An Unlikely Suitor. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ by creeping around in the dark—and with this—’ She gestured with her foot towards the offending sack. It seemed obvious that he had been poaching and worse, that his quarry was still alive.

      ‘I would have thought better of you!’ she finished with self-righteous indignation.

      ‘Would you?’ Barney Hammond sounded surprised and amused. ‘Naturally, I am flattered, Miss Brabant, but why should you?’

      Lavender frowned slightly. She could not see his expression properly, for it was almost full dark now and besides, he was possessed of a face that was inscrutable at the best of times. She had heard the maids giggling over Barney Hammond, remarking on his good looks and athletic physique, and whilst Lavender would have said that he was in no way classically handsome, she was aware that there was definitely something about him. It was a something that made her feel quite hot and bothered when she dwelt on it and it had even led Caroline once to remark, completely dispassionately, that she could see why all the village girls were wild for him.

      Lavender tried to concentrate, aware that such thoughts were making matters worse rather than better. She knew that it would be best to make her excuses and leave, but Barney was waiting politely for her response and she felt it would be rude simply to walk away.

      ‘I did not imagine that you would stoop to poaching,’ she said coldly, indicating the sack again. It had not moved again but she knew she had not imagined it. ‘And to take your prey without killing it cleanly—that is rank cruelty!’

      This time she heard him laugh. ‘Oh, so you think I am a poacher, Miss Brabant? I see!’ The warmth in his tone had slid into teasing and Lavender was even more confused. Not only was this inappropriate, it suggested that he was completely heartless!

      ‘What else am I supposed to think?’ she countered angrily, wondering why the timbre of his voice was so attractive when his words were so much the opposite. ‘I heard a noise from the sack—and I saw it move! And why else would you be out after dark—’

      She watched in amazement as Barney crouched down on the path and loosened the string at the neck of the sack. Suddenly she did not want to see whatever poor, maimed creature was inside.

      ‘I pray you, put it out of its misery quickly,’ she said hastily, looking the other way. ‘How can you be so unkind—’

      ‘Putting them out of their misery was precisely what my father intended,’ Barney said dryly. ‘I fear that you have jumped to the wrong conclusions, Miss Brabant.’

      Lavender heard a tiny mewing sound and looked round sharply. Barney was easing something gently out of the sack, something soft, fluffy and with very sharp claws. Lavender saw him wince as the kitten sank teeth and claws simultaneously into his hand.

      ‘Oh, there are two of them!’

      ‘Yes, and not precisely grateful for my clemency!’

      Lavender stepped closer and Barney opened his fist to reveal the two tiny bodies. They were shivering a little, peering round with huge-eyed apprehension. Lavender put a hand out and tentatively stroked one tiny head.

      ‘Oh, how adorable! But—’ She looked up suddenly into his face. ‘The sack—you were going to drown them in the river?’

      ‘My father intended them for such a fate,’ Barney corrected her. He was stroking the kittens with gentle fingers and Lavender could hear their ecstatic purrs. ‘Their mother was a stray and he did not wish to encourage her, but my sister Ellen had grown much attached to the kittens and begged me to find them a good home. So I offered to take them away and my father assumed I would get rid of them.’

      Lavender shivered. ‘But what were you intending to do with them? Has someone offered to take them in?’

      For the first time, Barney looked a little shifty. ‘Not exactly. There is an old byre just up the path and I was intending to make a nest for them there and leave them overnight. I was just collecting bedding for them when you stumbled upon the sack! Then tomorrow, if I could, I hoped to persuade someone to give them a home…’

      Lavender raised her eyebrows. ‘That does not sound a very good plan! They might stray away and they can scarce be expected to catch their own food, you know!’

      ‘I brought some scraps of food and some milk with me,’ Barney said, his voice completely expressionless.

      Lavender found herself trying not to laugh. It seemed ridiculous that this man had been devoting himself so wholeheartedly to the welfare of such tiny kittens. Yet the little creatures evidently liked him, for they had subsided into blissful balls of fluff under the stroking of his hands. Lavender found her mind making a sudden and unexpected leap from the fate of the kittens to the caress of Barney’s fingers, and felt herself turn hot all over.

      ‘Do you have any butter with you?’ she asked, somewhat at random. ‘If you butter their paws they will be too busy washing them to think of straying.’

      Barney looked crestfallen. ‘I did not think of that. Do you truly think they might lose themselves in the wood?’

      ‘Cats are homing creatures,’ Lavender explained, glad to be able to speak with authority, ‘and they might try to find their way back to you. But they are so far from Abbot Quincey they could never make the journey! Why, they might fall in the river, or become exhausted, or be eaten—’

      ‘Miss Brabant, pray do not distress yourself.’ Barney sounded amused and rueful at the same time. ‘I am sure they need suffer no such injury—’

      ‘Well, but you cannot know that!’ Lavender said indignantly. She took a deep breath. ‘I have just the idea—I will take them back to Hewly with me and they may have a home there.’ The suggestion seemed to come from nowhere, and startled her almost as much as it seemed to surprise Barney. He stared at her through the dark.

      ‘You will? But—’

      ‘We are forever having problems with mice at the Manor,’ Lavender said, improvising hastily in order not to appear too sentimental. ‘The kittens will be the very thing to deal with them.’

      Barney looked at her. It hardly needed pointing out that the kittens were scarcely bigger than mice themselves.

      ‘They will grow,’ Lavender said defensively, as though he had spoken aloud. ‘With a little care—’

      She put out a hand for the sack, but Barney picked it up and slipped the cats back inside.

      ‘It is very kind of you,’ he said slowly. ‘If you are certain—’

      ‘Of course! And then you may tell your sister that they have gone to a good home!’

      Barney looked at her inscrutably. ‘And what will you tell your brother and sister-in-law?’

      ‘Why, that I found the kittens in a sack on the path, just as I did! It would not do to lie, and they know me well enough to know I would not just leave them there!’

      Barney swung the sack up. ‘I will escort you back to the Manor then, Miss Brabant.’

      ‘There is no need! And if anyone should see you—’ Lavender broke off, aware that he might misinterpret her words. She did not wish him to think that she thought herself above his company.

      Barney СКАЧАТЬ