Love With the Perfect Scoundrel by Sophia Nash Read Free Book Online Page B

din, Timmy. Are you certain English sheep don’t make more noise than those in other parts of the world?” That finally brought a grin to the eager-eyed lad’s face.
    “No, sir.”
    “Well, my horse would beg to differ with you, I’m certain.”
    “She be a real goer, sir.”
    He leaned down conspiratorially. “It’s a good thing you said so. I’ll tell you a secret. Like all females, she responds well to compliments.”
    His eyes widened. “Yes, sir.”
    Michael clapped the young man on the shoulder and laughed. It was going to take some doing to extract conversation from the boy.
    The tack room, which also housed the grain bins, was across from them, and Michael headed toward it. Just before opening the door, Michael spied Timmy out of the corner of his eye.
    “No!” Michael’s heart pumped frantically as the blood drained from his head. “Stop!” He spun and grabbed the pitchfork from Timmy’s hands.
    Timmy was now as terrified as Michael, his back against the stall door.
    Michael tried to regulate his breathing. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should have explained how we shall go about it with the horses.”
    Timmy nodded, red-faced.
    “I want you to always remove the horse from the stall first, before you muck it out. Then, fill the buckets before you return a horse to its stall. Is that understood?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And I want to have a look at every lantern here before the day is done. No one is ever to leave one unattended.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    “Right. Now I’ll see to the grain while you start with the plough team. I shall always see to Sioux, myself.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Oh, and Timmy?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “You did an excellent job overseeing the animals by yourself yesterday. I don’t know many men who could have maintained relative order with this large a group under one roof.”
    “Thank ye, Mr. Ranier.”
    Michael smiled at the boy and took a deep breath before he headed into the tack room.
    His quick glance last night had been correct. Sam had left him a veritable windfall. Rows of well-tended leather goods decorated one long wall of the chamber. Oiled bridles, saddles, girths, and harnesses draped from pegs while gleaming bits and other assorted metal goods hung nearby. The bins were free of dirt and filled to the brim.
    A thorough inspection of the assorted side buildings revealed a well-stocked establishment for farming the land and breeding stock. It would take time to fully determine the merits of the horses, sheep, and cows, and to learn if the land was fertile, but hope filled his veins for the first time in many years. Sam had planned well, and Michael was filled with an aching gratitude for his childhood friend. Who would have guessed that kindness to a young boy would lead to this?
    Michael opened Sioux’s stall door, and the mare’s large, supple neck swung toward him. She whinnied low, and nuzzled his side, searching. “You know it’s there, sweetheart.” A cloud of her exhaled breath surrounded him and he stroked the mare’s shoulder. She retrieved the half carrot visible from his voluminous coat pocket and chomped on the treat. “Come along, now.”
    His mare dropped her head and followed him to the center aisle. Once she was in cross ties, Michael curried her flanks while Timmy cleaned the stall.
    The peaceful sounds and smells of the barn soothed his spirit as they always did. It was more than good to be set free from the confines of that storm-tossed ship’s cabin he’d endured for many weeks. If the rough crossing from England to the colonies all those years ago hadn’t proved it to him, this last journey, aboard a Jamaican privateer’s ship dodging the Royal Navy bent on war, certainly had. There was something about being trapped on a bobbing, creaking, leaking vessel with a fleet of English commanders hungry for promotion on your tail, or worse—a pirate hungry for bounty of any kind—that left the taste of bile in Michael’s