The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(15)

He paused and looked at her. “Do you need me to come with you?” he asked, obviously amused.

She glared at him. “I will remember this sport at my expense, you know.”

His smile deepened the lines on his face already made by years out in the sun and wind. “Then perhaps I will come along after all. If I’m going to pay a price for my cheek, might as well earn it, eh?”

Léirsinn scowled at him, then walked without dawdling to where he had indicated. She supposed she wouldn’t have needed those directions given that she could have found the lad in question by the volume of his salty language alone.

She would have said she had skidded to a stop because of the view—and she had to agree that it was very fine—but it had no doubt been a stray handful of straw scattered where it hadn’t been meant to go that had left her with her feet suddenly unsteady beneath her. Obviously, she would be having strong words with the man who, as Doghail had said, clearly knew nothing about mucking out a stall.

She started forward, fully intending to strip a layer of hide from the man for thinking he could come into her stables and pretend to know what he was doing whilst throwing the whole place into disarray, then found herself coming to another ungainly halt. It took her a moment or two before she realized what was so odd about the scene in front of her.

The best stallion in the barn was standing there in an open stall, regarding the man as if he might find him interesting enough not to stomp into oblivion. That was a first. Falaire was without a doubt the most majestic horse she had ever seen. He had in his short ten years covered a dozen mares who had produced exceptionally valuable foals, but none to equal him. If she had believed in things she couldn’t see—which she most assuredly did not—she would have suspected he had something magical running through his veins. Perhaps there was Angesand blood somewhere in his line, or something unusual from some stable in the East where horses were more valuable than men, or . . .

She lost her train of thought when the man obviously trying to decide how best to get into Falaire’s stall paused and looked at her. She wasn’t one to be overcome by the looks of anything not trotting about on four legs, but if that one there had been a horse, she would have beggared herself to buy him.

The unavoidable truth was, he was stunning. Tall, dark-haired, pale-eyed, with a face that stopped just short of being pretty. She found that once she started looking at him, she simply couldn’t stop. It was as if she had just seen her first priceless treasure, sparkling, stunning, and impossibly out of reach. If there had been glass between them, she felt quite certain that she, even with all her years on her shoulders, would have been standing there like a ten-year-old with her nose pressed against it.

She heard Doghail laugh and walk away. She would have cursed him but she didn’t want to waste the energy for that when it could be so much better used admiring—

“Finished?” the man asked, dragging a dusty sleeve across his forehead and leaving a trail of dirt there.

She blinked. “Finished with what?”

“Watching me at this fine labor?”

She felt her face grow hot. She wasn’t sure if that counted as blushing or not, but she couldn’t say she cared for the embarrassment that went with it. She pulled herself back from her gaping and struggled to reach for her good sense before it scampered completely away.

“Finished?” she echoed. “Aye, I am and so should you be.” She shook off the spell she had obviously been under—if she believed in spells, which she didn’t—and walked over to take the pitchfork away from him. Unfortunately, that put her far closer to him than she was comfortable with, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Who the hell are you and whatever left you thinking you could muck out a stall?”

He shot her a look she might have been offended by if she hadn’t had the same sort of disdain tossed her way more than once from the horse on her right.

“I am Acair of—” He stopped suddenly, then pursed his lips. “Just Acair.”

“Have you ever mucked out a stall, Acair?”

“Absolutely not.”

“If I weren’t so desperate for help, I would throw you out right now.”

His mouth worked for a moment or two, as if he simply couldn’t bring the right collection of words to the fore.

“I’m not interested in what you have to say,” she added. “I’m only interested in your apparent inability to shovel manure.”

He pursed his lips. “I am more familiar with that than you might suspect.”

She highly doubted it, but there was no point in arguing over it and nothing to be done about it at least for the day. “You’ve been hired, I’m desperate, and so we’ll proceed.”

“I’ve already been told how to use this damned thing.”

“Did you listen?” she asked pointedly.

He looked horribly offended, which led her to believe he had never set foot in a barn unless it was to accept a leg up onto the back of a very expensive horse.

“I listened very well,” he said. “This work is simply more dangerous than I was expecting.” He pointed at Falaire. “That damned nag tried to bite me.”

“That damned nag is the most valuable horse in the barn,” she said evenly, “and if he bit you, you got your hand too close to his mouth.”