“Fair enough.”
He held the ladder while she climbed. When she reached the top, she pulled it up after her.
“Have what you need then, lass?”
“Yes, thank you,” she called down. “And you?”
“Aye.”
She pulled her bedding out from a small box hidden in the hay. She shook out the worst of the dust before spreading out the blanket, tossing down the pillow, and crawling atop her makeshift bed.
In the past, the soft snorts and neighs of the guests’ horses combined with the reassuring shuffling of Christian’s feet as he moved about the stable had never failed to lull her to sleep. But to night she lay awake, her eyes open and staring at the wood ceiling above.
What was she going to do? It had only been one day. One day and already her uncle and his friends had humiliated her in front of Whit. And to make matters worse, Whit was clearly angry.
That wasn’t anything new, she reminded herself. Whit had been angry with her more often than not in the past. But things had changed—wonderfully, to her way of thinking—at Lady Thurston’s house party. They’d become friends, perhaps more, and now…and now she was sleeping in a hayloft while Whit was likely standing in his room cursing her name.
She shifted onto her side in an effort to get comfortable.
She could leave, of course. She could let Whit take care of the ridiculous counterfeiting charges. She could tell her uncle to go straight to hell and walk out the door and down the road to Haldon. She was welcome there…as a guest. At least until Whit returned and kicked her back out again.
Dear God, where would she go?
If only this business had happened two years from now. She’d have her five thousand pounds and the little cottage at the edge of town it would afford her. She wanted to invite Kate and Evie and Lady Thurston to visit her, to be guests in her home. She wanted her pride for more than just the next two years. She wanted it for a lifetime.
She wanted, she thought ruefully, a great many things.
“We’ve company coming, lass.” Christian’s voice cut through her musings like a knife.
“What?” She shot to her knees and scrambled to the edge of the loft in time to see Whit stride through the door. Slowly, carefully, she crouched back down again.
“Christian, isn’t it?” Whit inquired.
“Aye.”
“I’m looking for Miss Browning.”
“Best to be looking in the house this time of night,” was Christian’s reply.
“And so I have.”
“The lady doesn’t care to be found, I guess. You’d be Lord Thurston, would you?”
“I would.”
“You’ve a reputation as a gentleman.”
“Earned, I hope.”
“Might a lowly stable hand ask what you’re about, searching out a lady while the house sleeps?”
Whit inclined his head. “I mean her no harm. You have my word.”
“She speaks well of you and your family. Speaks of naught else while she’s here.” He nodded once and jerked a thumb toward Mirabelle. “She’s to be found in the loft.”
Mirabelle gasped and sat up. “You traitor.”
Christian merely shrugged and ambled toward the stable doors. “If you’re not wanting him to pester you, keep your ladder where he can’t be reaching it.”
Whit walked down the aisle until he stood nearly under her.
“Are you going to come down, imp? Or shall I come to you?”
She held up the end of the ladder for him to see. “Unless humanity has been much mistaken, and pigs really can fly, you’re out of luck.”
“I come to you, then.”
He eyed the floor of the loft, several feet above his grasp. Then he took several steps back.
“What are you doing?” she asked warily.
He ignored her. He crouched, got a running start, and leapt up to grab the loft floor at her knees.
She was too stunned to do more than gape as he hauled himself up by his hands until he could throw one elbow over, and then the other. By the time it occurred to her that it would be an easy enough thing to lift up his arms and send him falling to the ground—which happened to be about the time she stopped staring at the play of muscles under his shirt—he was hauling his legs up and the chance was lost.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she whispered in astonished voice.
“You just saw me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but…” She leaned forward to look over the edge. It seemed an awful long ways down. “It must be twelve feet—”
“Ten at the most,” he assured her as he settled himself in the hay beside her. “I’m naturally spry. Why are you sleeping in the stable?”
“You’re like an enormous spring,” she breathed, looking at him again.
“The stable, Mirabelle. Why are you sleeping here?”
She opened her mouth to make another comment on his agility before deciding he’d just ignore it anyway. Settling back against a square bale, she frowned at him.