The Black Sheep's Return. Elizabeth Beacon

said and plucked her up, set her on her feet, then ignored her mutinous expression as he frowned at Freya.

      ‘Go back to sleep,’ he ordered brusquely before leaving the house with his children firmly in tow.

      ‘Well, really,’ Freya huffed at Atlas, who decided he preferred peace and quiet to being with his master this morning and settled on his rug with a relieved sigh.

      Reluctantly amused by him, his master and the determined son and daughter of the house, Freya lay back and almost did as she was told. Deciding after five minutes she was now fully awake, she fought her many aches and pains to sit up in bed and wondered if the room would spin round or not if she tried to get up. When it stayed obligingly as it was, she risked pushing back the covers and, examining the grubby hem of her shift, she marvelled at herself for sleeping in all her dirt even after such a demanding day as she had had yesterday.

      Wrinkling her nose at the idea of somehow getting herself clean, then having to put the mired and torn gown of yesterday back on, she carefully slid her good foot to the floor and stood on one leg. Her body felt stiff and sore and her ankle throbbed sickeningly, but she was whole and alive and the rumble in her stomach reminded her she was also desperately hungry. First she needed soap and water and a comb—oh, and a privy, her body reminded her as normal everyday needs collided with brisk reality. The expectation that all those necessities would be provided for Lady Freya Buckle without question made her feel alien and suddenly very alone and forsaken in this cramped cottage in the woods. She looked about for inspiration and saw only that the place was neat as a pin and surprisingly free of dust and dirt.

      Hopping to the door ‘Orlando’ had opened last night to fetch cold water and binding for her foot, she opened it and found a spartan lean-to scullery with a cold and empty copper and two large buckets of water standing on a scrubbed deal table. There was an empty bowl and a metal cup on a long handle that she supposed must be used to scoop up water without the risk of spilling most of it by tipping the heavy bucket. Her nose wrinkled as she wondered how it would feel to wash in freezing cold water and she shrugged and looked about her for some soap and anything to use as a towel because even that was preferable to staying dirty for another minute. Cursing her absent host for being so remorselessly tidy, she ran a half-used washing ball that smelt of lavender and summer to earth in a box on the windowsill, then wondered if she could hop back to her bed and draw the curtains while she washed, or simply do so here when that would mean spilling most of the contents of the bowl on her way.

      Improvising with the rough piece of unbleached cloth he probably used for wiping the dishes for a towel, she made sure the door was firmly shut before unlacing her short corset and stripping off her ragged and dirty shift. The blessed relief of cool water and remarkably good soap on her skin made her sigh with pleasure and she washed the sweat and fear and grime from her face and upper torso before attending to her filthy and scratched legs and feet. It wasn’t easy to get yourself thoroughly clean while standing on one leg, she found, and a sponge or flannel would have been a wonderful help.

      Frowning at the very feel of her still half-pinned-up hair and the wild bird’s nest the rest of it felt as bits tried to escape while the rest was still in a knot, she searched for her hairpins and piled them up on the table and sighed with relief when the whole heavy mass tumbled down. Oh, the sheer pleasure and relief of feeling the uncombed length of it flow down her back and the pull and tangle subside a little. Freya went back to her filthy feet and legs and found another bowl to fill with clean water when the soap scum and mire in the first seemed too disgusting to use any more.

      At last she felt as clean as she could make herself without a hot bath and shut off the blissful thought of one of those with a regretful sigh at the very moment the door to the little kitchen-cum-scullery opened and Orlando strode in. Horrified and at the same time oddly frozen in her position, half-propped and half-sitting on the table so she could wash her good foot and take the weight off her bad one, she blushed so hotly it felt as if every inch of her must be covered in shame. Peeping at him from behind her tumbling mass of hair, she saw an arrested, almost shocked look on his face—as if he’d been hit on the head for no good reason. This time she noted numbly that his eyes were as clear and green as his little daughter’s by daylight and full of contrary emotions as they fixed on her like a sailor sighting land after a long voyage.

      ‘I beg your pardon,’ he finally managed in a deeper and huskier voice than normal and turned sharply about and was out of the door before she could think of a word to say.

      Since she still couldn’t, it was probably as well he’d disappeared faster than a scalded cat, she decided, making herself finish her makeshift toilette. She was contemplating her grubby chemise and shift with disgust when the door opened the smallest distance it took for a vigorous male hand to squeeze through it, then drop clean replacements on the floor before shutting it firmly once more. For some odd reason it seemed funny and Freya gratefully pulled on the chemise as she tried not to giggle hysterically at the latest act in the farce she and Orlando seemed to be playing.

      She looked ruefully at the shift before scrambling into it and decided his wife must have been considerably shorter than herself. It seemed she would have to wear her own half-ruined gown to preserve any hint of decency, if only she knew what he’d done with it. The next time the door did its remarkable trick he produced a cotton bedcover she took silently and wrapped round her body like a bath towel, before stiffening her shockingly naked shoulders and hopping out to face him as best she could. It took every ounce of well-honed Buckle pride to meet his eyes as if he hadn’t just seen her in the same state of nature in which she came into the world.

      ‘I should like to borrow a comb,’ she said loftily.

      ‘These belonged to my wife,’ he said with so little expression in his green gaze as he handed her a brush and comb she almost forgot to be deeply mortified for a moment.

      ‘Thank you,’ she returned and raised her eyebrows at him to indicate he should now make himself scarce if he was any sort of a gentleman at all.

      ‘I have been promised an outfit that I doubt very much is up to your usual standards whilst your own gown is being washed and mended. I will see you have it as soon as possible now you are up and awake,’ he said stiffly and took himself off.

      Freya crossed to the bed with more painful effort than she liked to think about and sank down on it before pulling the curtain across behind her so she would have the belated illusion of privacy. She examined the brush as if it might give her some clue to the woman who once owned it, but not even one stray strand remained to tell her what colour hair the lady had rejoiced in. Freya sighed and began the long and frustrating business of combing out the wild tangles from her own heavy mane and heartily wished for the ladies’ maid she had left at Bowland with not even a second thought how she would shift for herself without her. Of course she knew how to comb her own hair, everyone knew that, but she thought of the gentle patience little Mercy Dawkins had always shown her exacting mistress and felt oddly ashamed as she teased knot after knot from her rebellious locks.

      She wasn’t a fool, she decided as distance and the oddest of circumstances made her think hard about her day-to-day self, but Lady Freya Buckle had managed to go through life so far without thinking too hard about herself or those around her. The loss of her grandfather had hit her far harder than that of her own father and the sudden death of her mother two years earlier had shaken her world to its very foundations. Apart from those two heavy losses, the only event that had caused her even the mildest suffering until yesterday was the marriage of his Grace the Duke of Dettingham to Miss Jessica Pendle, and that certainly wasn’t because her heart was broken.

      No, she decided now with a preoccupied frown as she finally tracked down the piece of twig caught in the depths of her worst knot so far and set about removing it without pulling a hank of hair out with it, the fact that he preferred a lame spinster to the Earl of Buckland’s pretty daughter had been the first indication the rest of the world didn’t share her conviction she was entitled to all the best things in life that society had to offer her. For a while she had been so offended and furious she hadn’t asked herself why Jack Seaborne, Duke of Dettingham, preferred damaged Miss Pendle to her pristine and noble self.

      She and