Page 83 of From Best Friend to Bride
“Send Granny with her. It’ll get them out of our hair for a couple hours.”
“Hmm, good idea. I think I’ll do just that. Send them on a proper day out, just the two of them. Are you all right with that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She’ll love that. They can see a show and have afternoon tea, and we’ll hold her party a few days later.”
“All right, I’ll get it sorted.”
I looked up at him, catching his gaze. He was smiling, and it reached the bluest depths of his eyes, sending a little shiver dancing down the back of my neck. I barely fought the urge to give into it, and I quickly turned away before I read too much into that.
A man who cared about your family and your feelings was really the sexiest thing ever.
A thought that I was very uncomfortable having about Fred, it had to be said.
“Hey, I meant to ask. How do you know everything about them?” I asked, twiddling my thumbs in front of me.
“About who?”
“The gardeners.”
“Oh.” He let his arm fall away from my shoulders as we walked into the kitchen, and a tiny chill danced over my bare skin with the absence of his warmth. “I’d love to say I stayed up all night for a month studying everything about them, but it’s far more boring than that. Many of them have worked here for years, so I’ve naturally learnt about their lives. As for the newer staff… Well, I’m pretty good at remembering names, and I guess I’m just easy to talk to.”
He pulled two mugs down from the cupboard, offering one in my direction. I nodded, and he turned back to make two cups of tea. Black for him, green for me.
“But that’s a lot of people to remember. Do you really know everyone in this place?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “And the ones I don’t know, I spend a bit of time talking to when I see them. It’s my duty as the lord of this estate and their employer to ensure they’re all doing well. If they’re struggling in any way and I can help, I see it as my responsibility to ensure they can access the assistance they need. Sometimes it’s a bit of time off with pay to care for a sick relative. Sometimes it’s more flexible hours to look after their children or to work around medical appointments. Sometimes it’s more serious and they don’t know where to start looking for things like legal representation.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How did I never know you do all that?”
He shrugged, tossing a quick grin over his shoulder. “So there is something you don’t know about me.”
I poked my tongue out at him. “I’m very offended by this gap in my knowledge. How could you keep such a secret from me?”
“It’s hardly a secret.” He laughed, pouring boiling water into our mugs. “More that it never came up and you simply never witnessed it.”
That would make sense.
Plus, like he’d said earlier, I did have a terrible habit of only paying attention to the things I wanted to.
Fred slid my green tea in front of me and sat down on the stool next to me.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a really good person, babykins?” I asked.
He blinked at me. “How can you keep a straight face when you call me that?”
“It’s one of my many, many talents.” I shrugged and cradled my mug. “Well, have they?”
He shook his head, looking like he wanted to wring my neck for that nickname.
Hey, I know I said I’d stick to his name, but if he was going to insist on calling me ‘my pretty wife,’ then I had to get him back somehow.
Babykins just seemed right.
Besides, it’d been his teenage nickname once upon a time. He’d called me sugartits to piss me off once when we’d had an argument, so I’d responded in kind with babykins, and they’d both just kind of… stuck.
Not that much, though, but it’d been a good few months of us calling each other nothing but that until we got tired of it.
Now, though?
