and developed muscle with all the hard work. He was quite a hit with the other maids, for although a plain lad, with his floppy dark hair and the Renton big nose, he had a nice way with him, funny and warm. ‘You mean you hoped you could meet him!’ he said pointedly.
    Nell blushed. She didn’t try to deny it for James knew her too well.
    ‘He’s round the front of the house, weeding the rosebed. Take Hope round there!’ He grinned knowingly. ‘The boys can stay here with me.’
    ‘I can’t go there,’ Nell said in horror. There was a kind of unwritten rule that the servants didn’t go round to the front of the house. She would have felt quite comfortable showing Hope the gardens at the back, but the front was different because she could be seen by anyone glancing out of the windows.
    ‘Don’t be daft, of course you can go round there,’ James laughed. ‘Hope will like seeing the statues. And Albert will like seeing you.’
    Emboldened, Nell took Hope’s hand and walked back through the arch of the stable yard to the front of the house. Aside from the big circular rosebed, set into the gravel drive, there were more roses along the front of the house, some of which climbed right up the walls in high summer, and that was where Albert was weeding.
    He had removed the brown smock he usually wore and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and the sight of his muscular bare forearms and moleskin breeches tight over his buttocks made Nell feel suddenly shy.
    She knew from previous years that in a couple of weeks the roses would be spectacular, but as yet there were none flowering. Had they been in bloom she could have let Hope sniff them, but without any real excuse for being there, she felt vulnerable and rather foolish.
    But Hope ran straight up to Albert before Nell could prevent her.
    ‘Why aren’t there any flowers here?’ she asked him.
    ‘There will be next month,’ Albert replied, glancing round at Nell and smiling. ‘Roses like the whole bed to themselves, you see. They don’t much care for companions.’
    Nell took her courage in both hands and walked over to him. By the time she got there Hope was asking why they didn’t like companions and that she liked gardens that had flowers everywhere, all different kinds.
    ‘I like that too,’ Albert said. ‘But this ain’t my garden, so I has to do what the master likes.’
    Nell blushingly apologized for her sister. ‘She’s no trouble,’ Albert said cheerfully. ‘You bring her again once all the roses is in bloom. I bet she’ll like that.’
    Hope was very taken with the marble statues in the big circular rosebed, making Nell blush yet again when she asked why the ladies had no clothes on. Albert chuckled and said it was his opinion that it was harder to carve clothes than nakedness.
    They were a distance of some fourteen feet from the porch and the front door, when Nell heard the door open and Lady Harvey saying goodbye to someone.
    Not wanting to be seen talking to the gardener, Nell told Hope it was time they went back. But Hope ignored her, and went skipping away in the direction of the front door, reaching it just as a gentleman stepped out of the porch.
    ‘Hope!’ Nell called out. But to her dismay the child just stood there, hands behind her back, smiling sweetly up at the man.
    He was perhaps thirty, tall and slender, wearing a dark green riding jacket, brown breeches and long riding boots, with a rakish yellow and green cravat around his neck. He looked down at Hope and smiled. ‘Hello! Who are