Page 11 of Bargaining with the Devil

She laughed. “I believe you’ll pick it up quickly enough. I doubt hauling fresh water, scattering corn for chickens, or providing hay and grain for goats is outside your capability. Although perhaps I’d best handle milking the goats.”

“Aye, ’twill be best. Likely I’d scare them off the minute I put hands on them.”

“Perhaps I’ll teach you another day.” Her face dimmed a bit. “Given it’s uncertain how long you’ll need to be here.”

He wished for her light back, but there wasn’t much there he could say, would put her at ease as far as that went. “’Tis enough for now if I don’t scare off the chickens. Unless I ought to worry ’twill be the other way ’round.”

She did smile again at that. “I’ll protect you.”

A bit of a reversal there from the expected, but he’d take the smile. “Lead the way. They’re up the hill near the main cottage?”

“Yes, when Nathaniel arrived, he repaired this cottage first. And then, because Isobel was looking for any excuse at all for him to stay, she charged him with building shelter for our animals. And because he was looking for any excuse as well to stay, he built us quite the proper shed and pen.”

He laughed, picturing it. “Took them a few months to arrive at a declaration, did it?”

“Rachel was well on the way before they finally managed it.” Her eyes were nearly dancing. “If you’ll give me a moment, I ought to change into something else.”

He puttered around the cottage some, waiting for her. In a matter of minutes, he found himself trudging up the hill behind her on his way to his first experience with handling domesticated animals. Well, first unless you counted the Peninsular Army needing to requisition food animals from Portuguese locals from time to time. He’d been put on that detail a time or two.

The structure for the animals was grander than what he’d have termed a shed, himself, and the pen was larger—a proper enclosure. Farther away stood the main cottage, a two-storied stone structure with three windows across on the top level, two and the door on ground level.

Mrs. Blackmore had a bit of an inheritance, he’d gathered two years ago: this land and the cottage originally in her mother’s name, not too far from where the sisters grew up. He didn’t know the rest of their financial particulars—’twasn’t his business, that—but their father had been a bookseller of some means and had left Mrs. Blackmore enough upon his death that she’d been able to make her way to Paris in search of Lucy.

He assumed Blackmore had something put by from their work too, same as he did. The lion’s share of his earnings went home to Mam and his sisters. Wasn’t really much to spend it on of his own account, always moving around for the job, most of those expenses coming from another’s pocket.

Following Lucy’s lead, doling out grain for the animals, then pitching a bit of hay for the goats while she milked them, got him thinking.

Couldn’t say he had a burning desire to acquire livestock of his own accord, but he found he didn’t mind the tending of them. The pony was more work, Lucy said, but chickens and goats were a bit more independent given proper care as needed.

Mayhap Mam would want to take on a few animals if he stayed in County Dublin to help out. He had the money to buy her some animals. ’Twould help her out if she could have fresh eggs and milk from animals of her own. Maybe even sell the surplus, if there was any. Although Lucy said, when he asked, that hens mostly stopped laying in the winter.

Cleaning himself up back in her cottage, he realized he’d enjoyed it, strange as it seemed. Part of it was working alongside Lucy—seeing a side of her he hadn’t seen, making their way out of France. Seeing her more relaxed than she’d been at his arrival.

But he also wasn’t made for inactivity, and this was something productive to do with his hands and mind, however long he was here.

Hard to say what the next few weeks might bring. Not that he was wishing for any sort of direct confrontation, but he was prepared for it.

He just hoped ’twould hold till Blackmore returned.

Quinn continued to help with the animals. And he clearly tried to hold up his end of the bargain to stay out of her way the rest of the time. But his presence was nonetheless almost suffocating at times. Wholly overwhelming. He occupied space physically, but his presence too demanded room. It was like he generated energy from some interior source that bled over into the very air.

Not that she had a rigid schedule to which she adhered, especially with Isobel and Nathaniel gone temporarily, but Quinn disrupted her usual relaxed routine.

And she was never alone except to sleep. If she set a single foot outside the cottage, he needed to know, then followed like a sinister shadow.

Although he wasn’t really sinister, or he did not menace her at any rate.

Auchencairn was so quiet, especially this time of year, outdoor ventures hampered by the weather, that it seemed improbable at first that danger of any magnitude might exist here. She’d heard of the historical smuggling that had taken place frequently during the past century. She was vaguely aware there were still ongoing operations, much smaller in scale than they once were, but that it should touch her life seemed almost ludicrous—why would she be any sort of target to do with that?

So she’d scoffed when Quinn first told her why he was there, even when he brought up Compton’s name. That any threat to her, did one exist, was linked to that time before, to Compton even peripherally in the form of a half brother, seemed categorically impossible. The worst sort of luck, really. But she believed Quinn. And it hadn’t taken long for the threat to feel very real. She had never had the misfortune of meeting Lymington—hadn’t even known he existed—but if he was even half as evil as his brother . . . She shuddered. Another thought she had no wish to examine.

So yes, she believed Quinn, and moreover, she trusted him, just as she’d done in France. He would unflinchingly wield his weaponry in defense of her should it come to that.

He’d been here three days already, and besides tending the animals, they hadn’t gone anywhere other than a brief walk on the headland yesterday morning that was unsatisfactory for a host of reasons: First, it was on the headland rather than by the water’s edge; second, its brevity; and third, Quinn’s silent presence just behind her for the duration. If he were a tall man, she’d have accused him of looming by now, but she’d say he was perhaps four inches short of six feet. Still a good four inches taller than herself but perhaps not sufficient to loom.

He didn’t demand she stay confined to the cottage, but she didn’t particularly fancy taking another stroll with him after yesterday. She suspected Quinn was not a man one ever strolled with anyway.

She didn’t like sharing her space with anyone. And Quinn’s presence was not a comfortable one. It was nothing he did, specifically; she didn’t feel threatened by him. But being this close to him, with him in her space at all times, continued to render her continuously on edge even with the passage of time.