Chapter 2 #2
“Are you just going to stand there, Lang?” Sybil brandished a basket and broom while Emmet Hayward, their elderly all-around stockman, hobbled in a circuit around the pen.
Mud covered his boots and trousers and splashed up onto the front of his smock, soiling it more than normal.
His wife, Ruth, Devil’s Dyke Grange’s housekeeper and cook, would ring him a peal.
Their prey, a black and white pig, zig-zagged away from them both.
“New boots, Syb,” Lang said.
“Go change into the old ones.”
“No time,” he said. “I’m off in a moment to meet Lieutenant Miles in town.”
She stalked closer and crooned. “Come along now, little maiden.”
“A shilling on Emmet,” Cass said, gripping the stick he’d hobbled out with.
“And I’m to bet on Syb?” Lang laughed. “You’re on.”
“If you had a shilling, Cass,” she teased, “I’d like to know where you got it.”
“Why d’ye want this pig anyway?” Cass asked. “Shoo him back into his shed and leave him be.”
“This is a she, and this little maiden gilt is going along to a new home. Cass, go and bring the cart around. You can drive her over to the Simpsons’.”
The pig raced by, and Emmet slipped, falling face down into the mud and slurry, sending the boys into howls of laughter.
“You big boobies.” Stifling her own laugh, she hurried over to haul the old man up. “Are you hurt, Emmet?”
He grunted and groaned his way up, smearing her skirts with mud as he staggered to standing.
“Ought to be helping your sister instead of standing around like a couple of clods,” Emmet said.
“And that’s a fact,” said a man.
Sybil spun around. Shocked recognition was followed swiftly by her awareness of her appearance, attired in an old gown, mud spattered, and with her hair falling about her face.
And chasing a pig.
But that was nothing compared to the shock she experienced when Sir Westcott Twisden vaulted the side of the pen, flashing shiny boots only slightly speckled with dust.
He snatched up the basket Emmet had dropped and made a direct assault on their quarry.
* * *
“I hope those were not your only pair of boots,” Sybil said. “No, no, don’t get up.”
Sybil settled the tea tray on the table near the hearth and caught sight of the long stockinged feet propped on the fender. “Take care not to burn your toes.”
Sir Westcott flashed her a grin. He’d settled in as comfortably as one of her brothers, lounging his long body in the chair he’d moved close to the fireplace.
“My boots are no worse off than that gown of yours. Apologies for—”
“Knocking me into the mud?”
He laughed. “Spritely little pig you have there. Expect she’ll be one of those sows eating her piglets if they misbehave.”
His charm was disquieting—and probably too good to be true. Better he should be one of those gentlemen looking down his nose, so she could dismiss him like those haughty local gentlemen her brothers encouraged her to consider.
“What do you know about pigs, Sir Westcott?”
“About your little black and white ones?” He shrugged. “Ours in the north, the Cumberlands, are white and hardy enough for colder weather.” His brows furrowed, and then he grinned. “It’s only a bit colder there than here. We keep a good fire in all the rooms. You’ll never have cause to be chilled.”
Given the heat pulsing in her cheeks, she didn’t have cause to be chilled now, only mortally embarrassed.
And unchaperoned.
“I’ll just go and see where my brother is.” Cass ought to have returned.
The big feet hit the floor, and Sir Westcott stood. “The parlor door is open, and I promise to behave. Do sit down, Miss Dunsford. This is a pretty lay of land, is Devil’s Dyke. While I have some fertile dales at home, I also have some rocky fells. How is the land in these parts?”
“Are you looking to buy? Devil’s Dyke Grange is not for sale.”
Sir Westcott’s face froze for a few beats of her heart, and then a wide smile broke.
“Always hold onto land, my grandmama says. A man with land is a man with prospects.” The smile deepened to reveal a dimple. “A woman, too, I suppose.”
The tone wasn’t flirtatious, and some of her unease fizzled. Not all, because he was a handsome young man, and he was stirring feelings in her that she hadn’t truly felt from any of her other suitors.
There had been more than a few, given her farm and her brothers’ attempts at matchmaking.
They hoped to marry her off and then take their inheritances and go off adventuring.
She didn’t expect them to stay—she would hire the help she needed—but each in his own way had displayed an endearing loyalty.
Not a loyalty that brought coin with it, but still…
She shook off her woolgathering and asked him about his land in the north.
The topic was obviously dear to his heart, but not so dear that he waxed on ad nauseum.
They compared notes on the difficulties of the last two years’ crops.
Twisden Manor had made economies and had not needed to borrow money.
She told him the bank holding the loan her father had taken a few years earlier had failed, but she’d been able to keep up with payments to her new creditor, and he listened as she discussed her livestock and plans for the spring planting.
Cass poked his nose in once, then hobbled away. When Mrs. Hayward appeared with Sir Westcott’s freshly cleaned boots, she was accompanied by Reggie, who had come to fetch Sir Westcott home to Highcross Keep.
Unfortunately, not long after they left, she spotted Crofton on the drive.
In their conversation at the assembly, Crofton had demanded help this night. He dangled the mortgage he’d bought from the banker, reminding her he’d just foreclosed on and moved into the Lewis’s farm.
His end goal was taking Devil Dyke’s Grange. Even before he held the mortgage, he’d let it be known through sly innuendos, through unwelcome touches, that he thought to acquire Devil’s Dyke Grange through marriage. To her.
As soon, that is, as his wife, who was ill, and wisely being cared for at her brother’s home in Tunbridge Wells, departed this life for the next.
Before he could knock on the door, Sybil hastily retreated to the stable, where Emmet’s widowed son and grandson were tending their plough horses.
Crofton hunted her down and found her there.
* * *
A bleary-eyed Reggie refilled Quinton’s glass. “I’m going, too. Need some adventure. Not you, though, Uncle. Blasted bore today waiting for your bowels to—”
“You hold, young sirrah.” Quinton stood, the martial light in his eyes dimmed by inebriation.
“Yes, hold.” Wes had heard more than enough about Quinton’s ailment.
“Your glass, Wes,” Reggie demanded.
He covered it with his hand and shook his head. “Put a stopper in it. If you’re coming with me, you’ll want to have your wits about you.”
Reggie laughed and raised his glass. “To smugglers.”
“And ghosties.” Quinton winked. “Ah, young Sir Westcott, it’s not a view of a ghost you’re after, but a look into a lady’s window.”
“Long Meg’s window, eh?” Reggie chuckled.
Wes shrugged and peered into the empty glass, frowning. He was worried about her. He’d forgotten to broach the subject of smuggling with her, but after they left, from a vantage point at the top of the fell he’d seen Crofton paying a call at Devil’s Dyke Grange.
He might not be the cleverest chap, but this fellow Crofton had Wes’s nose twitching. Sybil had to make payments on a loan, which explained her rutted lane, unkempt lawn, and worn-out furnishings. She had a new creditor, who must certainly be Crofton.
Reggie and Quinton might tell him more, if they’d bother to let their glasses sit full for a while, and if he was willing to pay the price of their teasing and innuendos.
He’d do his own investigating. Devil’s Dyke Grange was as good a place as any to start looking for smugglers. Perhaps ghosts and highwaymen as well.
A sudden thought propelled him upright. Considering what a dastardly fellow Crofton was, might one of the Picard boys be the one robbing travelers or playing ghost? Surely not Sybil—she wouldn’t be so foolhardy for the first role nor so crackbrained for the second.