CHAPTER THREE
Anna heard all about the arrival of Lord Moreland and his party at Winterset, first from her excited maid the next morning and later from the squire’s wife and daughter. Anna carefully refrained from telling either one of her newsbearers that she already knew of Reed’s arrival. She listened patiently as Mrs. Bennett repeated the chemist’s description of Moreland’s entourage as it had moved through the town of Lower Fenley, keeping a pleasant smile fixed on her face.
After the Bennetts left, Kit turned to his sister and said thoughtfully, “I suppose I ought to call on him—to be polite. Or do you think that’s forward?”
Despite her inner turmoil, Anna had to smile at her brother’s somewhat anxious expression. He had brought the same subject up days ago, when they had first learned that Reed Moreland was returning to Winterset, and obviously he had been considering the matter ever since. Kit was, after all, still rather young, only twenty-four years of age, and the prospect of new neighbors was a little exciting to him. There were few people his age or station anywhere around them, and his social life in London had been cut short by having to return to take over his father’s responsibilities. He had accepted his lot with good grace, never complaining, and for the most part he seemed content to live quietly in the country.
But it was only natural that he should want to meet some new people. The social highlight of his life was a weekly game of cards in the village with Dr. Felton and a few of the local men. Indeed, Anna knew that had circumstances been different, she, too, would have looked forward with pleasure to meeting the occupants of Winterset. The last thing she wanted was for Kit to meet Reed, but she could not bring herself to tell him about the disastrous relationship that had formed between her and Moreland. Nor could she ask him not to call on the man.
“No, I don’t think it’s forward at all,” she assured him, fixing a pleasant smile on her face. “I think it is just what is proper.” She hoped that Reed would not be abrupt or unkind to Kit just because he was her brother. “And you will get a better idea of whether or not they intend to stay and if they are friendly or too snobbish to mingle with us country folk.”
“Is that the way Lord Moreland is?” Kit asked. “You knew him. Mrs. Bennett seemed to think—”
Anna forced a chuckle. “Come, Kit, surely you are not relying on Mrs. Bennett’s version of events. Why, to hear her talk, one would think that you are quite taken with her daughter.”
Kit made a wry face. “Point taken. But you did at least talk to the man.”
“Yes. At parties and such. He was…a nice man. He did not seem puffed up with pride, as I had expected of the son of a duke. But it has been three years. He may have changed.”
Kit smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I will not be disillusioned if he offers me a set down.”
As it turned out, Kit was far from offered a set down. In his eagerness, he rode over to Winterset not long after their conversation, and when he returned, he was smiling and bubbling over with liking for their new neighbors.
“He’s a jolly good sort,” Kit told her, a boyish grin on his face. “Just as you said—not at all proud or puffed up. I quite liked him.”
“Good. I’m glad,” Anna responded with genuine pleasure.
“There were several other people there, as Mrs. Bennett said,” he went on. “His sister, Lady Kyria, and her husband, who is an American.”
“And what are they like?” Anna remembered hearing Reed speak of Kyria more than once, as well as his other sisters, and she could not help but be interested in her.
“Very nice. Lady Kyria is stunning. Actually, I had seen her when I was in London. A friend took me to a party once, and she was there. Unforgettable.”
“What does she look like?” Anna pressed.
“Red hair, very tall. Just…just beautiful,” he finished lamely, shrugging. “And quite charming. Not a bit of snobbery about her, either. Strangely enough, the family seems a bit egalitarian.”
“I understand that the duchess is very forward-thinking,” Anna told him.
“Lady Kyria’s husband is a chap named Rafe McIntyre. He’s an American—shook my hand, acted as if he’d known me all my life.” He paused, and his expression shifted subtly. “There is another woman in their party…Miss Rosemary Farrington.”
Something cold touched Anna’s heart. “Another woman? A relative, do you think?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t get that impression. I think she is perhaps a friend of theirs.”
“What—what is she like?” It was common to bring friends along to stay at one’s county estate, but it betokened a certain interest in a woman if a man asked her to come with his family to his estate, especially if she was there by herself, not just a member of a family invited to stay. “Is she—are her parents there?”
Kit looked at her oddly. “No, I don’t think so. No one said anything about them. Why?”
Anna blushed, realizing how peculiar her question had sounded. “I don’t know. I was just wondering…if there were any other people there. You know, if it was a large party or small. One cannot rely on Mrs. Bennett for accuracy, you know.”
“No, I think they are the only people who came to Winterset.”
“Tell me about Miss Farrington.” Anna strove to keep her voice light. It was absurd, she knew, for her to feel this quiver of jealousy at the thought that Reed might have an interest in Miss Farrington. After all, she expected him to go on with his life. Indeed, she wanted him to. She wanted him to be happy.
“She is a beautiful woman. Not, perhaps, as beautiful as Lady Kyria is, but, to my way of thinking, much better—more normal, you know, more approachable. Her hair is blond and her eyes are blue. She is quite small and just a little bit shy, I think.”
It was only then that Anna noticed the moonstruck look on her brother’s face, and a different sort of anxiety crept into her. “Kit…you are not—you sound quite taken with Miss Farrington.”
Her brother’s expression hardened, the rapt look in his eyes replaced by something a little bitter. “Don’t worry. I’m not a fool. I know that there is no possibility—”
Anna’s face filled with sympathy, and she went to her brother, slipping her hand into his. “Kit, I am so sorry….”
“I know. It is not your fault.” He smiled faintly down at her, squeezing her hand a little. “You, after all, suffer just as much as I. One cannot choose one’s lot, can one? And, for the most part, I am well content.”
“For the most part.”
He shrugged. “I cannot help but see, can I? Cannot help but feel?”
“No,” Anna replied, her voice threaded with sorrow. “One cannot help but feel.”
* * *
After her talk with Kit, Anna felt the need to get outside. She had always loved the outdoors, and she refused to let Reed’s proximity deter her from her almost-daily walk or ride about the estate. Whatever the problem, it always helped clear her head to go on a long ramble.
She would be careful this time, though, not to head in the direction of Winterset. She would go into the woods toward Craydon Tor. So, putting on her walking boots and grabbing her hat, she left the house. She took the same path out of the garden that she had used the other day, but this time she headed into the leafy green trees leading toward the tor, an upthrust of land that on this side was a gradual elevation and on the other was a more-or-less sheer drop to the valley below. It loomed over the village of Lower Fenley and was the most distinctive landmark for miles around.
As she walked through the trees, the vegetation grew thicker around her, and the path became less and less clear. Anna knew the area, however, and she had no fear of getting lost. There were some, she knew, who disliked the woods, finding them dark and gloomy, even frightening. But she had always thought them peaceful and serene, and she liked the glimpses of wildlife that she found in them, from the red flash of a bird flitting from branch to branch to the jittering antics of a squirrel on a limb.
The woods worked their usual magic today, calming her. At one point she came upon a fawn with its mother, both of which turned and shot off as she approached. She sat on a large stone for a few minutes, just listening to the sounds of the woods—the twitter of birds, the soft stirring of the branches, the rustle of some small creature in the leaves.
Holding her skirts up with one hand and grabbing at branches and saplings with the other, she made her way down into a small depression where a little pool had formed. She chuckled as a startled frog jumped off a stone at her approach and landed with a splash in the large puddle. Past this indention in the land, she climbed upward at a slant, taking a narrow path. It led, she knew, to a small, enchanting glen not much farther on, where a fallen, mossy tree trunk provided a natural seat. Perhaps she might go even farther than that; she might go to the hut and see how things were there. She too often avoided her duty there, she thought. Her father would not have been pleased; he would have said that the distress she felt when she went there was no excuse.
Anna came to an abrupt stop. A terrible cold assailed her. Her hand flew to her chest as if to hold in the pain that flowered there, sharp and icy. Instinctively she closed her eyes, seeing in her mind the nighttime darkness of the woods, deep and pervasive. Her breath caught in her throat as fear and panic flashed through her.
She bit back a moan and stumbled away. She leaned against a tree, struggling to calm her breathing. The panic and the pain receded, leaving her shaken.
Anna turned, looking back at the innocuous copse of trees from which she had just fled. She pressed her hand against her forehead, where a headache had formed. She waited for the shaking and the weakness to subside. They always did, though the headaches tended to linger longer.
It was not the first time she had felt this sort of strange sensation, where she seemed abruptly to be outside of her body somehow, assaulted by emotions she did not understand. Sometimes she simply felt these emotions; other times she might smell something, like the sharp scent of burning wood, and often she “saw” something.
Once, when she had gone to visit one of their tenant farmers whose child was ill, as she had approached the door, she had been struck by a wave of sorrow so severe that tears had sprung unconsciously into her eyes. It had been no surprise to her when the farmer had opened the door, his face a mask of grief, and told her that his child had died only minutes earlier.
Usually they were quite commonplace things that she saw or felt—a spring day and an upswelling of joy even though it was winter at the time, or a sentence or two in another’s voice suddenly running through her head, completely out of context with anything that was happening around her. When Kit was away in Europe, she had awakened one night thinking she had heard him speak her name, but, of course, he had not been in the house.
She did not know what caused these “visions,” and she had kept them hidden from those around her, ashamed and embarrassed by her oddity. It was only rarely that they seemed connected to anything real, as they had been with the tenant farmer. She did her best to suppress and ignore them when they came upon her. But never had one hit her with the intensity or pain she had just felt.
Anna took a deep breath and smoothed back her hair with her hands. She looked at the quiet scene again. It was ridiculous to think that there was anything about it that could cause such fear. She took another steadying breath, turned and began to walk away. Her desire to go farther up the hill had vanished, and she decided to walk home.
She had not gone very far when she heard the faint sound of a voice. She paused, listening. She was on Holcomb land, and it was unusual for there to be anyone else here.
Again there was a voice—no, two, she thought. Curious, she turned in the direction of the sound, walking quietly and carefully. There was always the possibility of poachers, though Rankin kept a sharp eye out for them. She had little desire to meet anyone who was roaming deep in these woods.
She saw them now, some twenty feet or so away, though they were still somewhat hidden by the trees. They were lads, and they were bent over something on the ground. As she drew closer, she saw that what interested the boys was an animal, lying on its side.
Anna hurried forward, worried now. Obviously there was something wrong with the animal, which she could see now was a dog. She wasn’t sure whether she was more worried that the boys had hurt the dog or that the wounded animal might bite them in its fear.
“Boys!” Her voice came out more sharply than she had intended.
The two adolescents whirled around. The first thing she noticed was the evident relief on their faces, which reassured her that they were concerned for the animal, not hurting it, and the next thing was that they were as alike as peas in a pod. They were slender as whips, and both had thick dark hair, disheveled. Their eyes were wide and light-colored, and intelligence shone in them. They looked, she realized with a little clutch in her chest, very much like Reed.
The twins! Reed had spoken of them often, with a wry affection—and had he not mentioned the other day that they had come here with him?
“Ma’am!” one of them exclaimed, and they started toward her.
“Can you help? We found this dog.”
“And he’s badly hurt.”
They stopped before her, looking earnestly at her. There were leaves and twigs caught in their hair and on their clothing, and dirt smudged their faces and clothes. Anna could not help but smile at them.
“What happened to him?” she asked, moving around them to the dog.
“I don’t know.”
“Some other animal hurt him, we think.”
“His side’s slashed open.”
“And one of his legs is hurt.”
Belatedly, one of the boys added tentatively, “Well, actually, you might not want to look.”
“It’s all right,” Anna assured them. “I have seen wounded animals before.”
The boys, who had come up on either side of her, grinned.
“Wizard!” said one, and the other told her, “Sometimes girls get squeamish.”
“So I’ve heard.” Anna looked down at the dog, which did not move, only rolled his eye up warily at her. “Well there, fellow, you have gotten yourself into a mess, haven’t you?”
He was a medium-size dog, with short yellowish fur. His front leg was torn open and bent at a strange angle, and there were several slashes along his side, blood matting the fur.
She crooned to the animal, reaching her hand slowly toward his head while at the same time she pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. The dog regarded her, and his tail gave a feeble thump. “That’s right. You know we’re only trying to help you, don’t you? But just in case…”
She stroked his head gently as she slipped the handkerchief beneath his snout, then brought the ends together and tied them. She looked more closely at his wounds, then stood up.
“I think he’s going to need more help than I can give him,” she said. “If anyone can save him, it’ll be Nick Perkins.”
“Who’s he?”
“Someone who lives not too far away and is an expert with animals. I’ve gone to him with every animal I’ve ever had who was sick or wounded. Everything I’ve learned about helping them, I learned from him.”
“Good.” One boy nodded.
“Let’s go,” the other one said.
“The only problem is, we will have to carry him.”
“We can do that,” the boys told her confidently.
“But we want to jar him as little as possible,” Anna went on. “So if you two young men will turn your backs, I’ll see if I can provide a litter of sorts.”
They looked a little confused, but obediently turned their backs to her. Anna quickly stepped back and reached up under her skirts to untie one of her petticoats, then slipped it down, off her feet.
“All right,” she said, carrying it over to the dog and spreading it out beside him.
“Jolly good idea!” one of the boys approved.
“Let’s tie knots at the ends to make it easier to carry,” the other suggested.
Anna smiled and agreed. They were engaging lads and obviously quick-minded, as well as kindhearted. They were, she supposed, what one would expect from Reed’s brothers.
With as much gentleness as they could, they slid the dog over onto the petticoat, and while he let out a whimper, he seemed to know that they were trying to help him and did not even growl. The two boys picked up either end of the makeshift sling, and, with Anna in the lead, they started off.
Their progress was slow, and Anna was sure that the boys’ burden must have gotten very heavy, but they did not breathe a word of complaint, and when she offered to take over carrying one end of the sling, they refused, pointing out that as they were perfectly matched in height, it made the ride much more comfortable for their patient.
They introduced themselves politely as Con and Alex Moreland, but the only way that Anna could tell them apart was that Alex had a streak of dirt across his forehead, whereas Con had a thin red streak on his left cheek where a twig had snapped him.
“I am Anna Holcomb,” she told them in turn, and when they politely called her Miss Holcomb, she protested, “Call me Anna. I think that formalities can be dismissed after an experience such as we are sharing, don’t you?”
Alex grinned. “You’re true blue, ma’am. That’s what Rafe would say.”
“Bang up to the nines,” Con agreed emphatically.
“Lots of girls would have fainted,” Alex went on. “Not our sisters, of course, ’cause they’re bang up, too. But one of Kyria’s friends fainted one time when I showed her a mouse, and it wasn’t even hurt.”
“Mmm. Well, perhaps she hadn’t the advantage of being reared in the country, as I was.”
“She was just hen-hearted,” Con said flatly, his disgust for the puny friend of his sister plain in his eyes.
Their eyes were green, Anna noticed, different from Reed’s silvery-gray ones, but apart from that, she suspected that she was looking at something very much like Reed’s image when he was twelve. It made her heart swell with a strange bittersweetness.
“It’s a good thing you came along when you did,” Alex continued.
“Yeah. We were thinking we’d have to go back and get Reed or Rafe, and by the time we got back, we were afraid he might have died,” Con added.
Alex nodded. “But we thought if we tried to pick him up and carry him back home between the two of us, it would hurt him too bad.”
“Are you sure this Nick Perkins can save him?” Con asked.
“No,” Anna replied honestly, for she felt sure that these two weren’t the sort of boys who would rather hear a sweet falsehood. “But if he can be saved, Nick’s the man to do it.”
She had first met Nick Perkins when she was eight. She had ridden over to his cottage with her father when he had gone to consult Perkins about his favorite dog, which had been wounded in a fight and was barely clinging to life. Formerly a farmer on Winterset lands, Perkins knew more about animals than anyone else around, and he had learned about remedies and herbs from his mother, who had learned from her mother before her—back generations and generations of lay healers, Nick said. Nick had given her father an ointment that time, and steady application of it had saved the dog’s life.
Anna, who had loved animals from an early age, thereafter regarded the man as a miracle worker, and she had brought every sick stray she found to Perkins for his healing touch. Over the years he had imparted not only much of his knowledge and skills regarding animals to Anna, but his knowledge of remedies, as well. She had turned a small room off the kitchens into a stillroom, and there she made her own ointments and syrups. She had even had the gardener enlarge the cook’s herb garden to include several that she needed in her concoctions.
There were other plants, of course, that she had to search for in the woods and meadows, and Perkins had taught her to look for those, as well. She regularly went on such expeditions with Nick, for he, despite the fact that he was now in his late seventies, was still a strong and healthy man, and had an eagle eye for spotting their growing quarry.
She was also, quite frankly, as likely to rely on Nick’s remedies as the village doctor’s for combatting the illnesses of her household—though she would never have admitted as much to Dr. Felton.
They cut through the meadow and across the stream, then followed a wider, more well-defined path until finally they arrived at Nick Perkins’ cottage. It was a cozy little house, only two rooms and a kitchen, tucked in beneath some trees. Ivy grew up one side of it and crept around to the front, spreading its tendrils toward the steep thatched roof. Before the house lay a small garden, redolent with the scents of herbs and roses mingling. The last few years, since he had stopped farming, he had turned his still-considerable energies to his garden, bringing forth a riot of flowers every year, as well as the herbs he needed for his remedies.
He was kneeling in his garden now, digging in the earth before one of his rose bushes, and he turned at the sound of their approach. When he saw Anna, a smile spread across his leathery face, and he pushed up from the ground, rising a little creakily to his feet. Although he was old, there was nothing feeble about Nick Perkins. He was still a large man, his broad shoulders only slightly hunched, and though he was slower in his movements, there was strength in his grip and the bright flare of intelligence in his blue eyes.
“Miss Anna!” he exclaimed, coming toward them, and then his eyes went to the boys and the bundle they carried, and the grin vanished.
He moved forward more quickly. “What have you brought me this time, eh?”
He bent over their burden, taking in the injuries at a glance, and said, “Carry him into the kitchen, lads, and let’s get him up on the table.”
He led them into his house and through the front room to the kitchen. It was cool inside the thick-walled cottage, lit only by the sunshine pouring in through the open door and windows. The cottage was, as always, tidy and swept, and the kitchen was thick with the scent of herbs and flowers and other plants that hung drying from the ceiling, which mingled with a delicious odor wafting from the iron pot that hung over the fire.
Perkins caught the glances that the boys unconsciously sent toward the fire, and he said, “Mayhap you lads ’d like a bowl of that stew. Looks like ye’ve prob’ly worked up a bit of hunger, with what ye’ve been carrying.”
“Oh, no, we’d rather watch you, sir, if you’ll let us,” Alex told the old man politely.
Con nodded, adding, “But we could probably eat a bowl later, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course.” Perkins smiled at them and bent down to help them lift the dog onto the table. “But this won’t be pretty.”
“No, sir. But still, we would like to watch.”
He nodded, saying, “Just don’t get in my way. Miss Anna, fetch me the cleaner and some cloths.”
Anna went to do as he bid, taking a stack of clean, though stained and worn, cloths from one of the drawers and picking up a bottle of thin green-tinted liquid from the counter.
Perkins spoke soothingly to the dog as he bent over it, gently turning back its fur as he searched the wounds. Then he began to clean the wounds, all the while talking to the animal. The boys stood on one side of the table, and Anna took up her familiar position on the other side, by the animal’s head. She held the dog’s head firmly in her hands even as she kept up a litany of soft, soothing words and sounds.
The twins watched with interest, though they did at times pale a bit or scrunch up their faces with empathy. After Alex had asked a question about what he was doing, the old man explained every step he took as he cleaned out the wounds with care, then stitched up the longer gashes and decorated them all with an ointment. When the leg wound was clean, he carefully set the fractured bone, splinting it with small sticks that Anna brought him from another drawer, and wrapping it around tightly with a bandage.
When he was through, Nick finished the job by rolling up some herbs into a small ball and popping it into the dog’s mouth, stroking his throat until he swallowed it.
“That is to ease his pain,” he explained to the twins, whom he then set to creating a soft place with an old blanket near the hearth for the wounded animal to lie.
They helped him lay the dog carefully on the blankets, and the boys bent over the dog to admire Perkins’ work. After Anna had cleaned up and had made sure the boys did the same, Perkins dished up some of his stew for the lads, and they ate it hungrily, all the while peppering Nick with questions ranging from the operation they had just witnessed to the care and feeding of boa constrictors, a matter on which Nick Perkins allowed he had no knowledge.
They would doubtless have remained longer, except that Anna, glancing out the window, noticed how low in the sky the sun had sunk.
“Oh, my goodness, we have been here much longer than I realized!” she exclaimed, standing up. “It won’t be long before the sun is setting.” She turned and looked at the boys, guilt clear on her face. “And your brother has no idea where you are. I am afraid that your relatives will be terribly worried.”
The twins considered this, and Alex said fairly, “Yes, they will probably worry—but not as much as you would think. They are accustomed to our staying out.”
“When did you leave the house?” Anna asked.
“Sometime this morning. Around ten, I think.”
“Oh, my. They will have every right to be angry. I must get you home right away.”
Her heart quailed a little inside at the thought that she might have to face Reed again, but she had to escort them to their house. They were unfamiliar with the country and had come to Nick’s house from the woods behind Holcomb Manor, not from Winterset, so they would have no chance of finding their way back alone. Well, she told herself, she would just have to steel herself to face him—and hope that she could manage to hand them over to their sister and avoid Reed altogether.
The boys got up without demur, bidding goodbye to their new friend Nick and politely requesting permission to come back to check on their patient’s progress. Anna hustled them out the door and headed toward Winterset.
She should have taken them back earlier, she knew. Of course, she had not known at the time that the boys had been gone from their house since before noon, but, still, she should have thought…. Reed would be so worried—and their sister, too, of course. And he would have every right to be angry with her.
They had just crossed the footbridge over the stream and emerged from the trees on the other side when, in the distance, Anna saw a man on horseback. Her heart sank. It was Reed.
Beside her, the boys waved. Reed waved back, then reached inside his coat and brought out a pistol, which he fired up into the air. Then he urged his horse forward.
“There’s Rafe!” Con exclaimed, turning to look off to the west, where another man on horseback was now traveling toward them. The boys waved at him, too.
“I must say, you don’t seem particularly worried about what your brother will say,” Anna commented.
“He’ll only scold a little,” Alex assured her. “They get worried, you see, but they know we can take care of ourselves, mostly.”
“We often go off on our own,” Con added.
Anna was not as assured as the boys seemed to be that their relatives would not be furious, but when Reed pulled his horse to a stop in front of them and dismounted, his expression was more one of resignation than fear or anger.
“Well,” he said lightly, crossing his arms and looking down at the twins. “I see that this time you have managed to embroil Miss Holcomb in your peccadilloes.”
“She was great guns, Reed!” Con told him. “You should have seen her. She helped Perkins sew up a dog—and Perkins said we could have him, if we wanted, when he’s better, as he seems to be a stray—and she didn’t faint or anything at all the blood.”
“Indeed?” Reed’s eyes turned to Anna, cool and appraising.
She blushed under his gaze, realizing that once again she must look like a ragamuffin, her hair every which way and wearing her old boots and bonnet and a dress that was not only everyday, but was now dirty from kneeling beside the dog and, moreover, splotched with unappetizing stains.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she began stiffly. “I am sure you and your family must have been quite worried about where your brothers were. I am afraid I did not realize how late it had become. I should have brought them home earlier.”
A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth as Reed said, “Oh, no, pray, do not apologize. I am well aware that all fault lies with these two.” He cast a severe glance back at his brothers.
The two seemed supremely unconcerned by his stern demeanor. “You weren’t really worried, were you, Reed?” Alex asked. “It isn’t even dark yet.”
“Mmm.” Reed cast an expressive glance around at the fast-encroaching dusk. “Not pitch-black, no.” He turned back to Anna, explaining, “Con and Alex are well known for their explorations, I’m afraid. Actually, we were not overly worried, except that the terrain is unfamiliar to them. I feared that once it grew dark, they would have some difficulty finding their way back.”
At that moment the other horseman reached them, and he, too, dismounted, grinning at the boys. He was a large man, as tall as Reed, and very handsome, with tousled brown hair threaded through with golden strands, and vivid blue eyes. There was a deep dimple in his cheek when he smiled, as he was doing now.
Winking toward the twins, he said, “Well, now, got yourselves into brand-new trouble, haven’t you?”
He was the American, Anna realized, his voice soft and slightly slurred, and he sounded as if he found the entire world amusing. He looked over at Anna and swept off his hat, giving her an elegant bow. “Rafe McIntyre, ma’am, at your service. My sympathies on having gotten tangled up with these two rapscallions.”
“I found them very pleasant and admirable young men,” Anna said stoutly.
McIntyre laughed and winked again at the twins. “Won her over, did you? You are a treasure beyond price, then, Miss—”
“I’m sorry,” Reed interrupted. “Miss Holcomb, allow me to introduce my brother-in-law, Rafe McIntyre. You will have to forgive his informality. He is an American.” He countered his words with a glance of true liking toward the other man. “Rafe, this is Miss Anna Holcomb, our neighbor to the west. Her brother is the young gentleman you met earlier.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” Rafe bowed to her again, and Anna smiled back, unable to resist his infectious personality.
“We didn’t mean to stay out so long,” Alex began, “but we found this poor dog. He was in terrible shape, and Con and I didn’t know what to do. But then Miss Holcomb came along, and she helped us. She knows a man who knows all about healing animals. You should see his house! He has all kinds of plants hanging from the rafters, drying, and he makes potions and ointments.”
“And he sewed the dog up,” Con continued excitedly, “and he let us watch. And Miss Holcomb held the dog’s head for him and didn’t sick up or anything!” He beamed at his new friend.
Anna chuckled and ruffled his hair affectionately. “I’ve helped Nick all my life, just about. Believe me, it took me a while to get used to it.”
There had been another rider approaching them as they conversed, also apparently in response to Reed’s gunshot. He was a small, wiry man, and he led two saddled, riderless ponies. Now, pulling up beside the others, he slid easily from his horse and marched over to the twins.
“There ye are, ye two!” He scowled at them. “Young scapegraces, worritin’ yer sister like that. Ye ought to be ashamed of yerselves, and that’s a fact.”
“We’re sorry, Jenkins.” For the first time, the boys looked abashed.
Reed turned toward Anna and said, “We needn’t worry about reprimanding the boys. Jenkins usually does the job well enough for us.”
“Aye, an’ if I didn’t, who would, I’d like to know?” The man in question turned his fierce gaze on Reed. “There’s not a one o’ ye who takes ’em in hand like ye should.”
“I know. That is why we are so fortunate to have you.”
“Aye, well, I’ve kept ye all in line, and that’s a fact,” the man agreed, with a sharp nod of his head. “An’ I can tell ye that ye and Theo were just as bad as these two, in yer day.”
The groom turned back to the boys, continuing his scolding as he tossed them up onto their ponies and handed them the reins. Reed turned to Anna.
“Thank you for helping the boys. It relieves my mind that they were with you.”
“I should have brought them home earlier.”
“It sounds as though you had plenty to occupy you. It’s no wonder the hour slipped your mind.” He paused, then said a trifle awkwardly, “If you will allow me to put you up on my horse in front of me, we can ride back to Winterset, and then I will send you home properly in our carriage. I—I am sure that the boys’ sister would like to thank you in person.”
Heat rose up in Anna at the thought of riding on Reed’s horse with him all the way back to Winterset, and she was sure that she must be blushing. “Oh! Oh, no, you needn’t worry. Now that the boys are with you, I can just go on to my house from here, while you take the boys back.”
“And leave you to walk alone in the dark all the way back to Holcomb Manor!” Reed stiffened. “Is that what you think of me? That I would repay your kindness toward my brothers with such shabby treatment?”
“No, no, of course not,” Anna demurred quickly. “But it is no problem—it isn’t that far, and I am quite familiar with—”
“Nonsense, I could not allow it,” Reed retorted flatly, adding, not without a certain calculation, “Of course, if you feel you cannot ride double, then Jem will give you his mount, and he can walk back to Winterset.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at Reed. He knew, of course, that she would not force a servant to trudge all the way back to Winterset in the dark, especially one who was as unfamiliar with the territory as the boys.
Reed gazed back at her blandly, his eyebrows slightly raised.
“All right,” Anna agreed, knowing that she sounded ungracious, but she could not help it. She dreaded the thought of being in such close physical proximity to Reed Moreland.
Without comment, Reed helped her up onto the horse, then mounted behind her. He took up the reins, and his arms closed around Anna. She was suddenly surrounded by his heat, his scent, breathtakingly familiar and yet so long absent. Anna could not control the shiver that ran through her as he dug his heels into his steed and they set off through the night.