Axel by Grace Burrowes

whelp, or his mares come May, but when he got to brooding, it was mostly about the past. He was old enough to have lost many friends along the way.”
    “One doesn’t like to think of that aspect of a long life. My parents were barely forty when they died.”
    Where in the perishing, frozen hell had that admission come from?
    Mrs. Stoneleigh squeezed Axel’s hand. “That is young. No wonder you and your brother are close.”
    “Blazing, bedamned perdition.” Axel came to an abrupt stop a dozen yards from the edge of a wide field, where eight shaggy, sway-bellied horses placidly regarded the approaching humans. “It is damned February, and that is a goddamned foal in my field.”
    He’d vaulted the fence and left Mrs. Stoneleigh standing on the snowy lane before he recalled that one didn’t curse in the presence of a lady.
    Well…
blast
.

Chapter Five
    “I have correspondence to tend to, and my prison cell has a well-stocked escritoire,” Abby said. “Enjoy your bath, Mr. Belmont.”
    “You are my guest,” he replied, before Abby could reach the stairs. “You have my thanks for your assistance with the foal. Few ladies would have managed as well.”
    Abby started up the stairs at a brisk pace, though the walk across the Belmont fields had renewed her exhaustion. Then too, thanks from Axel Belmont would surely put her to the blush, and her dignity could not bear that insult.
    A marmalade cat leapt up the steps ahead of her and waited on the landing, almost as if the beast knew what an effort mere stairs had become. The cat followed Abby up to her sitting room, a cozy space adjoining her bedroom.
    “I don’t even know your name,” she said to the cat, who appropriated a spot on the sofa.
    “That’s Lancelot.”
    Abby jumped half out of her boots at the voice from the bedroom, though it was a female voice.
    “Show yourself, please.”
    “Mr. Belmont says your fire is to be kept blazing,” said a young lady emerging from the other chamber. “A tea tray is on the way with plenty of biscuits. The Belmont menfolk are ever so fond of their biscuits.”
    The maid, a mature, sturdy, red-haired woman rather than girl, was clearly fond of the Belmont menfolk. The porcelain vase she carried held a single red rose, and that she placed on the desk.
    “A tray won’t be necessary.” Finding a seat had become imperative, however. Abby took the chair behind the escritoire, despite proximity to the window making that a cold choice. The rose—a big, gorgeous specimen just shy of full bloom—would look pretty in any location.
    “Mr. Belmont said you’d refuse a tray, and we’re to ignore you. Lancelot will help you with the cream, the shameless beggar. We’re to serve you cream rather than milk on the professor’s orders.” The maid added wood to the fire—not coal. “Would you be having a nap after your tea, ma’am?”
    God, yes
. “I had thought to work on my correspondence.”
    “Mr. Belmont’s mood is never improved by his correspondence, not that he’s a cheery soul to begin with. You might consider getting into your dressing gown, and if you find your eyes growing heavy, you can catch a lie-down at your pleasure.”
    Abby knew well what manner of maid had been dispatched to attend her. If Axel Belmont was the general in command of the entire estate, Mrs. Turnbull was his trusted lieutenant, all smiles and polite suggestions one dared not thwart.
    This maid was his gunnery sergeant, adept at handling both raw recruits and smoking cannon, all while appearing to defer to the commissioned officers.
    “What is your name?”
    “I’m Hennessey, though the footmen call me Carrot, because of my hair. Will you need anything else, ma’am?”
    Abby could get herself out of a riding habit, and her own dressing gown was draped over the privacy screen visible in the bedroom.
    “Nothing, thank you. What time is dinner?”
    “Country hours. Six, more or less, depending on Mr. Belmont’s schedule. He’ll try