Chapter 10 A Sad Day for Sheep
A SAD DAY FOR SHEEP
The rain would not stop, the journey would not end, and Apollo would likely die before they reached the wilds of Yorkshire. There were a few credible scenarios for his demise.
He might perish from the weight of having to take care for someone other than himself for the first time in his life.
Who knew it was so exhausting. To the body, but mostly to the soul.
The worry! The fretting! The details he’d found himself remembering about Sybil Grant’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
He knew what shade of pale was simply her skin and what was exhausted defeat.
He knew how many hours she’d gone without laughing and how many times she’d stuffed her hands into her pockets, trying to make friends with the metals weighing her down.
He knew how many times she’d burnt her palms and singed her fingernails.
He never paid this much attention to himself, but if someone didn’t tend to Sybil, she’d wear out like a damned candle, melting away entirely.
Then Temple would kill him.
Or, if Apollo didn’t die of worry, he’d die of unsatisfied desire.
Whatever gods watched them knew he’d had opportunity to relieve himself in the post-midnight world when he’d finally coaxed Sybil to rest and put her to sleep.
He ended their fireside sessions half hard and half frantic, but when he took himself in hand once alone, he could only conjure Sybil’s image, and while his cock had decided only that image would do for those purposes, well…
Temple would kill him.
So either way, death was imminent.
They’d been at Doncaster for two full days as the heavens wept without pause. Their next stop Foggy Hill House. The Blue Anvil Inn their limbo.
Sybil sat near the fire in a private drawing room where they’d broken their fast, and Apollo was pacing behind her.
She bent over, her elbows resting on her knees, one hand cradled atop the other, and his gold nestled in the center of her upturned palm.
God, he hoped she never realized that wavy disk, if viewed from a certain angle, resembled a naked woman.
“You need a break,” he said.
“No.”
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I won’t.”
He was damn near close to throwing her over his shoulder and—
A knock on the door startled him to his feet. When he opened the door, he found a maid waiting in the hallway. “’Scuse me, Mr. Grant, but there’s a lady downstairs who needs an alchemist.”
“And? How am I supposed to help?”
Sybil’s warm weight settled behind him.
“We don’t have one,” the maid said. “There’s an alchemist who lives about an hour away visits once a month, but he recently died.”
“What about his apprentice?” Sybil asked.
The maid shook her head. “He went off to Manchester to find another master.”
“My brother is still in training.” Sybil looked up at Apollo. “But he can speak with this lady, see if he can be of any use.”
“Thank you!” The maid bobbed a curtsy and stepped away from the door to allow them room to exit.
“Just a moment. I need to speak with my sister.” He closed the door and eyed Sybil. “You know I’m useless. And you…” He bit his tongue.
“I am equally useless,” she snapped. “I am aware. We’ll have a look, and if something can be done, between the two of us, we’ll do it. And if something cannot be done, we will tell her so. It’s the polite thing to try.”
“And fail.”
She growled at him as she grabbed her mantle and swung out the door.
He donned his greatcoat and followed, finding his tinted spectacles in the pocket.
Best to hide the very real fact he knew nothing.
They found the young woman in question in front of the inn.
She wore an old cheap mackintosh that had seen better days and big men’s boots, and she was pacing back and forth in the merciless rain.
The maid introduced her as Mrs. Paisley from the doorway then retreated inside.
“How can we help you?” Sybil asked from just beneath the awning, the frustration gone from her voice.
Apollo stood just behind her, hands in pockets.
He liked that she came just up to his shoulders.
He could see over her clearly. Convenient, that.
But with the woman standing before them, wringing her hands, he didn’t need Sybil to be short.
Mrs. Paisley was tall and broad and looked a bit like she could solve whatever problem she’d brought them herself.
“It’s the gate on the southern end of the Earl of Arondale’s land,” Mrs. Paisley said.
“Farmer Colton’s sheep got inside and now they can’t get out.
The last time Alchemist Paxton was here, he arranged it so that the gate would raise as the sun does and drop as the sun lowers. But it’s been rainy. No sun.”
“Wait till the sun returns,” Sybil said. “Do they have shelter?”
“A thick row of trees.”
“And they have grass,” Sybil said. “I do not understand the problem.”
“Because,” Apollo said, “the sheep do not belong to Lord Arondale. Is that right, Mrs. Paisley?”
She nodded. “They’ve invaded his fields before, and he tends to throw a bit of a fit over it. He’s not noticed yet, thank the heavens, but when he does, he’ll cause Mr. Colton no end of trouble.”
“Did Alchemist Paxton not plan for rain?” Apollo drawled.
The woman’s cheeks flushed. “He did not. I mentioned it, told him Arondale himself might be out walking and suddenly find himself locked out of his own land, but he said there would still be enough light on an overcast day to warm the metal and trigger the mechanism. He didn’t count on several days of nothing but rain.
I used to help him. I’m the blacksmith and know a bit about metals and heat. ”
“You are? You do?” Sybil stepped closer, the toes of her boots and hem of her skirt dipping into the rain.
Apollo fought the urge to wrap his arm around her waist and guide her back beneath the dry shelter of the awning because curiosity put a snap into her voice, a bounce into her step he hadn’t seen in days.
Mrs. Paisley nodded. “Just a little. I’m not a true alchemist, but I do what needs to be done for folks until Mr. Paxton’s return each month.
Only now he won’t be returning, and his apprentice is gone and”—she sighed—“I should learn more than what I know. Can I watch you, Mr. Grant? Ask you questions?”
Apollo scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know—”
“Of course!” Sybil was almost beaming as she turned to him. “Of course she can come. I should like to ask Mrs. Paisley some questions as well.”
Didn’t matter that he knew nothing. Didn’t matter that they’d likely not be able to fix the gate. Sybil had returned in all her golden glory, soul healed from finding a woman with a little bit of metal magic just like her. And in the corner of her mouth there was a secret, silent little plea.
“Oh, all right,” Apollo grumbled.
Good God that grin. What was he to do with a woman who grinned like that. His heart raced faster than a footpad escaping a constable.
They retrieved Sybil’s mackintosh from her room, and Apollo borrowed one from the innkeeper, then, stepping into the rain, Sybil wrapped herself around Apollo’s arm—all sister-like, though his cock thought differently—and they followed the blacksmith to a large grassy enclosure, the two women chatting all the while.
When they reached the gate, the chattering stopped.
Apollo surveyed the thing—iron with narrow bars set into a hedge slightly above his hip height. Two sheep stood at the gate with wide, unblinking eyes, their wool thick and drooping. “Let’s burn down the hedge and have done with it.”
The sheep bobbed their heads as if agreeing.
Sensible creatures. The hedge had no… life in it.
It served a single man’s will and seemed all wrong, dividing the world as it did.
It wasn’t like his little aloe plant, grown to fulfill its own purpose.
The hedge had been twisted, shaped until it was something it had never meant to be—a barrier.
“Would be better off ash,” he grumbled.
The sheep agreed.
Neither woman seemed to have heard him. They knelt by the gate. Sybil had her face almost even with the ground, her bum bouncing into the air as she inspected some mechanism covered in mud. Mrs. Paisley inspected bits of the gate that had begun a battle with extended branches from the hedge.
“Have a look, A—Hesperus,” Sybil said.
He knelt beside her as the blacksmith stood.
Sybil had a bit of mud on the tip of her nose, and little locks of hair were curling around her face where her rubber hood did little to protect her face from the downpour.
“It’s a clever design. Metal expands when hot and contracts when cold.
Do you see this?” She pointed to a little lever at the bottom of the gate.
“This little foot is a stopper, a barrier. When the sun comes up, the metal bars of the gate warm and can overpower it, allowing the gate to swing open. When the sun goes down, the metal bar shrinks and can no longer conquer the barrier. The sheep must have gone in when it was sunny, but now they can’t get out. ”
“So we must warm the metal,” Apollo said.
“Exactly.” Mrs. Paisley hovered above them. “I tried taking a brimstone stick to it, but it’s too wet to keep a flame out here. I brought a bucket of coals out here and set it next to the bar, but it wasn’t enough heat.”
Sybil stood. “Can you call your inner heat?”
“Never been able to. I’m a wonder at the forge, if I do say so myself, but I’ve always needed the fire.”
Sybil seemed to shrink into herself. “I’m not sure we can be of much help. Neither of us can—”
“Let’s get to work.” Apollo leaned against the gate, and the sheep looked up at him. He winked. The sheep baaed. Now he wasn’t threatening to burn down the hedge, he and the sheep were a team.
“Pardon?” Sybil said.
“We don’t want to stand out here all day. I refuse. Let’s get this done with and go back where it’s dry and warm.”
“You can do it, then?” Mrs. Paisley asked.
“We’ll try,” Apollo grumbled. He knelt near the gate again, rubbing his palms together then breathing into his cupped hands, feeling the warmth of his breath, keeping it there.
“What are you doing?” Sybil whispered, kneeling next to him.
“Fixing the damned gate.”
“We can’t, that much is clear. We’ll need our inner heat.”
“I can do it. I’ve done it before. With you. Now, there are two levers. One at the top and one at the bottom. Which shall we do first?”
She closed her eyes, gave a sharp nod, and when she opened them again, her gaze was clear and determined. “Grasp the bar, then. Call your heat.”
He tried. But he couldn’t. “I need a… particular set of circumstances.” He flicked a glance at Mrs. Paisley. “And she is not conducive to them.”
“What?”
“You know… all that stuff about seduction and two bodies making heat together?”
“You really do that? That’s really what works? I thought that was talk to make me uncomfortable.”
He shrugged. “Two birds, one stone.”
“Oh. Well then.” Clearing her throat, she stood. “Erm, Mrs. Paisley, would you mind taking a step or two back?”
“Try one hundred,” Apollo hissed. “I’ve never been into voyeurism.”
“More please,” Sybil said as Miss Pasley moved backward.
When she was quite some distance away, Apollo said, “That’ll do.”
“Thank you! That’s fine!” Sybil had to cup her hands around her mouth for her words to travel far enough. Then she went to her knees before the gate, facing Apollo.
He let his gaze roam across the shape of her face, the slope of her neck, the sumptuous curves of breasts and hips.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Just… be there. Where I can see you, and…” God, he couldn’t believe he was going to say it. “Believe in me.” What nonsense. He tried to shove the words away, pretend he hadn’t said them, but they echoed between his ears.
“I do believe in you.” Her expression one of utter conviction. A fist to the face, that.
He closed his eyes and imagined laying her down on the bed at the inn as she looked at him with the open-sky blue of her gaze, brimming with trust and optimism and everything he didn’t deserve.
The heat was easier to reach this time. It flared to life within him, pulsed hot in his palm as he wrapped it around the bar. The rain hissed and sizzled as it hit his body, and some vague, distant part of his mind worried the mackintosh might melt right onto him.
“Focus,” she whispered, “stay focused. That’s it. Perfect. Look. The bar’s expanding.”
It certainly was. More than one bar, too.
Beneath his touch, the gate quivered.
He heard a click, Sybil cheered, and he opened his eyes. The bottom corner of the gate had pushed past the lock, was open.
“Quick, the top part,” Sybil said.
He moved his hands, began the work anew. But by the time he had the bar heated above, it had already cooled below. “Fuck.”
“Try again.”
He did.
After the third failure he said, “You’ll have to do it with me. We need to open both locks at once.
“I can’t.” She retreated into the hood of her mackintosh. “You know I can’t.”
With one hand, he lifted her chin, and with the other he grasped her hand and placed it on the bar next to the top lock.
“Twice before today you’ve helped me find my heat.
Now I’ll help you find yours.” The hand on her chin he slipped around her neck.
She gasped, but he kept going. He wrapped his other hand around the lower part of the bar and squeezed her neck at the same time.
“Stop thinking. Stop fretting. And start feeling, relishing, taking pleasure.”
Her breath hitched.
“Are you ready, princess?”
She nodded, the slightest trembling thing as they knelt in the mud together, rain slicing between them. Sybil leaned close, face uplifted, him bent over her, their hands on the bar of the gate, holding them steady, and the air between them thick with the foggy warmth of their own bodies.
His inner heat came in an instant. Too much, too quickly. It would burn him up.
Unless he shared it.
So he kissed her.