Free Less Than a Gentleman by Kerrelyn Sparks

roses. She set her cleaning supplies down next to the latticework. Glancing up, she spotted the balcony to the bedchamber where she’d been so rudely awakened. Had Haversham climbed the latticework to sneak into the room? Where was he now? The rascal had disappeared after breakfast.
    She groaned. Once again, she was thinking about him. Firmly shoving him from her mind, she strolled into the garden. A tall metal device at the end of the garden pool drew her attention. Strips of metal formed a hollow sphere with Roman numerals embossed inside. An arrow shot through the center. She surmised it was some sort of sundial.
    Charlotte and Edward skipped around the reflecting pool, then leaned over to dangle their hands in the water. She avoided looking in the pool, not wishing to see how many new freckles she had acquired on her journey from the Pee Dee River.
    Jane emerged from the back door, a large bonnet atop her head, thick gloves on her hands and a basket in the crook of her arm. “Ah, there you are.” She dropped her basket in front of a bed of blooming marigolds. “I thought I would do a little work in the garden.”
    Caroline joined her. “May I help you?”
    Jane motioned to her apron. “Betsy told me you were cleaning in the nursery. There’s really no need. You’re my guests here.”
    “We don’t wish to be a burden.” Caroline knelt in front of the flowerbed. “And I enjoy gardening. I did most of it at our home in Charles Town.”
    Jane gave her an amused look. “I’m surprised, Agatha. I thought your family had quite a few servants.”
    “Oh, well, times have been difficult lately.” Feeling her cheeks grow hot, Caroline looked away. She could hear the children laughing, but they were nowhere in sight. “Where are Edward and Charlotte?”
    Jane removed a small cushion from the basket and knelt on it. “It sounds like they’re in the pergola.”
    “Oh.” Caroline scanned the three borders of the garden. She had assumed the climbing roses and jasmine covered walls, but instead, they formed hollow tunnels. “You have a marvelous garden.”
    “Yes, it has been my one joy in life. Other than Matthias, of course.”
    Caroline dug her fingers around the prickly base of a dandelion and yanked it out. “ ’Tis a large garden for you to tend by yourself.”
    “Yes. I fear we’re very short on help these days.” Jane used her shears to snip off dead flowers. “My husband went to defend Charles Town and took quite a few of the men with him. I suppose they’re all prisoners now. At least the ones who survived.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    With a sigh, Jane moved her pillow down to the next group of flowers. “Then we suffered an epidemic of smallpox and lost half a dozen farmhands.”
    “How terrible.” Caroline pulled another weed. “What do you grow here? Indigo?”
    “Yes.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “If you had come a few weeks earlier, you would have smelled it a mile away. It causes an awful stink when they cook it down to bricks. I always spent the summer months in Charles Town to escape the smell, but of course with the British there, I was forced to remain here.”
    “I see.”
    “I’ve been alone here for months. Matthias is not able to stop by very often.”
    Caroline added another pulled weed to her growing pile. “He must be very busy with the war. You said he was a soldier?”
    “Yes, a captain.”
    Was he still alive? Caroline hoped so, for Jane’s sake, but prayed she’d be gone before he could return.
    Jane sighed. “There’s too much here for me to keep up with. Dottie and Betsy are the only servants in the kitchen and the Great House. Betsy’s indentureship will be over in another year. I don’t know what I’ll do then.”
    “I would be happy to help. And you also have Haversham.”
    Jane winced as she accidentally snipped off a live flower. “I . . . uh, had to relieve Haversham from his duties as a butler.”
    Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “Oh.” The colors