“It helps if you occasionally add a log,” Ewan pointed out.

She shot him a look. “Why don’t you sit down and rest while I heave a tree limb or two onto the fire?”

“I can’t sit down,” he said, giving her a rueful grin. “I’ll put on a log.”

“Does it hurt very much?” And, when he shook his head, “I suppose it doesn’t matter that we don’t have a horse, because you wouldn’t be comfortable riding it.”

Ewan shuddered at the thought of sitting on a saddle. He was starting to feel like an idiot. He hadn’t even thought about keeping a horse for their use. His Shakespearean idea was seeming stupider by the moment. No wonder he didn’t like the play when it was performed: clearly the whole idea was ludicrous.

“Let me guess,” Annabel said in a voice that was obviously trying to be solicitous, “your stings are annoying you.”

Indeed, Ewan was starting to feel annoyed. Uncharacteristically annoyed. Annabel looked so delectable that the only thing he wanted was to throw her onto the bed and make her happy in the best way possible. Except that his ass felt as if it had been burned by a red-hot poker, and it probably looked like the devil’s pincushion. There went all his plans to seduce his almost-wife this afternoon. Plus his conscience was bothering him about that seduction in the first place. Why on earth had he lost his control and consummated a marriage that didn’t exist? What was it about Annabel that had him throwing his principles to the winds?

He stomped outside, feeling thoroughly out of sorts. He had spent two hours trying to pry that damn rock out of Kettle’s field, all for nothing. He scowled at the surrounding woods. According to Annabel, his life was overly comfortable, but at least he didn’t break his back doing useless labor.

Then his eyes lightened. “Oh, Annabel!” he called. “My lovely wife!”

“I’m not your wife yet,” she said, appearing in the doorway. His eyes slid over her and a familiar feeling of desire gripped him so hard he almost started shaking. It was embarrassing. He was out of control. He felt another surge of irritation, so he gave her his silkiest smile.

“I know that you will be enchanted to know that our lost chicken has returned home,” he said, pointing.

Annabel’s shriek startled the hen so much that she flew into the air with a squawk. “Get off my sheet!” she shouted. “You—you idiot chicken!”

Ewan threw back his head and laughed. “If only we’d trained her to use a chamber pot. That hen—”

She turned to him, fist clenched. “Don’t you dare laugh at me! That sheet took two hours to wash! Two hours! And now—and now—she’s ruined it! I’ll have to go back to that awful stream and try again.”

To Ewan’s horror, tears welled in Annabel’s eyes.

“I never cry!” she shouted at him.

“I know that,” he said. “I mean, of course you don’t.”

“It’s just that the water was so cold.” She wiped the tears away. Ewan looked around the dusty clearing and felt like the dunce he was. Why did he bring a lady to live in a hovel? He prided himself on being thoughtful and kind to others. In his better moments, he would even have called himself intelligent.

“I’ll wash the sheet,” he said. “You make some potatoes.”

An hour later Ewan was in a mood rivaled only by a man-eating tiger faced with an elephant stampede. The river water was frigid, and he was soaking wet. He couldn’t get the spot made by the chicken to come off until he rubbed the sheet on a rock, and then the spot was replaced by a hole. Every time he bent over, the bee stings burned his ass. Water was dripping from his ears and trickling down inside his boots. He was starved, and he wanted a four-course meal, not another charred potato.

He walked into the house and realized that no potatoes, charred or otherwise, were forthcoming. The fire was out again, and Annabel was nowhere to be seen. He walked over and peered at the fireplace. It looked like she’d spilled water. Wonderful. They had freezing wet sheets, no fire and no food.

Was it too much to ask that she make a damned potato?

He stalked back out of the house to find Annabel emerging from the woodshed, a log clutched against her chest. The white lace that edged her bodice was specked with wood dust. She looked exhausted and dirty. The taste of guilt was like bitter metal in his mouth.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled, snatching the log.

She frowned at him. “The pan tipped again and I had to find a dry log.”

“You could have waited for me and I would have fetched the wood.”

Annabel put her hands on her hips. “You could have made sure that we had sufficient logs in the house!”

“I was busy washing that sheet,” Ewan said, anger rising in his chest. “I’m damn well starving to death and I get back to find that you’ve doused the fire again, and there’s not even a charred potato to eat!”

“How dare you say such a thing!” Annabel said furiously. “This is your foolish idea, and all because you have no imagination. I told you that it would be miserable to live here! But did you listen to me? No!”

Ewan could feel the shards of his composure dissolving like ice in the sun. “It would have been perfectly easy to stay here for a few days, if you showed a bit of competence,” he growled.

“My father was unfortunate in his financial dealings, but he was never reduced to making his daughters into servants. I suppose I could apologize for being unable to cook, but, in fact, I am not sorry. I don’t like cooking, and I didn’t plan to spend my married life learning how.”

Guilt and anger were roiling in Ewan’s chest. “I apologize for asking you to do more than polish your smiles,” he barked. “I’ll buy you bales of silk when we reach my house. If I remember rightly, you judged silk the key to happiness.”

“At least I’ve been honest with you. I told you that I hoped to marry a rich man, precisely so that I wouldn’t have to agonize over the next meal. You, on the other hand, suggested that patience was your best virtue. In fact, if I remember correctly, you viewed marriage as some sort of a gift you would bestow on a poor, griefstricken woman like my sister: the magnificent gift of your cheerful, patient self!”

“You make me sound like a damned boaster,” Ewan snarled.

“I hope it doesn’t upset your image of yourself if I point out that your use of curses indicates precisely how pious you truly are?”

“Oh, I believe in God,” Ewan said bleakly. “That’s got nothing to do with my lack of control around you.”

“Don’t blame me!” Annabel cried, her hands on her hips. “If you aren’t peevish so very often, it’s likely because everyone treats you like the king of the castle. More ordinary mortals learn from their mistakes.”

Ewan’s temper abruptly flared out of control again. “I hope you’re not classing yourself with those ordinary mortals. Because most people I know can heat a pail of water without washing out the fireplace.”

“Just how many people did you know who have ever heated a bucket of water?” Annabel demanded. “Or washed a sheet in a stream, for that matter? Your grandmother, the countess? Does she heat up huge pails of water over the fire for a spot of entertainment?”