Page 8 of Rough Around the Hedges

Then again, he’d just been salty that my dearly departed grandmother had rejected him back in the day for his best friend.

After sleeping with them both.

In the same week.

Granny had known how to have a good time.

I also didn’t want to think aboutwhyshe’d chosen my grandpa over the duke. I could appreciate her decision-making capabilities without thinking into them too much, lest I end up giving myself nightmares.

But the new duke… Ugh. It sounded like he’d been here for all of ten minutes, and I had a bad feeling about it. I’d lived in Hanbury my whole life, and I’d never met him. If we’d crossed paths as children, it wasn’t anything I had any recollection of. All I knew about him was that his grandfather and father had fallen out when I was a child, and so they’d stopped coming.

The ins and outs weren’t my business, so I knew nothing about it.

Not that it mattered. Someone here would know why they fell out, what the late duke ate for breakfast, and what he did at nine-twenty-two a.m. on the thirteenth of June, nineteen-eighty-two.

Such was life in a tight-knit community.

Well, it didn’t affect me either way what the new duke did or where he lived. You couldn’t pay me to work at Hanbury House, so aside from dealing with allotment matters, there was little to no chance of our paths ever crossing.

That was perfectly fine by me. I could live more than happily if I never had to speak with a de Havilland ever again in my life, and the new duke would be no exception.

There was a time and a place to mingle with the aristocracy. I had no time for it, nor did I ever wish to be in a place where such a thing might occur.

Which meant the past six months had been very, very peaceful for me.

I doubted I would get that kind of peace again.

Which was somewhat ironic, given that I was a harbinger of chaos—at least according to my mother. I usually tried not to listen to her, but sometimes, some things were just undeniable.

I could do without the ‘harbinger of chaos’ being a comparison to a cat, though.

I pulled up outside the Hoopers’ cottage and grabbed my phone, quickly disconnecting it from the van’s Bluetooth. I dialled the number I had for Old Man Bruce at Hanbury House and tapped my fingers against the steering wheel.

“Good afternoon, you’ve reached the butler’s office at Hanbury House,” Bruce said smoothly. “How may I help you?”

“Bruce, it’s Rose.”

“Oh, Rosie. Your mum passed on the message, I presume?”

Ugh. “My name is still Rose, old man. Not Rosie.Rose,” I replied. “And no, Jake did, so assume I know absolutely nothing other than the fact that you called.”

Bruce chuckled. “You never used to mind being called Rosie as a child.”

“I’m not a child,” I said dryly. “To what do I owe the horror of a call from the esteemed cesspit that is Hanbury House?”

“His Grace asked me to arrange a meeting with you at your earliest convenience to discuss the allotments.”

“In other words, I should make sure I’m available athisearliest convenience, is that right?”

Bruce paused. “His Grace is remarkably like his grandfather in temperament, yes.”

“Then stop piss-arsing around and tell me when he wants to meet me.”

“You have such a wonderful way with words, my dear.”

“Buh-ruuuuuuce.”

He cleared his throat. “He’d like to meet you first thing tomorrow morning.”

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