Caleb moved farther into the stall and quietly knelt next to the cat and her tiny newborn kittens, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Vermillion was out here in the middle of the night, helping to birth a litter of kittens. "What have you done so far?"
"I fixed her some warm milk laced with choke-cherry and honey. I thought it might help with the pain, but I couldn't get her to take it." She gnawed her bottom lip. "I've seen Jacob reach into a mare to turn a foal. I know that can sometimes be done with a woman who's with child, but Muffin is too small."
Caleb ran his hand over the cat's protruding stomach. He could feel her fluttering heartbeat, her too-rapid panting breaths. The cat looked up at him and he could have sworn he saw resignation in her deep blue eyes.
"My hands are too large, but yours might not be." He reached over and caught her wrist, lifted her small, pale hand and examined it. Her fingers were slim, the nails carefully trimmed and buffed to a glossy sheen. The backs had a few stray freckles Caleb somehow found appealing. Her skin felt soft. He had the oddest urge to press his lips against her palm, to suck on the tips of her fingers.
He let go of her hand as if it had just caught flame. "I think you should try it. Perhaps if you could manage to get your fingers inside the womb, you could stretch the opening. Perhaps you could adjust the kitten and it would be able to slide out as the others have done."
She sniffed, dried her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and looked up at him. He could read the spark of hope he had just ignited, and something tightened in his chest.
"All right. Yes… let's give it a try." She blotted her eyes again, bent over and petted the cat, stroking its soft fur, whispering encouragement into its ear. Licking her fingers, she eased them inside the mother cat. She stretched the opening and began to probe the womb.
Muffin meowed, but barely moved. Caleb gentled the cat, praying her efforts would work.
"I think the kitten is turned a little bit sideways," Vermillion said. "Maybe it's caught or something."
"Can you move it?"
"I'm not sure." Moving very slowly, Vermillion continued to work. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead and he thought she might give up. She stopped once during a contraction and spoke a few encouraging words to the cat. Then she took a deep breath and started all over again.
"I think I moved it," she said, looking up. "I think I turned it so it's lined up in the proper direction." She removed her fingers and leaned down to stroke the cat. "Now if Muffin just has enough strength left to push the kitten out."
But it was only a few seconds later that the pouch slid onto the straw, the tiny kitten enclosed in its protective sack.
Vermillion grinned and laughed with relief. "We did it, Caleb, we did it!"
It was the first time she had used his first name and the intimacy washed over him like a gentle spring breeze. "Yes…" he said softly. "We did."
Very carefully, she helped the exhausted mother cat turn around in the straw enough to lick the sack from the kitten, then sat back on her heels in the stall, her entire face wreathed in a smile.
"She's going to be all right," she said. "I can hardly believe it." She turned to look at him and he thought she appeared almost shy. "Thank you, Caleb. She would have died if you hadn't come to help."
"You did all the work."
Vermillion made no reply, just turned and gazed softly down at the kittens. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" But he was thinking it was she who was lovely, this girl who cried over a barnyard cat, who sat in the straw like a servant, who called him Caleb and smiled so sweetly an ache formed in his chest.
Vermillion turned to the yellow-striped cat. "Mon Petit Pain," she whispered, saying the cat's name in French. More French words poured out, the endearments reminding him of who she really was and why he was there at Parklands, jolting him out of the fantasy he had allowed to creep into his head.
"It looks like your cat is going to be fine," he said brusquely. "If you don't require my services any longer, I think it's time I went to bed."
She glanced up, saw the harshness that had seeped into his features, and her gaze turned uncertain. "No… I won't be needing you any more tonight. You're free to go anytime you wish."
He made a curt nod of his head. "Good night, Miss Durant."
She stiffened a little where she sat in the straw. "Good night, Mr. Tanner."
He started walking, trying not to wish she had called him Caleb instead.
Caleb saw Vermillion again the next day. She came to check on the kittens and their mother, all of whom appeared to be doing very well, then ordered Jimmy Murphy, the youngest of the grooms, to saddle Grand Coeur for a late-morning ride. She was wearing her tailored men's breeches and a pair of Spanish riding boots, her hair in a single thick braid. She had never brought one of her lovers into the stable and he thought that perhaps this was her refuge, the place she could simply be Lee.
Unless, of course, she rode out each day for some more nefarious purpose.
Caleb's jaw hardened. There was every chance the woman was a spy, that she or her aunt were responsible for the deaths of thousands of British troops, a thought that sent him striding through the barn in search of a suitable mount. Saddling the big bay gelding he had ridden before, he set off behind his quarry, riding at a leisurely pace some distance away.
Careful to keep her in his sight but remaining far enough back that she wouldn't know she was being followed, he watched her gallop over the rise and for a moment disappear out of sight. When Caleb saw her again, she was riding less recklessly than she had been before but no less skillfully, putting the horse through its paces with perfect timing and precision, apparently enjoying the sun and the wind in her face.
She met no one during the ride, encountered none of her lovers or anyone else, and as she turned and started back to the stable, Caleb sat a little easier in his saddle. As yet some distance from home, he watched her ride into a copse of trees and gave in to a sudden urge to follow, knowing she would spot him the minute he rode out on the opposite side.
She was waiting, as he had expected, sitting astride the gray, her back ramrod straight and her pretty mouth thinned into an angry line.
"You're following me again. I believe you gave me your word that you wouldn't interfere."
"I'm not trying to interfere. If you recall, you agreed to give me some pointers. Or are you the one who intends to break her word?"
Her spine went even stiffer. "I believe I said I might be willing to give you some pointers. We both know you ride as well as or better than I do."
He shrugged his shoulders. "I can hardly argue with a compliment." He looked out over the rolling fields, at the sheep that grazed in one of the upper pastures and the black-and-white dog there to watch over them.
"I guess, since you don't think I'm in need of a lesson, we could simply enjoy ourselves, take a couple of fences before we head back to the stable."
She eyed him with a look of suspicion that turned to one of interest. She glanced toward the stable, judging the distance. "The bay is faster than Coeur but I'm a good bit lighter, so we should be fairly evenly matched. What do you say we race back to the barn?"
Caleb looked at her small frame perched on the gray and found himself smiling. "All right—if you promise not to fire me if you lose."
Vermillion rolled her eyes. "I vow your employment is in no jeopardy. Now… what shall we wager? It is always more fun if one has something at risk."
He knew exactly what he'd like to win—a good, long taste of her, but the woman in his bed would have to be Lee, not Vermillion.
"I have it!" she said with a grin. "If I win, you muck out the stalls for Jimmy Murphy the rest of the week."
Caleb cocked an eyebrow. He didn't mind the work. He had done his share in his father's barn as punishment for one indiscretion or another. Besides, he didn't plan to lose. "And if I win?"