Chapter 9

Callie placed one foot in the stirrup and swung the other over the saddle in a swift, practised motion. Arrow stood steady as a post. "Kip!" she called out. "Will you fetch a flask of water from the kitchen? I'll be out all morning."

She settled in and waited, even as Arrow grew restless beneath her. He was itching for his ride, as was she. A productive morning spent seeing to the apple orchards was just what she needed.

Beyond the roofline, the sky began its fade from black to blue, the night's transformation into day. What was keeping the boy? She liked to get out and moving before dawn, so as not to get in the way of the apple pickers. She tended to make them nervous. They liked her ideas and results, but they didn't necessarily like her.

No matter. She didn't need to be liked. She only needed to be useful.

In the brightening light of dawn, she saw her bargain with Jack Le Grand was nothing to feel guilty about. She'd done right by the Grange.

If a flock of nerves fluttered about her stomach every time she remembered the pirate's shrewd gaze… well, she could ignore them.

They weren't useful at all.

"Your ladyship," came Mrs. Bailey's voice, her breath huffing and puffing, her feet a brisk click-clack. Kip followed close at the woman's heels. "You'll be needing more than a flask of water this morning."

She handed up a knapsack stuffed with provisions likely including, but not limited to, a buttered crumpet and a buttermilk scone, a wedge of hard cheese and a freshly baked Cornish revel bun. Oh, and a large chunk of shortbread.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bailey," Callie called down, tucking the food into the saddlebag at her back. Never in her life had she met anyone so determined to plump her up a bit. "What would I do without you?"

"Likely wither and blow away in the breeze."

Callie let the observation pass, finding any discussion of her physical person repellant. She'd never heard a good word about it. Not that she held Mrs. Bailey's words against her. They came from a place of affection.

At last fitted out for the day, Callie guided Arrow around and was about to set out when a short, sharp whistle pierced the air and brought her up short. She caught sight of a figure just beyond the edge of light. He stepped into the flickering glow of the stable yard's lanterns, and she went dumb.

The Viking.

The light had no choice but to play in the sun-kissed streaks of platinum that ran through his hair, pulled back into a low queue. His neck was a column of muscle that conveyed strength and man, below which a fine dusting of hair trailed into the loose, open V of his shirt.

Her eyebrows crinkled together. He was dressed as a laborer, or a ship captain, as the case might be. What he wasn't dressed like was a gentleman. But, then, he wasn't one, she supposed.

"May I help you, Captain Nylander?" She insisted on calling him captain. The formality of the word placed needed distance between herself and the man, whose mere presence made her squirm with discomfort.

Merepresence? The man's presence was quite a bit more than mere. Massive. Ungodly handsome. Implacable. Those were the truths of his presence.

"I awakened this morning with the urge to see the workings of the Grange."

Nerves and suspicion hitched her breath in her chest. Had he learned that St. Alban wished to sell him the Grange? Or, perhaps, he remembered their night of?—

She searched his eyes for that particular knowledge and discerned no sign of it. "And why is that?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "Curiosity?"

She jutted her chin toward Kip. "I'm sure the lad would be amenable to assuaging your curiosity with a tour." Kip's capacity for exploration knew no bounds. She expected he'd trod every inch of the Grange by now. "If you'll pardon me." She tugged Arrow's reins, letting action speak for itself.

"I should like to accompany you," the blasted man called out, bringing her up short. "I'd wager coin that no one understands the workings of the Grange better than you."

"That is surely the case," Mrs. Bailey chimed in, beaming with pride. Callie had forgotten her presence. The Viking had a way of obliterating her awareness of every other living being.

"There is but one problem." A smile, no doubt mean and petty, curled about her mouth. "I have a busy morning ahead of me and a good deal of land to cover. And you, Captain Nylander, don't ride." She settled into her saddle with smug satisfaction. She had him there.

Again, he shrugged a shoulder. "I can't imagine there's anything to it."

She startled upright, muscles locked in tension. "Pardon?" She couldn't have heard him correctly.

"I've always wanted to try it."

"Horse riding is a skill that takes some time to learn," she said, measured, controlled, and the very opposite of the panic that wanted to rise.

"Mayhap."

His piercing gaze held hers, and she knew she'd lost. This man wanted to ride a horse, and he would. "Kip," she called. "Saddle Buttercup for Captain Nylander."

Kip's eyes went wide. "Buttercup?"

Callie nodded. Buttercup had only escaped being named Satan's Curse thanks to the head groom's sardonic sense of irony. When Kip opened his mouth again, to lodge a stronger protest, she cut in. "Buttercup is the only horse in our stable sizeable enough to support Captain Nylander's person."

Her body wanted to blush at that last bit. She knew exactly how sizeable Captain Nylander's person was. Best to stop right there.

Refusing to meet his eye, she alighted from her mount and began fiddling with various bits of tack—saddle, blanket, stirrups, straps—until Kip returned with Buttercup.

The moment she saw the horse, restive and annoyed at having been roused at dawn, she smiled. The Viking would be returning to the house within five minutes of their ride. She'd be shocked if he made it far enough to view a single apple tree.

Kip led Buttercup in a wide circle before proceeding to instruct Captain Nylander on the correct way to handle the beast. The captain ran his hand over the horse's velvety snout and along its mane. Buttercup snorted, but remained passive. Then Kip began a tutorial on how to mount. The Viking placed his foot in the stirrup and attempted to mimic the boy's smooth, lithe motion. But the stirrup wobbled out from beneath him, and he fell back onto his bottom, a billowy puff of dust clouding the air around him.

A chirrup of laughter escaped Callie, but the Viking paid her no attention. Instead, he pushed to his feet and dusted himself off. Again, Kip demonstrated the sequence of motions, this time slowly. Again, the captain tried his luck. This time, the stirrup wobbled a bit, but he didn't fall.

There the blasted man sat, mounted on Buttercup, a smile of accomplishment on his face.

She'd never seen the man smile. Not once. His wasn't a symmetrical smile. In fact, it was lopsided. But, oh, what it did to his face. Somehow, it made him more handsome, and something else, too. It made him charming.

A strange note of the familiar hung about that lopsided smile, like she'd seen it on someone. Before she could lay a finger on the who, when, or where, it was gone, and he was a hair less devastatingly handsome. A hair less godlike. A hair more human.

"We have a morning of riding ahead of us. Do try to keep up," she said, all brisk business. "But feel at liberty to turn back if the need arises."

"Not a chance, my lady."

She let out a short whistle, and Chance bounded out of the shadows, ready for a day's work. She gave her mount a light squeeze of her knees, and she was on her way, Arrow's hooves a hollow clip-clop that echoed between manor house and stables. The Viking at her back, they reached the end of the paved drive and rounded a long barn onto packed gravel.

"I was surprised to see that Wyldcombe Grange has no formal gardens," his masculine baritone rumbled behind her. "They seem to go on for miles behind other great houses."

"The Grange did have formal gardens." She pointed toward the simple square structure to their right. "Last year, I had this barn and a new cow house built to replace them. Formal gardens are of no use to anyone."

Behind her, silence. Mayhap he was shocked. Or not. He didn't seem like the sort of man who would be taken aback by such an action. Georgie, ever aware of his viscountly place in the world, had surely rolled over in his grave.

In the quiet of a clear, breaking dawn, they rode eastward, leaving behind manor house, barns, dairy, cart shed, and ash house, an open sky and gently rolling hills before them as they passed segmented pastures to either side.

"May I inquire where we're going?"

His solicitousness brought a smile to her lips. It was at complete odds with the way she viewed him. He was the Viking, after all.

"The orchard," she called over her shoulder.

"Do you mind if we ride side by side?"

Her smile fell. She minded very much. "Not at all."

She slowed her mount and allowed the Viking to draw abreast with her. For his first time on a horse, he was doing remarkably well. It seemed Buttercup had taken to him.

"So what's the purpose of the orchard?"

"We produce cider from the apples." She wouldn't mention the brandy. The less he knew, the better.

"Are cider apples different from the apples you buy from a fruit seller?"

She threw him an exasperated look. "They are." How had he known to ask that question? "Whoever planted them decades ago knew what they were doing. The Grange's orchard has thirteen varieties ranging from bitter to sweet. My guess is that a former Viscount St. Alban visited Normandy and was converted into a cider connoisseur."

"Is it necessary to have so many different apple varieties to make cider?"

"It's about the taste. Depending on the mixture of bitter to sweet, it does affect the complexity and flavor." She found herself warming to his line of questioning.

"You've really made a business of it."

She couldn't miss the appreciation in his voice, and a wave of gratification swept over her, despite herself. How satisfying to have an outsider admire the Grange.

"Our cider's renown is growing." She couldn't seem to stop gushing. "Only last month, an innkeeper from Exeter requested ten kegs of this year's brew for his tap room. We've even had requests ranging farther afield than England. In fact?—"

She stopped herself right there. What was she going to reveal next? Her intention to sell her apple brandy illegally through pirates, instead of using perfectly legal distribution that would be subject to taxation and therefore cut into her need for immediate cash?

She was in danger of becoming entirely too comfortable with the Viking. Which wouldn't do, not at all.

She cleared her throat. "It's certainly a brisk morning. Winter will be upon us before we know it."