Page 11 of A Lord Apart (The Way to a Lord's Heart 2)

“You can’t be shooting master’s goats!” the boy wailed. “They ain’t like sheep. I can’t make ’em do what I want.”

“Is that Sam Jensen?” said Lord Whitfield.

Penelope started. She hadn’t realized he was so close behind her.

The boy spotted him and ran over. “My lord! It ain’t my fault, sir. There was nobody here, and the goats found the garden all on their own.”

A shriek from Kitty indicated that a goat had run into the kitchen. Tom dashed in and returned with the small animal in his arms. He grinned, not looking at all apprehensive. “Did you see their eyes?” he asked. “Right odd, they are.” He showed the animal to Kitty. She backed up a step.

A sound made Penelope turn. There was a goat teetering on top of the woodpile and seeming to leer at her. The pupils of its yellow eyes were dark horizontal slashes rather than circles. They were rather odd.

“Perhaps it will eat the spiders,” said Lord Whitfield.

She turned to look at him. His dark eyes were gleaming with humor. His face had lost all trace of pomposity. “Goats are vegetarian,” she said. “I think.”

“They are,” said the stately Lord Macklin. “Although they will taste all sorts of rubbish to see if it’s palatable.”

Lord Whitfield smiled. Penelope was shaken, and then overtaken, by laughter, and he joined in. Her neighbor seemed a different person, laughing. His blunt features were transformed, as if a curtain had been drawn back to expose a lively, engaging personality. She got the notion that, like her, he hadn’t laughed so heartily in a while. She felt intimations of an old lightness and freedom that had been absent from her life for such a long time.

And then Penelope realized that her older visitor was watching them with more interest than their brief acquaintance warranted. Her laughter faltered, and degenerated into a cough. Struggling to control the spasm, she wondered who Lord Macklin was. Why would such an obviously superior person call at Rose Cottage? Had he come here looking for her? The Manchester matter had been declared closed. She had no more to say; that had been made perfectly clear. She’d been left to gather the tatters of her life around her and move on. Her new circles would not include noblemen who were clearly powers in the land. Coughing, she turned her back on him. Penelope had been visited by too many authorities over the last year to welcome any sort of inquiries.

Lord Whitfield had walked away. Now he returned with a cup of water. “Here.”

Penelope took it, drank, and assuaged her cough. Fatigue, only partly physical, descended on her.

“We must gather up these goats and take them…somewhere,” Lord Whitfield added.

“How do you propose to do that?” asked Lord Macklin. He sounded amused and interested rather than toplofty.

“They are herd animals. We will herd them.” He turned to the boy in the garden. “How do you move your goats about, Sam?”

“It’s more like I follow them, my lord. They go where they like.”

“But you have to get them home at the end of the day.”

“Oh.” Sam wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I try to catch hold of Nanny. They’ll follow her. Mostly. Usually.”

“Which one is Nanny?” Penelope asked. She moved toward the garden.

“No,” said Lord Whitfield. “You go and sit down. We’ll gather them up.”

Penelope stiffened. She didn’t like being ordered about, and she couldn’t allow a viscount and whatever exalted rank Lord Macklin held to chase goats around her cottage.

“Tom,” said Lord Whitfield, beckoning.

The lad hurried to his side.

“And, er, Foyle.” He crooked a finger at her manservant. “We will execute an encircling maneuver. Sam, you will capture Nanny.”

“What about me?” asked Lord Macklin. He was definitely amused.

“Rear guard,” replied the younger visitor. “Head off stragglers.”

The campaign began, and Penelope’s property descended into chaos.

Goats were in fact nothing like sheep. They didn’t clump up and stare apprehensively when people ran in a circle around them. They scattered, hopped like rabbits, and took the opportunity to butt if anyone turned his back. Young Tom was knocked into a heap by the largest goat, which he appeared to find hilarious. The goats also seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Penelope recruited Kitty, and they set themselves to block the way to the front of the house. Kitty shrank back when a trio of the animals ran at them, but Penelope flapped her skirts, shouted, and turned them away. She had nearly despaired, however, when Sam pounced on a large white goat and threw his arms around her neck. She turned to bite him, but he evaded her teeth.

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