Page 44 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
If Thomas chose to walk away, he could.
Over the last year, she had wondered whether she was supposed to act in some way to bring about their Lady-ordained marriage. Acting—doing—would have been so much more in keeping with her character, her temperament, her usual way of facing and dealing with life’s challenges. She’d questioned, but in the end, she’d accepted and waited…
Perhaps her time to act was finally here.
As she slipped over the threshold into sleep, it certainly seemed that convincing Thomas that he couldn’t walk away from her and his Lady-ordained future was a task that fell to her.
* * *
Thomas woke restless and somehow dissatisfied. Unwilling to dwell on what his body seemed to think it lacked, he threw on his clothes and headed down to the stable to check on Phantom and Lucilla’s mare.
Even though it was early, he avoided the breakfast parlor. He didn’t need to learn if Lucilla was an early riser—she probably was.
He walked out of the front door and circled the house. Alice Watts was due to arrive that morning. As soon as Lucilla had coached Alice in all she needed to do, he would escort Lucilla back to the Vale, to Marcus—who, no doubt, would be very ready to take back his sister and send Thomas on his way.
It said much of his mood that he was starting to feel glad that he’d been forced to knock Marcus Cynster unconscious.
On reaching the stable, he walked inside. A quick glance around found no Sean, Mitch, or Fred, which surprised him. He hadn’t expected to see any of his cousins about at that hour, but the stablemen were usually at work by now.
Yesterday, he’d made time to speak with Sean about finding Joy Burns’s canteen and getting some water from the Bradshaws’ well, and sending samples from both sources off to Glasgow for analysis. As well as his other duties, Sean handled the various soil- and water-related tests the estate ran in the continuing effort to eke out the best from their lands. Thomas wanted to check that Sean had found Joy’s canteen, and when he thought the results from the laboratory might come back.
But he would have to check later, because Sean was nowhere in sight.
Mentally shrugging, Thomas went down the aisle. He spent the next fifteen minutes grooming Phantom, then stepped into the next stall and started brushing the black mare’s glossy hide. She shifted, not accustomed to him. Phantom hung his head over the wall between the stalls, as if intrigued by the mare’s prancing. She quieted after that, allowing Thomas to groom her.
When both horses were gleaming, he relatched their stalls. He was replacing the brushes on the wall at the end of the stable when, in the distance, he heard a horse whicker.
The noise came from outside, from beyond the end of the stable. But he hadn’t heard anyone ride up, and there weren’t any horse paddocks in that direction.
Puzzled, he walked out of the stable. Another whicker carried on the breeze drew his gaze—to the old barn.
As far as he knew, it was used to store old carriages and carts no longer in use, old implements no one was ready to throw away just in case they were needed again. No horses of any kind had been stabled there for years.
He walked toward the barn. The closer he got, the more sounds he heard—the shifting stamp of horses’ hooves on straw-strewn earth, the rattle of a stall wall as a horse bumped it.
And voices.
He walked through the open barn door and discovered that Sean, Mitch, and Fred were, indeed, at work. They were mucking out the stalls and feeding and grooming…Thomas counted along the line of stalls…eight horses.
Eight examples of prime horseflesh, with glossy coats and strong legs. Four had the deep chests of carriage horses, two the sleeker build of Thoroughbreds, while the last pair were hunters, heavy and powerful.
He stood staring for a full minute, then Sean, standing in a nearby stall, brush in hand, saluted him. “Morning.”
Slowly walking forward, Thomas returned the greeting. Then he asked, “Where did these come from?” He faced Sean. “Who do they belong to?”
Sean looked him in the eye, then flicked a glance at Mitch and Fred before returning his gaze to Thomas’s face. “Don’t rightly know, do we? You’d do better asking Master Nigel.”
Thomas studied Sean’s eyes. “Nigel brought them here?”
“Him and Master Nolan.” Mitch came to join them. “The pair o’ them brought the beasts.” With his chin, Mitch directed Thomas’s gaze down the aisle to the barn’s end. “And those, too.”
Thomas peered into the shadows at the back of the barn and saw the outline of three carriages.
“Not as if we don’t have enough work to do,” Fred grumbled from a nearby stall.
“Aye.” Sean got back to his brushing. “And the breeding season’s already on us—not that that pair seem concerned about that.”
Thomas heard the complaint for what it was; the clan had always saved money by breeding their own horses and donkeys to use on the estate’s farms. In any decent season, there were usually a few extra to sell, helping the coffers just that bit more.
