A Lord for Olivia by June Calvin

the boy followed a sliding avalanche of hay over the side of the wagon. What was left of the pile unceremoniously followed, covering him entirely.
    The workers laughed as they dug him out, spluttering with frustration. “Leave me be,” he growled, shaking them and a quantity of hay off and stalking up to his sister. “You think you’ve beaten me, don’t you? Well, I’m not done yet!”
    Edmund nodded in approbation of the lad’s determination before returning to his task. He tested the load with his feet to see if there was any tendency to move in one particular direction. If so, he knew he had to alter the pattern of the next layer to knit the growing tower of hay more firmly together.
    At last he stood atop a veritable mountain of hay, too high to receive any more from the workers so far below. He put his rake carefully in the center and used it to brace himself as he tested the load all around. Then he looked around to see how Jason was doing. His stack was only half as high, and leaning to one side, for which reason Jason was desperately adding new bundles of hay to the other side. Edmund had mixed emotions as he watched the youth struggle to balance the load.
    It will never make it to the barn, particularly as it must go up an incline to do so, he concluded. That thought should have given him pleasure, for it meant he could learn about agricultural management from Miss Ormhill, and would have a roof over his head for a year.
    This practical point of view did not keep him from regretting, when he looked at the lovely Miss Olivia Ormhill, that she would not be his bride. So he reminded himself of her tart tongue and low opinion of him.
    He looked around, and found that she had ridden near and was looking up at him. “You still have to get it into the barn, you know,” she said, her eyes flashing a challenge.
    â€œTrue enough! Lead on,” he commanded the boy who had been entrusted with keeping the pair of oxen from wandering, not that they had any interest in doing so, with all ofthe sweet fresh hay they could ever desire right beneath their noses.
    â€œNo, not yet,” Olivia said, stopping the boy with a gesture. “I want to wait until Jason’s wagon is ready to move, too.” She didn’t want any of the workers coaching him while she followed Edmund up the hill.
    Edmund leaned on his rake and watched as Jason stacked the hay higher and higher. Perhaps the boy had caught on. He glanced down to see Olivia looking up at him, a frown on her face, and her lip caught by one eyetooth again. He smiled slowly, and gave her an elaborate bow.
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    Olivia had watched with growing dismay as Lord Edmund caught the hay her workers threw up to him, his movements ever more dextrous as he built up the load. She hadn’t the slightest idea how the hay was made to stay in place, but it became painfully clear that Lord Edmund did. How could she fulfill her part of the bargain? She feared she would never be able to be in his presence, working with him every day, without yielding to her attraction to him. And she was attracted to him. She had been even before that delightful kiss last night. However she might disdain him for the cardsharp and fortune hunter he had shown himself to be, the heat still rose in her cheeks and elsewhere in her body whenever she looked at him.
    Watching his long, lean frame as he caught, laid, and teased the hay into place was torture. Sweat had long since plastered the workman’s tunic to his broad chest and muscled thighs. He had become a piece of moving sculpture, with a body to put those pagan statues of Lord Elgin’s to shame.
    As she noted Jason’s improved performance with his haystack, she found herself half yearning for him to succeed, that she might be wedded and bedded by the so-tempting Lord Edmund. She gnawed at her lower lip and looked up to encounter the subject of her fantasy looking down at her, heat in his brown