“Are you Mr. Bradford?” the woman asked as she looked them both over.

“Yes, and you are?”

“Mrs. Brown, your new maid,” she announced with a nod as she reached down and picked up the bag that Elizabeth hadn’t noticed until now. “I assume my room is off the kitchen?” she asked, already heading that way.

“May I ask who sent you?” Robert asked as they moved to follow after the woman, who’d apparently decided that the job was hers.

“My son-in-law, Mr. Higgings. The pay is less than I would have liked, but I suppose it will have to do,” she said, pausing to look at the tattered curtains in the dining room and with a shake of her head, she continued on to the kitchen. “Now, I don’t have any references, but you don’t really need them.”

“We don’t?” Robert said dryly, sounding amused.

Mrs. Brown simply shook her head as she paused just inside the kitchen so that she could survey the room. “No, you don’t. The only thing that you need to know is that I’m a hard worker, raised ten children, five of them my sister’s. I know how to cook, clean, run a household, and I’d wager my skills with children will come in handy soon enough. As long as you pay me my wages on time, respect my privacy, allow me to have every other Sunday and Wednesday off and remember to keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Bradford, I think we’ll get along just fine” she announced, testing a door to the right and when it opened she peered inside the room, nodded and walked inside, shutting the door behind her and leaving Elizabeth shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

“Did…did she just imply what I think she just did?” Robert asked, looking torn between amusement and horror.

Unable to answer, she was forced to reach out and grip the table or take the chance of falling flat on her bottom.

“Why are you laughing, minx? You should be going in there and defending my honor!” he said with mock outrage as he swept her up into his arms and headed for the door.

“Where are we going?” she asked when she could manage to talk again.

“To find a bedroom so that you can make up for your lack of loyalty to me,” he said, smiling that carefree smile that had started to appear since they’d left London.

“Because I wouldn’t attack an old woman for you?” she asked, trying not to smile.

“Yes,” he said without pause as he opened the first door that they came across and walked inside, kicking the door closed behind them as he set her on her feet. Biting back a smile, she moved away from him, loving the playful grin that tugged at his lips.

“Now,” he said, stalking after her as he reached down and undid his pants, “let’s see if we can’t find a way for you make this betrayal up to me, shall we?”

* * *
“Out,” Mrs. Brown simply said, ignoring his glare as she continued to point towards the door.

“But-”

She stubbornly shook her head. “You were warned, Mr. Bradford,” she said while his minx stuck her tongue at him from across the room and away from Mrs. Brown’s stern gaze.

“But, she-” he said, starting to point at his wife, but Mrs. Brown wasn’t listening.

“I told you that you could stay in the house as long as you didn’t interfere with our work,” she said firmly, still pointing towards the door.

“This is my house, woman,” he bit out, deciding that the woman simply needed to be reminded, but apparently she didn’t give a damn whose house it was, because she just kept pointing as she said, “Out.”

So he decided to try a different tactic, one that he hadn’t used since they were children. “She started it!” he said accusingly as he pointed towards Elizabeth, who apparently remembered this little ploy because she let out a heartfelt sob, the same one that used to work on his parents and end with him sent to his room without pudding.

Finally, the damn woman dropped her arm. She folded her hands in front of her as she looked up at him, her expression stern. “Mr. Bradford, it wasn’t Mrs. Bradford that I caught pinning you up against the wall and kissing you senseless when I returned from getting another bucket of soapy water,” she said, reminding him of his offense and making it damn difficult not to smile.

“I was just trying to clean,” Elizabeth said softly, adding a pathetic sniffle at the end that had him biting back another smile and Mrs. Brown’s eyes narrowing on him.

“Why are you taking her side?” Robert demanded, loving the mischievous smile that his minx was sending his way. “She’s the one that started it! She attacked me!” he said, slapping a hand against his chest and making sure to look properly wounded. “I was minding my own business, taking down the wallpaper like you’d asked when she grabbed me from behind and manhandled me!”

With a small sigh, Mrs. Brown looked over her shoulder at his minx, who was smart enough to wipe that smile off her face and let her chin tremble as she made a show of picking up her brush from the bucket of soapy water and return to washing the floor, adding a little sniffle here and there as she worked.

The woman was screwing him over and clearly enjoying herself, he realized with a grin. His minx was wonderful, he thought with a sigh as he took a step to go to her, but Mrs. Brown wasn’t having any of that.

With that damn finger pointed back towards the door, she said, “Out.”

Knowing that the woman probably wouldn’t leave the room again so that he could have a chance to kiss his minx, he decided that perhaps it was best to head out to the barn and set up his shop.

“Fine, I’m going,” he said, heading for the door, pausing only long enough to send his minx a wink, “but you’ll pay for this later.”

Chapter 33

“Don’t turn around.”

Elizabeth had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she looked up from her sewing to share a knowing look with Mrs. Brown, who was sitting on the couch across from her, and looking quite amused with Robert’s latest attempt to sneak a kiss under Mrs. Brown’s nose.

“Go away,” she whispered back, loving this playful side of her husband.

There was a slight pause before Robert whispered back, “I have something for you.”

She just bet he did.

“I’m busy,” she whispered back, not bothering to turn around or look out the window since she already knew that Robert was kneeling beneath the window and out of sight.

It was the same way that he used to torment her when they were children and she was stuck inside to complete her studies. He’d hide beneath the open window, taunting and teasing her until she finally had enough and made some excuse so that she could go outside and box the little beast’s ears. Not that she would ever admit this to him, but she used to secretly love it when he interrupted her lessons. It gave her something to look forward to everyday.

“Meet me outside in five minutes, minx.”

“No,” she said, having too much fun to give in so easily.

Besides, the kisses were always so much better when she made him work for them. There was just something about teasing and tormenting her husband that brought a smile to her face. Every day Robert found a way to sneak inside the house to steal a kiss, doing his best to get in and out of the house without Mrs. Brown finding out.

Not that Mrs. Brown actually cared what the two of them did. She found the whole thing amusing and seemed to enjoy tormenting Robert almost as much as she did. She also doubted that Robert would ever allow anyone to stop him from stealing a kiss from her and was doing everything he could to tease a smile out of her when most days, she hardly had the energy to do much more than curl up in bed and read.

She was only five months into her pregnancy, but she felt like she’d been pregnant forever. Her appetite was almost as large as her husband’s, which truly frightened her. She also found herself sleeping throughout most of the day, having very little energy to be much help. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Brown, the house would still look like it was decaying, the gardens would still be overgrown with weeds and she doubted that there would be anything to eat since Elizabeth usually fell asleep halfway through making biscuits.

In truth, she was terrified. Between the first doctors misdiagnosing her, her appetite, and the intense exhaustion that she couldn’t shake, she didn’t know what to think or expect from this pregnancy. Every day she worried that she wasn’t giving the baby enough food, resting enough, or a hundred other things that could hurt the baby, and every day Robert did everything he could to make her smile.