Ellen looked up, her breath drying in her throat and leaking out of her lungs as she took in Lucas’ intent look. There was something deep and purposeful in his eyes and the set of his jaw that made her feel as if she’d missed the last step in the staircase, all jolted inside. Lucas took a breath, as if he was about to say something more, but then a voice from below in the stable yard broke that silent, suspended moment.
“Ellen! Ellen, are you here?”
Lucas peered out of the hatch, his eyes widening in surprise. “It’s Louisa. What on earth is she doing here?”
“Looking for me, it would seem,” Ellen answered with twinge of guilt. She’d been leaving Louisa on her own too often. Louisa was still her friend and guest, even if Ellen accepted that responsibility reluctantly. “I’d better go down...” Brushing bits of hay from her skirt, she made for the ladder.
“Wait!” Lucas’ look of surprise had turned to one of mischief. “She doesn’t know you’re up here. It’s a perfect opportunity.”
Ellen could tell from the glint in Lucas’ eye what he was thinking. “Louisa’s not one for jokes, Lucas...”
“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with her.” With a grin Lucas ducked back from the hatch and out of sight.
“Ellen?” Louisa called out uncertainly, for the yard was bare and silent save for the rustlings of the animals below. Mr. Lyman was out in the fields with Jed, and Mrs. Lyman lay, as usual, in her bedroom.
Suddenly Lucas made a noise—something bestial although not quite a cow—that had even Ellen jumping a little in surprise. Louisa screamed.
Covering his mouth to stifle his laughter, Lucas glanced at Ellen, his hazel eyes dancing with merriment.
Ellen felt a bubble of laughter rising in her own chest. It felt good to get the better of Louisa just once.
“Ellen?” Louisa sounded frightened now. She wasn’t a country girl, even after a year in Seaton. “Are you there? Your aunt said you’d come this way...” Her voice sounded thin and strained, and then Lucas moaned again, the animal-like noise raising the hairs on the back of Ellen’s neck.
Louisa made a noise that sounded like a sob, and then ran from the yard. Lucas let out aloud guffaw of laughter. “That should teach her.”
“Oh, Lucas, we shouldn’t have,” Ellen said, regretting the whole incident now. She hadn’t expected Louisa to become quite so scared. “Louisa is delicate, and she’s not used to country ways. We’ve probably scared her witless.”
“She deserves it,” Lucas replied with a shrug. “I don’t like the way she treats you.”
“Me?” Ellen’s eyebrows rose in surprise, for Louisa had lost her spitefulness, or so she’d thought. “She’s my friend—”
“And she treats you like her maid. ‘Fetch me a glass of iced tea, Ellen. Oh, I forgot my book! Will you get it, Ellen?’” Lucas mocked in a falsetto, seeming unkind for the first time since Ellen had known him. Yet even so there was an uncomfortable grain of truth in his words. “And you allow her to, Ellen,” he continued, dropping his voice to its normal pitch. “You’re better than that. More important...” His voice lowered, his gaze averted. “To me, anyway.”
Ellen’s heart skipped a beat and she made for the ladder. Right now she needed to think about Louisa. “I’d better go find her, before she runs screaming all the way home.”
“I’ll come with you. It was my idea, and I won’t have you taking the blame.”
They didn’t have far to go; halfway across the yard Jed came round the corner of the barn, his arm around a shaking Louisa, his face a mask of grim fury. Ellen faltered in her steps, for she’d never seen Jed look so genuinely angry, but Lucas stood with his feet spread apart, hands on his hips.
“Louisa heard a noise from the barn,” Jed said in a voice that was somehow more terrible by its calm and even tone. “Said it sounded like some frightening beast.”
“More like an ailing cow,” Lucas replied. He flicked his gaze towards Louisa, who was trying to recover herself with some dignity, yet, Ellen could not help but think cynically, still trying to play the frightened maiden for Jed’s benefit. “Cows won’t hurt you, Louisa. They’re gentle animals.”
“It wasn’t a cow,” Louisa said with a sniff.
“And we don’t have any ailing ones,” Jed cut in. His eyes narrowed. “Not unless they’re up in the hayloft.” He glanced at Ellen, and she quelled at the look of contemptuous judgment she saw in his eyes. She’d been the recipient of his scorn before, yet there had been something gentle and good-natured about it, not like this. She looked down at the ground, her cheeks flushing.
“It was you two!” Louisa exclaimed, realization dawning, albeit rather belatedly. “You were up in the hayloft... making a fool of me!”
“It’s not a difficult task,” Lucas replied coolly. ?
?But it was just a harmless joke, Louisa.”
“Harmless!” Louisa shrugged off Jed’s arm, her eyes blazing. “How could you treat me in such a manner, Ellen? And I thought you were my friend!” Anger gave way to tears, as Ellen had known it would, and with a choked cry, Louisa whirled away, heading back to the McCafferty farmhouse in a flurry of bright skirts.
The moment after Louisa left was taut with silence, broken only by the rustling of the animals in the barn.
“It was just a joke, Jed,” Lucas said after a moment. He shrugged, although his voice, pitched low, carried a current of intensity. “And one you would’ve played yourself a year ago.”