Page 21 of His Spirited Lady
As much as anonymity chafed at times, as much as she wanted to brag about what she was accomplishing, the secrecy could be comforting. Without its protection, she was exposed to laughter, criticism, and disbelief. Hoping he would respond kindly, she extended her hand. “Do we have a deal, Richard?”
He didn’t mock or demand explanations. He simply stood and shook her hand in a strong, solid grip. As a businessman would. “We do, Amelia.”
Chapter Six
When they hadvisited Morocco, Amelia had ridden a camel in the desert.
Guiding a full whiskey barrel through the distillery was much like riding that camel. Laden with liquid, it wobbled and sloshed as she guided it to the shelves in the barrel room and wrestled it onto the bottom shelf. Caspar lurked nearby, hoping to catch an adventurous mouse or, more likely, to lap up any leaking spirits.
“Pesky bugger.” Amelia scratched the cat between his ears and smiled at his squinched eyes and loud purr. “If you ever learn to claw out a bung, I’ll be overrun with mice and have nothing to bottle.”
She straightened and kept bending, arching her back to loosen muscles that ached in a way riding and dancing didn’t inspire. It was a good feeling, compounded by the newest row of full barrels left to quietly age. She had done this. Made it with her own two hands. She was keeping her family’s tenants from poverty in her own small way.
No wonder Oliver preferred the sawmill to lords.
With the last of the spirits stored, Amelia went to the loft to see about the grain. Up here, the smells changed from the pungent sugar and fruit of whiskey mash to earthy wheat spread across the drying floor. The heat rising from below made her lightweight work clothes a relief.
Sunlight through the windows left bright squares on the wheat, the wind through the trees creating random patterns. Outside, sparrows chittered away while wrens sang and jays squawked about the noise.
Amelia closed her eyes and soaked in the smells and sounds of home.
Not my home for much longer.If her life didn’t change due to marriage, it would change with her father’s death. She dreaded either.
“Hello? Amelia?” Richard called up from the first floor.
He had been a frequent visitor over the past two weeks, but always when Drake had been present as an inappropriate chaperone. A moment of panic flitted through Amelia’s thoughts as a shadowy cloud over the drying wheat. While she met with Drake all the time, he had acted more as a brother since their introduction. Which was the difference. She trusted Oliver and Thea, and they trusted Drake. However, she had always met Richard in the company of others.
It was one thing to avoid marriage in order to start a business, quite another to be trapped into marriage with one’s business partner in order to avoid a scandal.
Amelia shook the thought from her head. This was ridiculous. No businessperson would think twice about holding a meeting. She strode to the top of the stairs and looked down, making sure to smile. “Come up.”
He did as she asked, but stopped when he was at eye level. “I saw your horse, but not Drake’s.”
“He went down to Ipswich to ensure the wine arrived safely and to secure the wagons we’d need for transport.” She returned to the drying loft, almost certain he’d follow, and yet delighted when the boards creaked under his feet. If he didn’t treat her like a scandalous lady, she needn’t think like one.
“Don’t you worry about being here alone? What if someone stumbled in and decided to take advantage?”
“I’d bribe them with whiskey until they were properly sloshed and then make my escape.” Amelia handed him a rake. They needed to stir the grain. “Besides, who’s going to pass by a distillery and thinkI believe I’ll see if there’s a young lady in there alone?Other than you.”
Oh drat. Richard had gone from laughing at her passable impression of a Norfolk villager to staring at her like she had two heads. And now all she could think ofwashim coming in to take advantage. She went to the far end of the loft and shoved her rake into the grain.
“Your mare is recognizable,” Richard said from his post at the opposite end of the floor.
Her whole body tingled as she imagined his arms around her, keeping her against his chest. When they’d shaken hands to seal their agreement, his had been warm and lightly callused. It was easy to think of them cradling her jaw as he kissed her. But that was where her imagination stopped. She’d never been properly kissed. She’d never met anyone who inspired it.
And she was certain business partners didn’t consider kissing one another.
“There are dozens of grays in Thetford.” She gentled her strokes in the wheat. “Go easy. We’re not threshing it, just making sure the damp grain comes to the top.”
It was the same instruction she repeated every time she touched a rake, the same that had been grumbled by a good-natured miller who’d given into her pestering without knowing her motives.
“Like this?” Richard asked, pleasing Amelia that he’d asked, yet she worried about being too pushy.
“Yes. Just smooth it flat as you go. Leaving piles leads to mildew.” Pushy be hanged. This was her responsibility.
Her thoughts calmed as the grain worked its magic. Her breaths slowed to the beat of the rake as she stepped in time along the wide boards that kept her feet out of the grain. It was like waltzing.
If your partner was a garden implement—or all the way across the room.
