The Arrangement by Joan Wolf Read Free Book Online

can’t believe how much you have done in just one day!” I confessed.
    He lowered his paintbrush, turned to look down at me, and smiled ruefully. “My sister could tell you that once I begin something, I’m a bear until I finish it.”
    He had a long streak of blue paint along the line of one chiseled cheekbone and a daub on his chin. I laughed. “Wait until you see your face, my lord. It is very artistically decorated.”
    He chuckled. It was a deep, warm, utterly delightful sound.
    The part of the wall behind me that Savile had painted was well above my head, so I leaned against it, folded my arms, and gazed up at him. “I have to admit that you have surprised me, my lord,” I said. “I never dreamed you would be so accomplished.”
    He lifted his brush. “Thought I was useless, did you?” he said as he began once more to apply the blue paint.
    His shoulder and back muscles moved smoothly under the thin cotton of his shirt as his arm went up and down, spreading paint evenly on the wall. He certainly did not have the physique of a “cursed dandy.”
    I said, “Well…let us say, rather, that I did not picture you as a painter.”
    The brush continued its up-and-down motion, and I noticed that he had an impressive set of muscles in his upper arm as well.
    I realized what I was thinking and blushed.
    Good heavens, Gail! I scolded myself. Stop staring at the man. You see bigger muscles than that every time the blacksmith shoes your horses.
    Savile said, “It is not that difficult to apply paint to a flat surface, ma’am.”
    I cleared my throat and fixed my eyes on an expanse of wet blue wall. “Not difficult, no. But it is a tiring sort of thing to do. Not at all the sort of activity that one would choose if one had other options open to one.”
    “It is not precisely enjoyable, I will agree,” he said. He lowered his brush and turned his body a little so that he could look around the room. “But I must say that it is rather satisfying to see how well the room is looking. This is a very pretty color you have chosen.”
    He had a rather disconcerting way of saying things that did not at all coincide with my image of a great earl. After a moment I admitted candidly, “I have often felt that way myself.”
    He looked up. “You didn’t repaint the ceiling.”
    “Painting ceilings is horrid,” I said firmly. “I did it five years ago, when I first painted this room, and I have no intention of ever doing it again.”
    He nodded, then said, “Go and have lunch, Mrs. Saunders, and don’t worry yourself about me.” I took him at his word, and went.
    * * * *
    I didn’t see the earl again until a bit later in the afternoon. I was sitting at my desk in the corner of the drawing room, going over bills, when he came in. He made scarcely a sound, but such was the forcefulness of his presence that he had advanced but a few steps before I felt him there behind me.
    I turned to look at him.
    “Don’t disturb yourself, Mrs. Saunders,” he said. “I found an interesting book last night and am just going to sit here in front of this nice fire and read for a while.”
    He was wearing a black cutaway coat, and the blue paint no longer adorned his face. I nodded at him a little distractedly, my mind on the sum I had just toted up.
    Surely the hay bill can’t have been that high! I thought in dismay as I turned back to my desk.
    The winter was always the hardest time for me financially. My income stopped in the autumn, along with my clients, leaving me with approximately a third of the year to get through on my savings alone.
    I added up the bills for hay and straw and grain once more and got the same depressing answer.
    I thought bitterly that I would have to dip in to the money I had been putting aside for Nicky to go to Oxford.
    I must cut costs, I thought.
    But where?
    There’s Maria, I thought for probably the two-hundredth time since Tommy had died. I don’t need a horse of that quality. I know I don’t. I