In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 23

"What are you doing?"

Charlie choked back her growl, wanting nothing more than to throw the sweeper to the ground and stomp out her frustration.

Was Williams going to needle her about this as well?

"Damned, infernal, deuced son of a -"

A rough chuckle sounded behind her. "I beg your pardon?"

Charlie released a sigh, leaning her head back onto her shoulders.

This had gone on long enough, she thought. Since dawn, Williams had been coddling her needlessly as if she were the veriest delicate hothouse bloom.

It had started with him berating her for being a slug-a-bed this morn - though in her defense, it had been the blasted earl's doing. How was a girl to sleep after something so...confusing?

 Irksome.

Magnificent.

Dratted unbelievable.

She sighed aloud before she could choke it back.

Exhilarating.

But it had been forgotten within Williams' confounding behavior. Earlier, Charlie had taken to shoveling fallen debris into an awaiting barrel, and the man had shown up out of thin air to take away her tool, scolding that her skin would blister and her muscles sore with the undue exercise.

And then the bloody stable master had turned to another boy half her age and scrawny to boot. For Heaven's sake, he had his trousers tied with a piece of rope to keep them over his extremities. The boy had been given the task, and Charlie was left to find another duty.

The same thing had happened when Charlie had taken to clearing rubble from the ruined part of the stables. Williams had fluttered over with worries of dust and pollen. As if there weren't worse things to worry about in England than her sneezing from a plume of smoke or coughing with a bit of scattered dirt.

Say, oh, a man like Lord Simpton? Her uncle?

What was the purpose of having a disguise as a lad if she were only to be treated with the delicacy of a woman?

Perhaps Williams thought she would steal a blackened board for any other explanation was preposterous.

It was quite irritating which forced her to lift her head and mumble in irritation.

"Heavens, Williams," Charlie huffed, "but what the devil have I done wrong this time?" Charlie placed her tool on the stable wall, forgetting the precarious construction that was left of the stables. The wood crumbled sending plumes of dust into her nose and making her sneeze. The tool clattered on the ground beside her and she growled aloud this time.

Planting her hands on her hips, Charlie twisted towards her adversary - refusing to feel guilty that instead of taking her ire out on the man who truly deserved it, Williams would be the receiving member of her foul mood. "I am sweeping. Pray tell me how this could possibly be dangerous to my person..."

Charlie drifted off finding not the stable master behind her but the earl.

She sputtered off, feeling her cheeks flame. It was as if no time had passed between last evening and this morning. Charlie was transported back to her lump of a borrowed bed where her body had meshed with Greyson's.

The earl a shadowed mass stretching over her. The silky feel of his hair as she had roamed her fingers upwards, wrapping around his skull to gather the strands in her fists. The feel of Greyson's grip as it wrapped around her wrists and he pressed her into the mattress.