LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’ll tell him.”

      Ina glanced up as she spoke, taking in Parker’s big, shiny black shoes, his long, powerful legs, his impossibly broad shoulders. Stopping short of the strong line of his jaw, she grabbed the only remaining item—a bunch of bananas—and looked to Tess with another apology.

      “Your mother called to tell me you and your son will be staying here for a while and asked me to stock the refrigerator. I’d meant to be here before you arrived and have everything put away. I bought enough for your dinner and breakfast, and there’s scones for tea, if you’d like.”

      The squeak of her tennis shoes sounded like chattering mice as she hurried to set the vegetables by the sink and grab a bowl from a cabinet. “I remembered some of your preferences but not all,” she rushed on, filling an Italian ceramic bowl with the fruit before unloading milk, butter, bread and eggs. “If you’ll give me your menu for the week, I’ll go back to the market tomorrow.”

      The woman easily ten years her senior looked terribly self-conscious as she moved between the pantry and the built-in refrigerator. Tess figured part of the reason for that awkwardness stemmed from being out of uniform. Members of the estate’s staff, everyone from the butler to the cook, maids and gardeners, wore their respective uniforms when on duty. Rarely did any employee appear in or around the main house dressed in anything else. Wearing a cotton shirt and denim capris, Ina seemed painfully conscious of her casual attire. From her furtive glances toward the splendid specimen of masculinity in his uniform of tailored suit and tie, she seemed just as aware of Parker silently watching her every move.

      Or so Tess was thinking before she realized that some of those darting glances were aimed at her. She was the daughter who had caused so much gossip and speculation among her parents’ staff. She didn’t doubt for a moment that the maid was more than a little curious about her and her return.

      She could only imagine the rumors that had flowed among the staff. At least right now, talk would be kept to a minimum. With most of the staff gone, there were blessedly few people to generate it.

      “I’ll prepare your meals for you since Olivia is with your parents. Will you be staying in your old bedroom?”

      “Mikey and I both will.” But I’ll take care of it, she would have said, except Ina was already talking.

      “Then I’ll freshen it up as soon as I’m finished here.” With a quick and diplomatic glance toward where Tess’s bodyguard remained, wrist clasped, waiting for her to conclude, she dropped her voice and hurried on. “Which room do you want Mr. Parker in? There’s only one extra in the servants’ quarters, but it’s not very big.”

      Ina apparently couldn’t picture him in a twin bed, either.

      “I’ve already shown him which room he can use. I think Rose’s is best.” It was the largest. The room that belonged to the head housekeeper was also the only one in the servants’ quarters with a double bed.

      Considering his sizable frame, even that would be small.

      If Ina had any reservations about putting another employee in her immediate boss’s space, she dutifully kept them to herself. “I’ll put fresh towels in his bathroom.”

      “Just tell me where they are. I’ll take care of it.”

      Ina opened her mouth, closed it again. The faint frown creasing her brow made it look as if she couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. “I need to freshen all the rooms. Nothing has been done in here since your parents left last month. I need to vacuum, dust. You’ll want fresh flowers….”

      Tess was already shaking her head. “Don’t worry about any of it. You don’t need to use your vacation time to wait on me. Go on with whatever plans you have and just pretend we aren’t even here. And please,” she requested, old anxieties never far from the surface, “don’t mention to anyone that I’ve returned. No one off the property, I mean. You didn’t say anything to anyone at the market, did you?”

      “Not a word,” Ina replied, looking puzzled. “Your mother already asked for our discretion about your presence. I passed on her request to Eddy and to Jackson,” she said, speaking of the groundskeeper. Puzzlement shifted to consternation. “But she specifically asked that I be available to you and her grandson….”

      “And I’m asking that you forget we’re here.”

      The woman clearly didn’t want to upset her employer. Tess didn’t want to cause problems for Ina either, but having staff wait on her in any way was not part of the plan she’d devised for herself to get on with her life. She had gone from being the protected baby of the family to the wife of a man who’d turned out to be a master at control and manipulation. She’d spent years having people take over, take care of and take charge and done next to nothing to stop the slow erosion of her personal freedom.

      It had taken years, the past few in particular, but she had finally realized how much independence all that acquiescence had cost her. It was time she learned to take care of herself and her son on her own.

      Preparing to do just that, she gamely offered the only reason she could think of that might override her mother’s orders and ease Ina’s mind.

      “I just need time alone. Just me and my son. If I do find I need your help, I’ll call you. I’ll explain to my mother if she says anything,” she promised. “All right?”

      Ina looked doubtful. “If you’re sure…”

      “I’m positive. Really. Enjoy your time off.”

      It was hard to tell which had the firmer hold on the maid at that moment—skepticism at leaving her employer’s daughter to fend for herself or gratitude that her vacation wouldn’t be further interrupted. She glanced uncertainly around the kitchen, looking as if she wanted to be positive there wasn’t something else she should do. Apparently she found nothing.

      “Well,” she murmured, “it would be nice to finish redoing our son’s room. He joined the Navy when he graduated from high school a couple of months ago, so I’m turning it into a sewing room. With your mother’s permission, of course.”

      “Of course.”

      “You’ll call if you need anything at all?”

      Tess mentally crossed her fingers. “I will.”

      “Well, if that’s the case, I guess I’ll go tell Eddy just to leave your luggage in the foyer.” She hesitated. “We can carry it up if you’d like.”

      “It’s fine, Ina. Really. Just tell me where I’ll find clean towels for Mr. Parker’s bathroom.”

      The clearly baffled maid showed her a large linen closet inside an even larger laundry room, then disappeared through the door that led to the family breakfast room, which led to the formal dining room and into the foyer. As far back as Tess was in the house, it was impossible for her to hear movements or conversation in those areas, but within a minute she saw both Ina and her rangy husband walk beneath the kitchen windows and cross the cobblestones between the house and the garage on their way back to the stables.

      “Can you trust her?”

      Tess turned from the window to open one of the drawers beneath a long expanse of counter.

      “I hope so. Probably,” she amended, closing that drawer with the clatter of cutlery to open the next one. “Ina has been with the family for at least ten years. I’ve never heard of her saying anything she shouldn’t.” Unlike certain people who used to work for me, she thought. “My mother tends to inspire loyalty better than I do.”

      She looked distracted to Parker as she closed that drawer and opened another. She also sounded like a woman who had been betrayed somehow, he thought, only to remind himself again that her personal business was none of his. Not unless it impacted his ability to do his job. He was more interested at the moment in what she was doing, anyway.

      She’d turned to the upper

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