An Accidental Seduction (9 page)

“By the time James returned here, it will be well dark.”

True enough. “Then you’ll have to do something yourself.”

He winced. “I don’t…” he began, and paused.

“What?”

“The truth is, I don’t much care for blood, lass.”

“Are you serious?”

He scowled at her, looking honestly peeved. “Perhaps you drink it for breakfast?”

She stared at him for several seconds, brows raised, then dismounted. Dropping the mare’s reins, she approached the distressed animal slowly. Too absorbed in her own troubles, the ewe remained as she was, eyes staring, mouth open and panting.

“There now,” Savaana crooned. She had lost Lady Tilmont’s supercilious accent, but she hardly cared, for
she had just noticed one obvious truth: while there were, in fact, two visible hooves, as seemed appropriate, one was pointing up while the other pointed down. “All will be well,” she said, though she was far from certain that was true.

“My apologies,” Gallagher said and touched her arm.

She turned to find him behind her, and he drew her gently back.

“I shall do what I can.”

“What about your squeamishness?” she asked.

“Suffering saints, I suspect you’ll never let me forget that.”

“Doubtful.”

He shook his head. “Perhaps you could hold the horses.”

She nodded, walked away, and retrieved the animals’ reins as he eased toward the ewe. The animal lifted her head for a moment, then lay back down, defeated. Reaching under her tail, Gallagher touched one little hoof, then, grimacing, slid his fingers along the slippery leg, but in a moment he glanced back toward Savaana.

“I think there may be two little blighters trying to come out all at once.”

Savaana worried her lip. “Can you press one back, perhaps?”

He tried, then shook his head. “My hand’s too big. There’s no room.”

She cursed quietly.

“What say you?”

Savaana glared at him, dropped the horses’ reins and began unbuttoning her jacket. “Back away.”

“What?”

“I said, back away,” she ordered, and tossing the garment to the grass, rolled up the starched lace of her sleeves.

“And what might you be doing, lass?”

“What you cannot.”

He was grinning as he rose to his feet. “You’ll soil your clothing.”

She glanced down. It did seem a shame. On the open market she could sell the ensemble for a good bit. Why, the frilly blouse alone would buy six months of Grandfather’s medicine. “Give me your shirt,” she said.

He turned his head slightly, slanting his ear toward her as if he couldn’t have possibly heard her correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your shirt,” she insisted. “If I ruin it, I shall purchase you a new one.”

His lips twitched up a notch. “Might this be naught but a ploy to see me in me glorious altogether?” he asked, but the ewe moaned again.

Savaana grimaced. “This is an opportunity for you to quit being an ass,” she said, and he laughed as he opened his buttons.

G
allagher watched the lady’s expression of distaste as she squatted behind the ewe. But in a moment she settled down to business. Her mouth set in a resolute line and her brow furrowed in rapt concentration. For several long moments she remained squatting behind the animal as she tried to release the unborn, but finally, perturbed but determined, she stretched out flat on her stomach.

Sean said nothing. He merely watched in fascination. Who was this earthy wench who had stolen the body of the stiff-backed Lady Tilmont? Alastar had said she was unpredictable. Indeed, he had lauded her as unique and kindly and beautiful, with the face of an angel and the soul of a saint, but until this moment, he’d doubted most of those descriptions. Now, however, he wondered if Alastar hadn’t been right all along. Only a saint or a shepherd would—

“Damn, bloody, son of a whore,” she snarled.

Sean grinned. Very well, then. A saint she was not.

“They’re just so demmed…” She paused, breathing hard. “There
are
two of them. I’m sure of that,” she rasped, and screwing up her face, she pressed farther into the ewe. One tiny hoof disappeared. Deep in concentration, the lady poked her tongue from the corner of her mouth and eased an additional hoof into the open air. Both pointed downward, but the ewe lay perfectly still, too exhausted to move. Scooting onto her knees, Clarette scowled at her handiwork. Nothing changed. The ewe remained unmoving, the lambs unborn. Reaching out reluctantly, she tugged gently at the lamb’s knobby fetlocks with both hands. They slipped out a scant half an inch, and now, feeling the unhindered movement, the ewe’s belly contracted. The little cloven hooves eased out. They were followed by a pair of bony knees. A tiny head was squished between the forelegs, and a second later the wee animal sloshed to the earth like a loosed trout.

It lay there inert, absolutely unmoving.

Clarette glared at it for all of two seconds, then shook her head. “Oh no. Oh no, you don’t!” she rasped, and retrieving the lamb by the hind legs, gave it a firm shake. It wobbled in her hands, then hung limp, smeared with all kinds of unspeakable fluids and as flaccid as a woolen rag. “Listen, you daft little bugger, you’re going to live!” she ordered, and drawing back her right hand, smacked it on its ribs.

There was a moment of frozen silence. Then the little
creature snorted, lifted its ridiculously pointy head on its ridiculously scrawny neck and bleated from its upside-down position.

The ewe, exhausted but revived, blinked and rolled onto her chest. After that it was all magic. Another lamb slipped effortlessly into life, wriggling immediately. As for the lady, she carried the firstborn to the mother’s head and flopped him onto the ground. In a moment the ewe staggered to her feet. Deep-throated, maternal noises rumbled from her chest as she cleaned her babies with quick strokes of her agile tongue. And they, in turn, responded by doing the seemingly impossible—rising on their gangly legs in a matter of minutes.

During all this, the lady remained absolutely silent. Her expression was one Gallagher couldn’t quite place, but her eyes were wide and seemed unusually bright above the smudged beauty of her face.

“Now where did you learn how to do that, lass?” he asked finally.

She all but jumped at the sound of his voice. As if she had completely forgotten his presence. But in a moment she found herself, lifting her chin and clearing her throat.

“Well…” Glancing about, she spotted the wending creek not far away and turned abruptly toward it. “It’s not very complicated, is it?”

He watched the little family. One tiny twin had
already found its mother’s udder and was gleefully wiggling its curly tail as it nursed. “I would have thought so, aye,” he said, and seeing she had already left, strode off behind her.

“Well…” She raised her nose and descended the escarpment down to the water. “You would have been wrong again, then, wouldn’t you, Wickerhauser?”

Squatting beside the stream, she dipped her hands into the water and scrubbed vigorously. He did the same. In a minute or two she rose, shaking the wetness from her fingers before unbuttoning his shirt. Removing it, she handed it over with just a momentary glance at his bare chest.

“Shall we go?”

“Shall we…” He lifted a hand toward the sheep, then shifted it toward her. “Who the devil are you?” He tried to keep the frustration from his voice but there wasn’t much hope.

She raised a regal brow at him. “Have you suffered some memory loss, Wickster?”

He ignored her wit or lack thereof and waved rather erratically toward the sheep. “One minute you’re all starched and pointy, and the next you’re…you’re giving birth.”

“Let us not be overly dramatic, Wickerhound,” she said, and turned away. “It was not I, after all, who—”

But he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Who the fook are you?” he asked. There was more passion
in his tone than he had ever planned to allow. Tension strummed between them, but in a second she pulled her arm from his grasp.

“I’m a married woman,” she said, smoothing the sleeve he had recently crushed. “And married women care for their husbands’ property, do they not?”

“Well, aye, I suppose…” he began, but she was already striding past him.

In a matter of moments she had buttoned on her jacket and mounted the mare. As for Sean, he was still wrestling with this new turn of events. Alastar had said nothing of her being skilled with livestock. Indeed, he said she was polished and elite and sophisticated. Which made him think perhaps she was not the woman he had been searching for at all. Perhaps…

“I assure you I can control myself,” she said.

He shook the thoughts from his head and glanced toward her. “Your pardon?”

She motioned dismissively toward his naked chest. “There’s little point in you standing about half dressed. I’ll not be bedding you.”

“Oh, aye,” he said, and distractedly pulled on his shirt. “So…” He was nodding foolishly as he fastened the wooden buttons. “Born to humble crofters who kept their sheep like children, were you?”

She stared down at him. “Tell me, Wickerly, might you have been dropped on your head as a youngster?”

He scowled at her for a second, noticing that despite the proceeding ordeal, not a single strand of her hair had dared stray out of place. Her bonnet was perfectly placed atop it, her frilly cuffs still crisp and white. And though it seemed entirely unlikely, her fingernails appeared to be absolutely spotless.

“All right. Very well.” He tucked his shirt rapidly into his trousers, caught his gelding’s reins, and ventured a wild guess. “You have an inexplicable connection with sheep and—”

“Sheep stink,” she said, and didn’t deign to glance at the wee lambkins she had just delivered.

“Well, aye, they do that.” He scowled. “So perhaps you were a midwife before your marriage and—”

“Please!” She was scoffing.

“Your first husband was extremely involved in animal husbandry.”

“This
is
my first marriage.”

“You were once a poor milk maid.”

“I’ve never been a poor anything.”

He felt frustration build in him like a burbling fountain. “You’re a doctor. A farmer. A wolf in lamb’s clothing.”

She frowned down at him. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

He stared up at her. She couldn’t be the woman who had scorned Alastar. She couldn’t. Yet, a good deal of evidence suggested the opposite. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said.

“Well, mount up,” she suggested. “Perhaps you shall figure it out on the way home.”

He nodded and did as suggested, but for just a moment she sat in silence, watching the lambs’ tails quiver with excitement as they nursed. Her chin was raised, her mouth slightly pursed, but in her eyes there was something that looked remarkably like unfettered joy. Like hope and pride, with just the tiniest hint of longing. Until she realized he was watching her, then she turned without a word, tapped her quirt against the chestnut’s right haunch, and cantered toward Knollcrest.

There was little he could do but follow.

“Gallagher.” The sun was just setting over the lacy leaves of the western woods when she finally spoke. Sean turned toward her, mind spinning. “Perhaps it would be best if we did not speak of this business of the sheep to the staff,” she said.

Who the bloody hell was she? he wondered, but carefully kept the fascination out of his tone. “And why is that, me lady? I think you were quite heroic.”

She breathed her disdain. “I helped birth a pair of lambs. Nothing more.”

She’d birthed lambs! He couldn’t even place that fact with the remainder of what he knew of her. “Then why not speak of it?”

“It’s my place to direct the servants. If they think me no different than they…” She lifted an elegant hand. “They will not respect me. Surely you see that.”

“No, lass, I don’t.”

Her scowl was firmly back in place when she turned toward him.

He smiled. “Indeed,” he added. “I believe they would think the more of you for your efforts.”

She raised both brows in unison. “And you believe I care what they think of me?”

He studied her in silence for a moment. It was no difficult task. “Aye, I do at that.”

For a moment he almost thought her expression softened, but then she pursed her lips and scowled. “If that’s the case you are even more ignorant than I believed!” she snapped. “Nevertheless, you will keep this news to yourself.” They were just entering the farmyard. “Do you understand?”

Somehow it was almost as much fun seeing her angry as it was seeing her enthralled. He shook his head as if bemused. “I cannot say that I do, me lady,” he said.

“Well, it would be in your best interest if you did,” she said, and pulling the mare to a halt, dismounted unaided. “Or you will find yourself on the road without a farthing to your name.” Leaving the reins dangling, she lifted her skirts in one hand and pivoted sharply toward the house.

Sean watched her go.

“And what was all that about?”

He turned quickly, only to find Emily just stepping out from behind a stack of loose fodder. He examined her. She was bonny and harmless, and he could think of no reason to keep the truth from her…except that Clarette had asked him to. Which was a damn good reason to do the opposite. After all, wasn’t that why he was here? To ruin her life just as she had ruined his brother’s? But perhaps the timing wasn’t right.

“What are you doing out and about?” he asked, and made sure he said the words sound like
oot
and
aboot.
Catching up the chestnut’s reins, he led the horses toward the stable.

“Me?” The comely maid gave him a sidelong glance as she fell in beside him. “Ain’t that a question better put to your own self?”

“I was riding horse with the lady,” he said. “As you very well know.”

“You sure that’s all you were a’ridin’?” she asked, and grinned lasciviously.

He turned to watch her. “Whatever do you mean by that?”

She snorted a laugh. “A bloke like you don’t know?” she asked, and something inside him balked.

“I fear I don’t.”

She scowled, looking surprised and a little miffed. “You come back with your shirt soiled and Lady High and Mighty looking like she got her tail caught in a wine press. Don’t think I don’t know what’s happened.”

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“Very well,” she agreed, trailing one finger along the top of the nearest stall. “And you ain’t hopin’ to change that?”

He considered lying again, but it seemed like a stretch. “Even if I were, Miss Emily, the lady is married, and not the sort to break those holy vows.”

She stopped abruptly, staring at him. Anger and disappointment were stamped on her pretty face. “And here I thought you wasn’t the sort to be made a fool by a trim figure and an uppity title,” she said, and turning abruptly away, stomped off toward the house.

Sean stared after her, stunned. Truth was, he had rather thought the same thing.

What the devil was happening to him? Tugging the mare into her stall, he removed her bridle before doing the same with the gelding. Could it be that the lady was actually getting under his skin? Could she be duping him just as she had his brother?

To hell with that. He had loved and lost prettier women than…Well, maybe not prettier, he thought, remembering the light in her heaven-blue eyes as she’d watched the
lambkins rise on shaky legs, her smile as she’d gazed after the fleeing gelding. And certainly no woman had been more intriguing. But he’d slept with ladies with fancier titles. That was for damn sure. And he’d bloody well sleep with her.