Page 6
Charlotte pushed back the branches of an alder and stepped into the small wilderness area. The barbs of a blackthorn bush snagged her gown. She frowned and tugged the fabric. It was a mistake. A two-inch-long tear appeared just below her knee. She groaned, stepping free of the wicked thorns only to have her shoe sink in a patch of mud.
“Botheration!” she muttered.
A yelp sounded at her left and something shifted beneath a wide fern. She froze. It had to be an animal. Fully prepared to leave the creature to its own business, she took a step back and stumbled over a root. Moments later she was on the ground, surrounded by a cloud of yellow silk and petticoats.
“Blast it all!”
Her mother would be horrified at her vocabulary, but landing in a mud puddle within two hours of arriving at Tribbley Hall was worthy of far more than a mild “botheration.” How on earth was she to regain her bedchamber without half the household catching sight of her in this state?
The fern shifted again, and a little black puppy stumbled out from the undergrowth, falling headlong into Charlotte’s skirts.
“Oh!” she gasped as the small dog floundered in the billowing fabric. The pup yelped again, and she reached out, lifting it off the ground. It whimpered and Charlotte drew it closer.
“How ever did you come to be in these bushes?” she asked.
The puppy’s response was a lick on Charlotte’s chin.
“Not good enough, little fellow,” she said with a laugh. “You need a better reason than that.”
Tucking him tightly in the crook of one arm, she scrambled to her feet. After making a futile attempt at brushing off some of the dirt clinging to her gown with her free hand, she pushed past the blackthorn bush to return to the drive. No sooner had she set foot on the gravel, however, than a low menacing growl brought her up short. A full-grown sheepdog stood not more than ten yards from her, its shoulders low, advancing on Charlotte as though she were its quarry.
William was closing the pen gate on the laboring ewe in the barn when he heard Patch’s warning growl. He swiveled, his eyes immediately drawn to the pile of blankets in the far corner, where Patch and her litter of puppies had been living for the last three weeks. Patch was gone. William made for the open door. There were not many things that would take his sheepdog from her puppies, but an intruder intent on stealing sheep might be one of them.
He reached the courtyard in time to see Patch’s ears pull back. She growled again. William’s gaze flew to the object of his dog’s ire, and he came to an abrupt stop. A young woman was standing near the alder tree. She wore a yellow gown smattered with mud, and her full attention was on the dog before her.
“Go away, dog!”
She retreated a step and something in her arms whimpered. Patch barked and the young woman started. The brim of her bonnet hid her face from him, but William recognized the fear in her voice and the puppy in her arms. He put his fingers to his mouth and blew a piercing whistle. Patch froze, and William stepped out of the shadow of the barn. The young woman gasped and stumbled, her gown catching on the nearby blackthorn’s barbs.
“Patch is a well-trained dog,” he said, “but maternal instinct is strong. You’d best put that puppy down if you wish to leave here unscathed.”
She turned toward him and fixed him with a pair of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. “Is … is this her puppy?”
“It is.” He folded his arms, his elbows pressing against the thinning threads of his old work jacket. “And I should like to know how you came to be holding it.”
The young woman set the puppy on the ground and straightened. “I rescued it.”
“You rescued it?” He did nothing to hide his skepticism.
“Yes. I heard him yelping in the bushes and I went in to get him.”
If the young woman’s current state of dress were any indication, she had also dropped to her hands and knees in the bushes. He relaxed fractionally.
“That will do, Patch,” he said.
The puppy was already loping across the gravel toward its mother, and at being freed from his whistled command to stand back, Patch rushed to pick up her offspring in teeth that had gone from menacing to protective in a moment. Lifting her puppy off the ground, Patch trotted toward the barn without a backward look.
The young woman tugged at her skirts. The blackthorn’s barbs released them with the distinctive sound of tearing fabric. She muttered something under her breath before facing him again. A hint of pink colored her cheeks.
“I thank you for your assistance with the dog,” she said, holding her head high. “I shall leave you to continue with your work now.”
She was dismissing him? He stared at her. Who was this woman, and what was she doing on his property?
“May I be so bold as to ask what prompted you to visit the Tribbley Hall stables unaccompanied by a member of the household?”
If anything, the color in her cheeks deepened. “As a newly arrived guest of Lady Cheston, I was unaware that an escort was required to walk the grounds.”
A newly arrived guest. William’s mind raced. His mother had told him that she was expecting her friend, Mrs. Densley, and the lady’s granddaughter. Had his assumption that the granddaughter would be as young as his sisters’ children been a mistake? The alarming realization that his oldest niece would soon be celebrating her fifteenth birthday hit him like a bludgeon. If Mrs. Densley started her family a few years before his mother had done, there was every likelihood that the young lady before him was, in actuality, her granddaughter.
