The Defiant Lady Pencavel by Diane Scott Lewis Page B

this type of work, prepare the sheep. He’d enjoyed this as a boy, and now and then peeked in to observe.
    He and his brother had lent a hand in the shearing when younger. Those were happy, carefree times, long before the weight of responsibility closed in on them both. His shoulders tightened, aggravating his recent wound. The bruises on his knuckles from hitting Shadedeal had turned yellow, but this new injury was more serious.
    Against his surgeon’s advice, tomorrow he’d leave for Bodmin to give Miss Pencavel his decision.
    The shearers cleaned the wool, removing burrs and other debris as the sheep bleated in annoyance. The air stank of feces and sweating animals. But this was life, not the showy halls of Almack’s where dandy fops wasted their days.
    One man held the sheep with its skin taut, his hand under the ram’s jaw and around its nose. Another sheared its belly with clips of a sharp blade, removing the wool from the breastbone down to it scrotum. The wool came off in wooly bundles, the air soon thick with hair. He sheared around the throat, neck and head, down each shoulder, then the buttock and tail.
    “Taking the noose or no, sir?” Jacca came to stand beside him, coughing in the confluence of fuzz. “Not that I can recommend the leg-shackled-to-a-hag state.”
    “Miss Pencavel is far from a hag, sorry to say.” Griffin chuckled dryly. “I’m leaning heavily toward no, but my mind is conflicted, oddly enough.”
    “Shouldn’t o’ chased her about in that there London, ess?” His bailiff studied him. “‘Ee was courtin’ trouble, pardon me spoutin’, with that illogical behavior, sir.”
    The shearer swept aside the mounds of wool, ready for the next sheep. He wiped the gathered lanolin from the previous animal from his blades.
    “I don’t know what came over me with the girl. She called me mad, and I’m beginning to believe I am.” Griffin stepped outside to breathe deeply. He raked his fingers through his hair. “I can’t trust myself near her. But hopefully I’ll come to my senses and be the clear thinking, callous to women, libertine I’ve always been.” He’d never felt so out of control around a woman before, and he didn’t like it for one moment. He clenched his fist.
    “How’s the shoulder?” Jacca coughed again and spit on the ground. “Had me a mite scared after what happened t’other night. ‘Ee probably should o’ stayed in bed longer.”
    Griffin touched his bandaged arm and winced at the pain. “I’m too restive to lounge about like a lazy old hound. Thought I’d lost my life, or at least my reputation. The second such incident in a few days’ time. Maybe I’m getting too old for such wildness.” Perhaps the nagging hurt in his flesh would keep his mind off the succulent Miss Pencavel.
     
    ****
     
    “He made no promise, the blackguard. But he should be here in a day or so to straighten out the situation, then we will decide how to proceed.” At Langoron House’s dining room table, Melwyn dug her fork into the stinky pickled smelts. Inside, her heart did a strange flutter at the anticipation that she might soon face Lord Lambrick. At night she still dreamt of his steamy kisses as her body tingled. Would he coldly dismiss her as his future wife? But wasn’t that what she sought all along? She shoved a bite of the densely fishy fish into her mouth, then glanced at her father. “I know how I will proceed, but I suppose it should be done appropriately.”
    “A marriage, how splendidly sweet. However, it isn’t proper to refer to your intended as a blackguard.” The Widow Whale, a woman as corpulent as her name, simpered. Her neck folds pushed down on the scarf wound around her plump shoulders. She took a bite of the boiled chicken in hog’s tongues and stared at Lord Pencavel pointedly, then back to Melwyn. “And never talk with food in your mouth, dear. Especially with fish on your breath.”
    “We’re not at all certain there will be a