The Privileged and the Damned

by Kimberly Lang

  Just the opening he needed. “Lily’s hardly a child. She’s what? Twenty-five?” he fished.

  Gloria took the bait. “More like twenty-two or-three. She’s just so sweet, though, it makes her seem even younger. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, either.”

  Ethan swallowed a mouthful of biscuit. “What?” he asked innocently.

  “I’m wise to you. You leave Lily alone.”

  Lily had a champion already. “You make it sound like I’m planning on doing something terrible to her.”

  “Not on purpose, I know. But Lily’s a good girl and doesn’t need you messing with her head.” Gloria pursed her lips. “Or her anything else, for that matter.”

  “I was simply curious as to how old Lily was. Now I know.” He vaguely wondered what Gloria knew that had her so protective of Lily. Even from him. “Is there more sausage?” he asked to change the subject.

  Predictably, Gloria’s need to feed took over and she immediately went to the stove. “I’m afraid you’re on your own today. The Senator and Mrs. Marshall left early this morning to go to the Weatherlys’ to see the new foal Spider sired. It was planned before they knew you were coming, but they knew you’d probably have plenty to keep you occupied.”

  He did have plenty to do: a ton of emails waiting for his attention, and a dozen phone calls he should make. But they’d waited this long; another day wasn’t going to make that much of a difference. A whole day of doing nothing important sounded very appealing. “No problem. I’m sure I can find something to amuse myself.”

  Gloria slid the sausage onto his plate and frowned at him. “And never in your life has that sentence not equaled trouble.”

  Lily knew the moment Ethan entered the stable. The energy felt different. It sounded just as silly today as it had yesterday, but she would swear it was true.

  Maybe it was just because she happened to be mucking the stall next to Tinker’s when the horse perked up and started whinnying.

  In twenty-four hours she’d managed to develop quite a crush on Ethan Marshall. It was silly, to be honest, but true nonetheless. After all, what wasn’t crush-worthy about the man? As long as she accepted it for exactly what it was, then there was no harm in it. She was a realist; she knew how the world worked and her place on the food chain. It was no different, really, than a crush on some movie star equally unobtainable.

  Still, though, it felt rather nice; just another emotion she hadn’t let herself experience in a long time.

  She heard Ethan greet his horse, and the way he talked to Tinker made her smile. These horses were family pets—not for competition or show—and as far as she knew there wasn’t a Marshall in the bloodline who wasn’t completely horse-crazy.

  Screwing the lid back on the bottle of motor oil, she stepped out of Duke’s stall, drawing Ethan’s attention and a lazy smile of greeting that made her stomach flutter a little. Then the bottle caught his attention. “Duke’s cribbing again?”

  “Yeah. I swear that horse needs therapy. Or antidepressants. Nothing we’re doing seems to help, so I’m trying to at least make his stall taste bad before he chews it to bits.”

  “Finn says he’s coming out next weekend. Maybe that will help settle Duke down.”

  Finn, she knew, was Ethan’s younger brother. The wild one who lived out in Los Angeles and produced movies—whatever that entailed. “Couldn’t hurt. Maybe Duke just misses him.” Tinker was butting against the stall door, wanting out. She patted his nose. “You are next for new shoes, so stay put.” Realizing that Ethan probably wanted to ride, she added, “Sorry. We’re a bit behind. Things are a little crazy around here today.”

  “When are they not?”

  “Very true.” She put the oil bottle on the ground and picked up the stall pick. Going back into Duke’s stall got Ethan out of her line of sight and let her stomach settle. She started spreading the clean bedding over the floor. “If you want, I can call up to the house when Tinker’s ready,” she said over her shoulder.

  “It’s not a problem.”

  Ethan spoke from right behind her, causing her to jump. She turned, surprised he’d followed her in, only to get confused when she saw the pitchfork in his hand. “Um…” Surprise and confusion turned to complete jaw-dropping amazement when he started banking the bedding into the corners like a pro. “Um, what are you doing?”

  Ethan looked at her like she was a little slow.

  “I mean, I know what you’re doing. What I want know is why you’re doing it.” In here.

  “You said things are crazy today, and I thought I’d help.”

  Ethan Marshall. Mucking a stall. Two things that did not go nicely together in her head. “What if you get caught doing my job—”

  “Honey, I’ve mucked these stalls thousands of times.”

  “Really?” She was too distracted by the movement of his powerful shoulders as they forked another load of bedding to say much more.

  “Yes, really.” He shot her a grin. “In fact, I’m probably better at it than you are.”

  Like that was something Ethan would put on his résumé. “I’ll take your word for it, honestly.” Confusion reigned, and Lily struggled to make sense of the scene before her. “Look, if you’re waiting for Tinker—”

  “It’ll do me some good. I spend too much time behind a desk these days. I’m getting soft.”

  “Soft” was definitely not one of the many adjectives she’d choose to describe Ethan. Biceps strained against the fabric of his T-shirt as he worked, thigh muscles contracted and flexed under faded denim that hugged a really nice, tight… Lily moved to stand in front of the fan and closed her eyes as the air rushed over her face.

  “You okay?” She looked over to see Ethan had stopped working and was now watching her, eyebrows pulled together in concern.

  “I’m fine.” She poked at the bedding with her pick, moving it around aimlessly, unable to really focus.

  “The summer I was fifteen, the stable manager’s niece came to work here. She might have been older than me, but she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” He leaned on the pitchfork. “She knew it, too, and told me how impressed she was by my mucking technique. I mucked more stalls that summer…”

  “To impress her?” Because good looks, charm and money weren’t enough? The girl had to be crazy. She couldn’t imagine a teenage Ethan would be lacking in any of those attributes any more than he was now.

  He laughed ruefully. “She just wanted someone else to do the work, but, yeah, I thought I was impressing the hell out of her every day.”

  Could she get fired for letting Ethan do her job? That was something she really couldn’t afford to risk. “If I tell you I’m impressed, will you stop?”

  “You don’t want help?”

  “Really not. I’d prefer to do it myself.”

  Ethan looked at her strangely, but set the fork aside. “Then be my guest.”

  Lily breathed a small sigh of relief. “Thank you.” Maybe her crush on Ethan wasn’t as good an idea as she’d convinced herself. She was making an utter ass of herself.

  Instead of leaving, however, he leaned against the wall, like he had all the time in the world and no place better to go. She tried to pretend he wasn’t there and just finish up, but Ethan was simply impossible to ignore. Tinker stuck his head over the wall and nuzzled against his shoulder, and he lifted his hand to pat the horse absently. “So, where are you from?”

  Damn. It was a perfectly innocent question, but she still hated it. It was a gateway to more questions. “Mississippi.”

  “That explains your accent. What part?”

  She tried to sound nonchalant, shrugging and falling back on practiced answers. “We moved around a lot, so nowhere particular.”

  “What brought you to Virginia?”

  It was as far as I could get before the money ran out. Swallowing against the curl of nausea, she struggled this time to keep her voice light. “A desire to see a different part of the country
.”

  “It must be tough to be so far from your family, though.”

  She bit back the snort. He might see it that way. “Can’t be helped, so I’m dealing with it.”

  “Gloria says you took the apartment over the office.”

  Focus on what you’re doing. Maybe he’ll get the hint. “Uh-huh.”

  “And do you like living here at Hill Chase?”

  She could hear the teasing impatience in his voice at her distracted, vague answers, but she was getting impatient to end this conversation. “Not to be rude, but can I ask why you’re asking all these questions?”

  His eyebrows went up in surprise, and she regretted the sharpness of the question. “Being friendly?”

  There’s friendly and then there’s freaking me out. “Why?”

  “Maybe I’m just a friendly guy. Is that a problem?”

  Yeah. “I realize we got off to a weird start, but please don’t feel like you have to be nice to me or anything. I just work here.”

  Ethan was silent for a moment. Maybe she’d gone a little too far. He finally nodded. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Thank you.” Lily grabbed the empty wheelbarrow and rolled it away, feeling Ethan’s stare on her back as she left. Once outside, she parked the wheelbarrow by the wall and sagged against the building.

  She’d just been horribly rude to her boss’s grandson, but she couldn’t help it. Why, exactly, she didn’t know. It wasn’t like no one had ever asked her those questions before. They were simple enough conversation, nothing really out of the ordinary, and until now she’d been able to fake her way through. There was something about having Ethan ask her, though, that made it harder.

  Clarity arrived a little too late, and she banged her head against the wall gently. Her little crush wasn’t harmless at all.

  Thank God Ethan wouldn’t be staying long at Hill Chase this time. She’d just have to make her way through it as best she could. And by his next visit she’d have it—hell, everything—better under control.

  Ethan watched Lily turn the corner, the tension in her shoulders so fierce it had to be painful. She was acting like a few simple questions were the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. He looked at Tinker. “What is Lily’s deal?” The horse rolled his eyes. “You don’t know either, huh?”

  However, anyone who thought Lily was shy was blind and possibly stupid. That much he knew for sure now. Lily simply didn’t want to talk, and that was a far cry from being shy. He fully understood the feeling; he’d just never been on the receiving end before.

  The correct thing to do would be to leave Lily alone, respect her privacy, and forget the way those big brown eyes moved over him like a breeder evaluating a stud.

  That last bit was unlikely, since just the memory was enough to make his skin burn. And that made the chance of him doing the other two “correct” things also rather slim.

  More importantly, he didn’t want to. Something about Lily’s fresh-faced earthiness intrigued him. Unlike the over-polished women from the country club Nana kept pushing at him, Lily seemed real. And, unlike the women who wanted him for his name or his money or his status, Lily acted like those were marks against him. Lily was different and she posed a challenge—two things he suddenly, and oddly, found irresistible.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket as a text came in.

  Need you to make an appearance at fundraiser Saturday. Black tie.

  Not likely, he thought, and deleted the message.

  As if Brady knew what he’d done, a second message appeared.

  The Grands will kill you if you don’t show.

  Boy, Brady was really pulling out the big guns. First some lecture on the “greater good” to appeal to his sense of reason, and when that didn’t work going back for the bigger ammunition of Nana and Granddad. He suddenly felt the need to visit Finn in California on Saturday. No one expected Finn to play nice, to put on the happy family face for the donors and the voters, and Ethan envied that. At the same time, things had been much harder for Finn: he’d been too young to understand what was really going on, and his and Brady’s attempts to shield Finn had only made things worse in the long run. As far as dirty laundry went, it wasn’t enough to derail the campaign in any way, so while it wouldn’t serve any purpose ever to air it, it still galled him to play along.

  He deleted Brady’s second message and put the phone away. Ignoring the unpleasant, pretending it didn’t exist, putting a positive face on… That was just the Marshall family way.

  And he was, as everyone liked to remind him, a Marshall.

  But at the same time…

  He pulled his phone back out and sent Brady a short message: No.

  Two hours later, Lily felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. But not because of her little crush. She could deal with that. It was embarrassing, but not shameful. And it was the shame driving her feelings of idiocy right now.

  She’d overreacted. Taken everything in the wrong context. Let her own feelings and fears color what, in retrospect, was obviously completely innocent. Ethan, it seemed, really was just a friendly guy. While Tinker was off getting shod, he wandered around the stable, talking to everyone from Ray, the stable manager, to the guy delivering feed, and pitching in to help with whatever that person was doing at the time. At one point she walked around a corner—thinking he had left already—only to find him amusing the barn cats with a frayed piece of rope.

  Quite the idiot, indeed. And now the mental self-flagellation was giving her a headache. To make the whole thing even worse, a glance at the clock said it was only just past two. This ridiculous day was barely half over. She needed aspirin.

  The fact a room came with the job had been a big plus when she’d applied, and was even more so today. A couple of minutes alone would help the headache as well as give her a chance to regroup.

  But it seemed this day wasn’t finished messing with her head just yet, because of course she had to run right into the cause of her headache. Dammit, the Marshall estate was practically the size of her hometown—why did she have to see him every time she turned around?

  Lily attempted what she hoped was a casual, noncommittal yet friendly nod as she passed, but when Ethan returned it the quirk of his lips had her picking up her pace, mounting the stairs and climbing them two at a time. Honestly, she didn’t care what he thought.

  Halfway up, she missed a step. She grabbed for the handrail, but didn’t quite manage to stop her fall.

  Her foot went through the riser space, sending pain shooting up her leg as the wood stair dug into her shin and her knee twisted. Falling sideways, she saw stars as her head banged the handrail.

  A second later she felt hands on her shoulders, steadying her, and she was able to catch her breath. She knew without looking who her savior was. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  But then Ethan was tilting her chin up, his eyes scanning her face for damage, and she had to rethink that idea. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just clumsy.” Embarrassment combined with close proximity to Ethan had her face feeling sunburned.

  He helped her untangle her leg and pulled her gently to her feet. She winced as she put weight on her leg, and Ethan frowned. “Let’s get you inside and assess the damage.”

  “I’m fine,” she protested, only to end up sputtering as Ethan bent slightly and hooked an arm under her legs. A second later she was cradled against that chest she’d been admiring yesterday—and it felt even better than it looked. She inhaled, liking the simple smells of sunshine and man and soap, allowing herself to enjoy this feeling for just a brief moment. Her skin heated, but she wasn’t sure if that was her or the warmth of his skin seeping through his shirt.

  He climbed the remaining stairs easily, as if she weighed nothing, and turned sideways to carry her into the apartment. As he eased her down onto the bed, moving pillows behind her so she could lie back against the headboard comfortably, Lily felt her heart beat stutter.

  “Just
a bang. It’s fine.” Granted, she did feel a little addled, but it had nothing to do with hitting her head. In fact, she was starting to get used to the feeling.

  Ethan crossed to the little kitchenette in two steps, and Lily realized how tiny her apartment really was. He seemed to fill the entire space, making it feel even smaller. Returning a second later with a wet paper towel, he dabbed at a place above her eyebrow, and the stab of pain surprised her.

  The hissing sound she made caused him to frown. He fished in his pocket and produced a cell phone. “I’m calling a doctor.”

  “That’s not necessary. I’m okay. Just a little banged up. No big deal.”

  Ethan didn’t seem convinced, but he put the phone away. “We’ll see. Do you have any ice packs?”

  “Not up here.”

  “I’ll go down to the office and get some, and a couple of bandages, too.” The ease with which Ethan took charge was oddly comforting. “Do you need help getting your jeans off?”

  Shock cut through her. “Excuse me?”

  “We need to look at your leg too.”

  Lily looked down and saw blood seeping through the fabric over her shin. Suddenly the throbbing pain intensified. “I can handle it.”

  “Then I’ll help with your boots.” Before she even processed what he was doing, or could form a protest, her cropped boots were off and Ethan was almost out the door. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  She was still reeling in various stages and kinds of shock, but she had no doubt he’d be back in no time. Ethan seemed to want to play knight in shining armor at the moment. And, while she wasn’t exactly the average damsel in distress, she had to admit it was kind of nice to be fussed over a little.

  Especially by Ethan.

  That didn’t mean she wanted Ethan’s help removing her clothes, though, and she shimmied out of her jeans as quickly as she could, wincing as the denim peeled away from a raw-looking scrape that nearly covered her entire shin. This was the last straw: even if she had to give up eating, she was buying new boots with her next paycheck. Tall ones. She was tired of wet feet and banged shins…