He had removed his greatcoat and hat since she last saw him, and she almost stood and gaped. That he was a large gentleman she had seen from the first. She had also thought of him as a heavyset gentleman. But she could see, now that he stood before her, clad in an expertly tailored coat of dark green superfine with fawn waistcoat and pantaloons and dry Hessian boots with white shirt and neatly tied cravat, that he was not heavyset at all but merely broad with muscles in all the right places. His powerful thighs suggested that he was a man who spent a great deal of time in the saddle. And his hair without the beaver hat looked thicker and curlier than she had imagined. It hugged his head in a short, neat style.

He was a veritable Corinthian, in fact.

Indeed he was nothing short of devastatingly gorgeous, Frances thought resentfully, remembering fleetingly all the amusement she felt every time she overheard the girls at school giggling and sighing soulfully over some young buck who had taken their fancy.

Yet here she stood, gawking.

Nasty gentlemen, she thought, deserved to be ugly.

She moved forward to set the tray down on the table.

“It is only teatime,” she said, “though I suppose you missed luncheon as I did. The kitchen fire will be hot enough for me to make a cooked meal for dinner, but in the meanwhile toast and cheese and some pickles will have to suffice. I have set some out on the kitchen table for the men too and have sent Wally running to the stables to fetch Thomas and your coachman.”

“If Wally is capable of running,” he said, rubbing his hands together and eyeing the tray hungrily, “I will eat my hat as well as the toast and cheese.”

Frances had dithered in the kitchen about whether to join Mr. Marshall in the taproom or stay there for her own tea. Her inclination was very much to stay in the kitchen, but her pride told her that if she did that she would be setting a precedent and putting herself firmly in the servant class. He would doubtless be content to treat her accordingly. She might be a schoolteacher, but she was no one’s servant—certainly not his.