Elisabeth Fairchild (16 page)

Aurora had no real notion when Miles Fletcher came up beside her. She found sheep shearing a fascinating spectacle and watched with a narrowly focused concentration until Walsh joined the group of spectators a few feet to her right.

Walsh she noticed. Grace hung upon his arm. Aurora hoped she would notice her, perhaps call her to join them. But Miss Fletcher did not so much as glance in Aurora’s direction, no matter how deliberately Aurora stared.

Miles watched Aurora with the same concentration that his sister avoided looking at her, just as he had instructed. Aurora did not notice. She had eyes only for sheep and Lord Walsh.

“Tell me exactly what goes on here, Miss Ramsay.” He made a point of speaking just loud enough that Walsh must hear him.

Aurora, startled, jumped a little as Walsh turned toward them, just as Miles had hoped he would, to say, “Good morning, Miles, Miss Ramsay.”

“Your grace,” he politely tipped his hat, returning his focused attention to Aurora, whose gaze flickered over his shoulder and back again, as though she anticipated a move toward Walsh and his sister. Miles could read the expectation in her eyes. But he was subtler than that. He wanted Walsh to join them of his own volition, not the other way around.

“Tell me,” he gently distracted her. “What is it that the shearer uses to cut away the sheep’s hooves?”

Any disappointment she might have harbored at his failure to approach Walsh disappeared as her focus shifted to the activities of the man who bent over the prostrate ewe, hand moving swiftly from hoof to hoof.

“Those are clippers,” she said, comfortable in her knowledge. “The hooves must be clipped every once in a while.”

“And is the shearing done with the wicked garden sheers?” he asked with deliberate ignorance.

“They are called blades and you are right to call them wicked. You can see the shearer has bound the palms of his hands in gauze--protection against accidental slicing should the sheep decide to move about unexpectedly.” She fell silent.

“Go on,” Miles encouraged. “ll me, step-by-step, what he is doing and why. I would understand.”

Aurora obliged, the information flowing readily from her tongue without any trace of superiority. This world of sheep and shepherds and shearing fit her comfortably, like an old pair of gloves.

“The first blow, for so each stroke of the blades is called, is the brisket blow, there between the front legs. It is followed by the belly wool blow, which is generally clipped and set aside. The rest of the wool will be sheared away in one large piece, so down each leg he goes, and

around the dock.”

“Why is a sheep’s tail docked? Is it the fashion, like docking a horse’s tail?”

“Not exactly. Many shepherds believe docking keeps their sheep cleaner and healthier, as there is no tail to catch dirt, manure and burrs.” As she answered Miles slid a glance in Gracie’s direction. Her attention was on Miss Ramsay--as was Lord Walsh’s. Everything according to plan.

“Do you dock your sheep?”

Both Lord Walsh and the shepherd whose ewe was being sheared tilted their heads in her direction. Miles could tell their interest was keen by their arrested stance.

Without noticing the attention she received, Aurora nodded decisively. The shepherd nodded his approval. “I recommend my shepherds dock lambs if they are not already in the practice. But never horses. Their tails are needed for switching flies.”

Miles nodded.

She went on in her description of the shearer’s movements. “Now, he has done the neck blow from brisket to cheek, and the topknot,” she pointed to the ewe’s head. “He is finishing out the shoulder blow, where the wool is best, and is moving along the side.”

“Zzzt, zzt, zzzt,”
the blades snicked faster now through the wool, which fell away from the ewe’s sides, pale and clean, almost buttery next to the animal’s skin.

“Across the back, the shearer takes long blows.” Aurora was in her element, eyes focused on the swinging movement of the shearer’s arm, words flowing as effortlessly as the wool slid from the sheep’s back. Faster now, the blade sang through the wool as the ewe, passive as a rag doll beneath the hypnotic movement of hand and blade was gently rolled so that the other side might be worked. Faster still, the blade sang through the creamy wool, as Aurora described the final bladework on the whipping side of the sheep.

Aurora’s confident explanation drew a crowd of attentive listeners. Most of them focused on the sheep and shearer with occasional glances in Aurora’s direction as she spoke. Lord Walsh was among them, but the focus of his attention differed from that of the onlookers around him. He was as mesmerized by Aurora as the glassy-eyed sheep was by its own shearing. Amazed wonder lit his gaze, as if he were vastly impressed by something he had not expected to affect him at all.

Miles felt a jealous pang of connection. Did he look like that when he gazed at Aurora? Like a smitten schoolboy? Was his own chance of securing the young lady’s affections being clipped along with the wool? Would she now fall into the arms of the man she had so long and arduously pursued as readily as wool fell from the back of the ewe?

“Wool away!” the shearer called, as the ewe sprang from the pale mound of its shorn fleece and shook itself, with a dazed look.

Lord Walsh blinked, as dazed as the sheep.

Two women stepped in to bundle up the wool. Another creature was led to the mat.

“Come!” Aurora beckoned Miles, oblivious to the change in Lord Wal. “If you would understand the full process of shearing we should follow the fleece.”

Miles was immensely cheered by her excitement. He held out his arm to her. “I am yours to command,” he said and away they would have sailed, out of Lord Walsh’s field of influence, had not the man blocked their path, Grace upon his arm.

“Would you mind our accompanying you?” he asked with a courtly bow to Aurora. “Your knowledge of the shearing process is considerable, Miss Ramsay. I am sure Miss Fletcher would be greatly entertained to hear more.”

“Greatly entertained,” Grace agreed. “Tell me, does your brother intend to join in the festivities today?”

Miles was forced to smile and respond to Walsh’s small talk politely when in truth he would have liked to tell both Walsh and Gracie to go to blazes. He grew used to having Aurora Ramsay to himself. He realized how much he would like to continue that state of affairs.

But his wishes were not to be fulfilled. Hers were. His Uncle Lester’s were. Walsh clung to them like a thistle burr, exactly as Miles had planned.

On the following day it rained. The sheering continued in the crowded confines of the barn.

Many of Coke’s guests declined to brave the weather. Under ordinary circumstances Aurora would have donned her boots, but today she found the turn in the weather a nuisance. For perhaps the first time in a long time, she had an aversion to getting wet or dirty. Mrs. Hall had sent two of her redone gowns, as promised, as quickly as they were finished. Aurora had torn into the parcel with great expectation. She had made such a positive impression on Lord Walsh the previous day that she hoped to impress him again, this time with her appearance. She donned the prettier of the two dresses.

The changes were tasteful and understated. Nothing looked added-on or out-of-place. Feeling girlish and pretty, as if she had been handed an entirely new dress, Aurora paraded in front of the mirror, wondering how she was to pay for her indulgence and concentrating again on the advantages of marrying a man of means.

A French modiste would be at her disposal if she could wring a proposal out of Walsh. She whirled before the mirror at the prospect. Miles had been right. His sister had an unerring eye for color. To a simple round-necked, ecru colored gown, boasting no more original detail than French-work across the bodice and around the hem and cuffs, color had been judiciously added. Satin piping in a green to match her eyes ran in tiers along the base of the skirt and around the cuffs, disguising worn spots. In addition, green-corded lace epaulets had been fashioned for the shoulders. When the epaulets had been suggested the night before, Aurora had balked at such an addition.

“I do not care for fussy bits hanging off my dresses.”

Grace had shrugged. “As you wish, but epaulets are all the rage, and as they are worn by all manner of gentlemen in the military I cannot agree with your assessment in labeling them fussy. Quite to the contrary,” she had exclaimed, “they lend a military trimness to one’s shoulders.”

Aurora was glad she had relied on Grace Fletcher’s expertise. The epaulets, indeed everything about the dress, suited her admirably.

She descended to the breakfast parlor, where one fended for oneself by partaking what one would from a well-stocked sideboard. There, over slices of ham and poached eggs, she received several pretty complments on her appearance, the most valued of which came from Lord Walsh, whom she encountered coming into the room as she was taking herself out of it.

“Miss Ramsay!” He stepped back out of her way. “We seem to be in the habit of running into one another in doorways.”

“
Au contraire
, sir,” she said pertly, favoring him with a dazzling smile. “We have almost got the knack of not running into one another. I would say, instead, that we have the unusual good fortune to encounter one another in doorways.”

He smiled, as much in a mood for banter as she. “With good fortune, the next time we encounter one another we shall both be headed in the same direction. I have noticed that you spend your mornings horseback when weather permits. Perhaps, if it does not rain again tomorrow, we might turn our horse’s heads in the same direction?”

He asked her to ride with him!

“At what hour would I encounter you in the doorway to the stables?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.

He seemed pleased with her response. “Seven would find me there. Does that suit you?”

She inclined her head. “I shall make an effort not to bowl you over, sir.”

He allowed himself a smile. He was very handsome when he smiled. “I do not mind in the least being bowled over by a beautiful woman, Miss Ramsay.”

Aurora parted from him, hopes high.

Faced with a day indoors and rain lacing all the windows in busy Holkham Hall, Aurora’s euphoria did not last. She did not want to wait. Tomorrow promised too much. Today, she was certain, must be a complete waste of her time.

Miles found her pacing from window to window in the drawing room a quarter of an hour later, a caged wildcat in refurbished muslin. She wore one of the dresses that Mrs. Hall had transformed. He recognized the willow green trim. He would make a point of seeing to it that Mrs. Hall was handsomely recompensed. The change in Aurora Ramsay was charmingly effective.

“You look lovely.” He joined Aurora in her pacing and nodded his head toward the trim that enlivened her shoulders.

Aurora fingered her sleeve with a self-conscious smile. “Do you like it? Two dresses were delivered this morning with a promise of two more this afternoon.”

He smiled, his approval undisguised. “More important than what I like--do you care for the change?”

She could not disguise her pleasure. Her eyes lit up like stars and a self-conscious smile tugged her lips. “Who would have thought such a small change could make such a difference?” She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

He might have taken pleasure in that telling evidence of her growing affection for him, had she not imparted in that very moment how effectively the dress had caught Lord Walsh’s eye.

“He has asked me to ride with him tomorrow morning!

Isn’t it wonderful!” She gave his arm a squeeze.

He was pleased she had prospects for the future, but he could not be pleased they were with Walsh, whom he was convinced, now more than ever, after having traipsed all around the sheep-shearing grounds yesterday in his company, was not at all the best man for Aurora Ramsay.

Aurora stared out of the rain-drenched windows, imagining her ride tomorrow with Walsh, Miles suspected.

She sighed and followed a raindrop down the pane with the tip of her finger. “This is my least favorite sort of day, trapped indoors by such weather. In lieu of studying livestock or culivating tools what do you suggest we do?”

Miles regarded the mist-shrouded landscape. “I realize there are many who would agree with you, but I beg to differ. Rainy days are my favorite. The familiar world beyond ones window is lent mystery by such weather. It never fails to make me feel fortunate to be indoors--warm and dry, with a good book in hand and an extra log on the grate.”

She no longer stared bleakly out at the sodden landscape. She stared instead at him. “My brother would agree with you. However it would seem that on every matter, you and I are at odds, sir.”

“Indeed,” he smiled. “As a result, our conversations never cease to entertain. Come! This weather offers us the opportunity to spend an entire day exploring my favorite subjects.” He led the way out of the drawing room. It was becoming far too crowded for his taste.