Page 31 of Hearts of Briarwall

Her breath heaved inside her lungs, filling and emptying and filling like a bellows, and she wished that blasted tear hadn’t spilled over. She wiped it away and walked over to Hermes, head high, and held his face and stroked his nose.

“Are we ready, Warren?” she asked the stable master, trying not to quake. “Please say we are.”

Her dear friend bowed his head and handed her the reins. “Ready for anything, I’d say.” He winked, then glanced behind her and straightened his posture.

“Lydia?”

She tensed at the sound of her brother’s voice. Steeling herself, she turned.

He watched the ground, his mouth turned as if he’d swallowed something awful. She hoped it was his pride and that he’d choked it down.

Then, he opened his arms, and in half a moment, she was in them, enfolded. He tentatively stroked her hair. “Forgive me,” he said. “You are the best person I know.”

She pressed her wet face into his shirt. “I’ll still wear breeches when I feel it’s the better option.”

She felt him chuckle before she heard it. He placed a soft kiss on her head. “I know you will.”

She hiccupped. “I’d like to see you in a skirt.”

“I think not.”

She breathed in the smell of him—starch and leather and lemon—then pulled away. “Very well. You’ve held us up long enough, don’t you think?” She smoothed her jacket and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

Begrudgingly, he nodded. He looked about him and reached for Domino. “Let’s go, shall we, old fellow?”

She turned, still shaky, still unnerved, but better. As she did, Spencer caught her eye. In a quiet, chivalrous gesture, he placed his hand over his heart and gave her a small bow.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She turned and mounted Hermes, trying to give a name to the sensation she felt as she settled tall in the saddle and led her horse out of the stable into a dusky pink evening.

And then she realized what it was.

She felt like a lady.

Chapter 7

Two calves had been born in the last three hours, but the third was in trouble, and Spencer hadn’t the slightest notion how to help. He’d witnessed foals coming into the world, but his father had had crew for that. A veterinarian had been called, but it would be some time before the man arrived, as he was out on another call a distance away.

“Here.” Spencer offered Lydia a flask of water he kept filled using the barn’s water pump. She was kneeling at the head of the cow, speaking softly, urging it to be steady. The animal had been tethered to stall posts on either side but still fought the need to lunge.

“Thank you.” She took it from him and guzzled. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, she handed it back to him. She turned to Andrew down at the busier end of the animal. “What happens if the baby doesn’t turn?”

Andrew spared her a glance full of foreboding. He wore gloves all the way up to his shoulders. Latimer, his arm in a sling, stood behind him, instructing as needed though the man needed a doctor himself.

“He won’t be a-turning, miss,” Latimer said. “We can only hope to get his legs up and out first without damaging the mother. Mr. Hayes, if you can be ready with those ropes?”

Spencer let the flask hang from the strap across his chest and retrieved the ropes that had loops on each end.

“Now, Mr. Wooding,” Latimer instructed, “you want to push the calf back into the womb as far as you can. When you do that, find its tailhead. No time to be timmersome. Shove. That’s it.”

Andrew was in up to his elbow, a grimace on his face.

“Now from there, follow a leg down to the hock and lever that hock forward so it brings the hoof up toward its hindquarter. Got it?”

Andrew nodded, his focus apparent.

“Mr. Hayes, have that rope ready. Mr. Wooding, you’ve got to get hold of that foreleg and bring it to the middle. Cup your hand over the hoof or you’ll damage mum. ’Tween the two of you, you’ve got to get the rope over the hoof. Hold the rope taut while the same thing is done on t’other side.”

Spencer knelt next to Andrew and pulled on a long glove, his attention divided between focusing on the task at hand and bewilderment at the evening’s turn of events.

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