Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter Thirty Two - Part Three

 

5

Exhausted from the trials of his day, Burt rolled out his pallet and got ready to go to sleep, stripping down naked. He scratched his arse and then got under his blanket and lay staring up at the ceiling.

It was almost impossible to believe that after all this time Lady Ann was finally returning. He was a little worried that she hadn’t turned up today as expected but felt sure that she would appear the next day, exactly four weeks after she had left.

To think of seeing her again filled him with… he didn’t know what. Dread? Yes. Certainly. He was terrified of how it would feel to see her and know how superior she was to him. She was one of the landed gentry, far higher than him on the social scale. He was a country bumpkin labourer. She was a high society well-bred lady. He knew that was who he used to be but he felt completely detached from that persona now. She was the upper class daughter of his employer. He was her servant. He had no right to even speak to her directly unless bidden to. He shouldn’t even dare to look at her.

What would it feel like to stand before her, knowing how drastically their statuses had reversed – to know how low and pitiful he was next to that wonderful woman?

And what else did he feel?

Excitement?

The chance to see the beautiful angel he had spent so long fantasising about, wishing he could see again. It would be truly magical to set eyes on her fine features and bask in her glorious eyes. Despite all the history between them, he wanted nothing so much as the chance to take her in his manly arms and press his lips to hers. He wanted to make her his woman, even as he knew in his heart that he wasn’t good enough for her and never would be.

And fear and trepidation: he felt those too.

Why was she returning? What had brought her back? Did she plan to exchange forms once more? He couldn’t know.

Would she draw him off to some secret place and put the pendant around her neck. Would she embrace him, initiating the mystical exchange of their destinies?

Or would she laugh in his face at the very concept? Was she planning to keep that life that he had given up all right to?

Would he be his old self come sundown the next day? Was that even possible?

And could he even accept that after giving his word before God and the Earl that he would always live up to his responsibilities as a servant?

Burt’s mind was crackling with conflicting thoughts and nowhere could he settle on anything as clear as the simple pleasure he’d had in doing his duty as a man earlier that day. That was the only truth he could cling onto.

He had been truly happy to take up his job at the hall once again; to be a servant, dutifully following orders. He loved his job. He loved knowing that others would tell him what to do – that he didn’t have to struggle to think for himself.

Every instinct he had told him to cling onto that and to go on clinging. It was the only thing he could be certain of.

He closed his eyes and shivered, imagining how it would feel to see the coach pull up, the door open: to see Lady Ann descending at long last.

Would he stand proud and demand his body back?

Or would he act every bit as servile to her as he did to the rest of her family?

He didn’t know.

But he didn’t have long now before he would find out.