Remember Me - Regency Brides 03 by Kimberley Comeaux Read Free Book Online

remembered petting a cow once, but that was the extent of it.
    She had never touched the underbel y of one.
    She glanced back at North, who had come to stand behind her, and once again, he seemed truly interested in what she was doing. "Are you al right?" he asked when she looked back at the cow and then to him once more.
    "Oh, yes ...yes…I am fine. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention,"
    she answered. .
    "You have my ful concentration," North assured.
    "Capital, just capital!" she murmured between gritted teeth. Taking a deep breath, she slowly reached out and took hold of the cow. The cow stirred a little, but that was al . She tried to pul like she had seen the servant do, but no milk came out.
    "Trouble?" North asked.
    Helen ignored him as she pul ed again, and stil nothing. Three, four, then five times she tried but only succeeded in making the cow become irritable.
    Final y she couldn't take it anymore. Helen jumped up from her seat, causing the stool to fal back, the cow to move around, and the chickens to be once again upset.
    "I don't think she's in the mood to be milked," Helen said quickly, as she brushed at her skirt, then tried to push a few stray hairs away from her face. North folded his arms and appeared to study the cow. "I wasn't aware that cows needed to be in the mood." "Yeah, I've never heard that, either," Josie added. "Are you sure you've milked a cow before?"
    Putting her hands on her hips, Helen held her chin up with as much bravado as she could muster. "Actual y, no. But I've seen it done plenty of times." She tapped her fingertip on her hips. "Enough to know when a cow is in the mood to be milked or not!"
    North narrowed his gaze at her, but she could see the humorous gleam shining in his eyes. "So how do I know when she's in the mood?"
    Helen suddenly realized he'd known al along she was faking it. She pointed her finger at him and charged, "Why didn't you tel me you were on to me? You actual y let me touch that ...that...thing!"
    Both Josie and North were doubled over laughing by this point. "I can't wait...to see how ...you do ...with the chickens!" he said between laughs.
    Helen smiled confidently as she marched over to one of the hens and deftly scooped her hand under the chicken and quickly withdrew it, holding an egg triumphant in the air. "Now let's see you try," she chal enged, knowing what the outcome would be to a novice.

    Just as she thought would happen, North walked over to the hen, poked and prodded through its feathers and, instead of an egg, got a painful peck on the wrist for his efforts.
    "Oh, dear," she said with mock innocence. "I fear you did not do that correctly."
    North frowned as he rubbed his hand. "I take it you've done this before?"
    "Many times." '
    North grinned at her, and her heart did a flip-flop. To final y have al his attention directed at her, after many months of having him be merely polite to her while she pined away for him every time she saw him, was a heady experience indeed.
    The sight of him being so natural and at ease, standing in a bam surrounded by chicken feathers and a smel y cow, made her wish he were truly who he thought he was--a simple preacher.
    While it was true that North was always a very nice man despite his exalted position in society, he always seemed to be aware of and took care with everything he did--every move he made. He seemed bound by the dictates of his society and the boundaries of the English society, or the ton, as they were cal ed.
    Now he didn't have those restrictions on him. There was no one watching how he dressed or with whom he kept company. There were no responsibilities on him since he didn't realize that he had the burden of taking care of four estates and watching after his many investments, not to mention the people who depended on him for their livelihood. He thought he was simply a country preacher whose only worry at the moment was probably the sermon he would have to preach on Sunday and how to