“Have you got a pain, Mr. McBride?” Mrs. Peek asked.

“What?”

“You seems to be havin’ trouble breathing.”

Well, yes. But mostly he was having more trouble controlling what Earl would doubtless call “his baser nature.”

Freddie-the-caretaker was enticing as all get out. Still, he didn’t think his grandfather would look kindly on his throwing the resident caretaker down on the kitchen table and having his way with her. Especially not with the old lady in the red sweater avidly looking on.

Mrs. Peek, he decided after a few minutes’ conversation, was very well named.

Nothing happened in the village of Buckworthy that Mrs. Peek didn’t know about. She certainly knew about him!

“Come t’run the Gazette,” she said, bobbing her head in approval. Then her brows arched behind her glasses and she looked from him to Freddie-the-caretaker with her loose hair and mussed nightgown and said, “And a mighty fast worker he is, too.”

“Mr. McBride came for the keys to the abbey,” Freddie said firmly. But while she contrived to sound firm and businesslike, her hands fluttered around, as if she was torn between smoothing her disheveled hair or clutching the raincoat even tighter.

As she was managing to do neither, Gabe just stood there and enjoyed the view. The prospect of spending two months in Devon was looking brighter all the time.

“Us could do with a cup of tea,” Mrs Peek said.

Freddie put on the kettle.

Mrs. Peek smiled brightly. “You’re the young lord’s cousin, then? The American. Has the look of ’is lordship, he does,” she pronounced. “He were right han’sum, too. Th’ earl, I mean. Cedric.” Mrs. Peek’s voice softened and became almost dreamy. Her cheeks were already red from the cold, but if they hadn’t been Gabe felt sure that the thought of Earl might have contributed.

Earl? Make someone’s heart beat faster? Now there was a sobering thought.