“How does it feel?”
“To yell?” She never yelled. She’d never thought how it might feel. To do so now seemed peculiar in the extreme.
“To yell,” he clarified. “To argue. To live, release the strain of today. Any of it. All of it.” For someone who had contributed to her frustration, who had hollered just as loudly as she, he sounded remarkably composed. “How do you feel now?”
“Marvelous.” And she did, this unexpected spot of freedom, with the cat-hating grumbler more liberating, spontaneous and downright satisfying than anything Anne could recall being in years.
“Want to do it again?” His voice came from just over her shoulder and caused an odd thrill to shoot through her belly.
“Do what?”
“Yell at me.”
“Nay.” She smiled. “’Twould be horribly improper.” But it was delightful to be asked such a thing. She grabbed for the shovel that had stilled between them, only to encounter his fingers instead.
He twined one around two of hers. “But I rather covet the thought of making you feel marvelous again. That is what you said, did you not?”
“You know I did.” Her hand heated, twitched against his. How very brazen of me.
Perhaps this is what frees you more than not? The strange circumstances.
Nay.’Twas the stranger himself.
“Then rage!” he encouraged, hollering, “Rage at me! Howl at the night!”
“I fear I am not the howling sort,” she said in an admirably calm voice that belied how her insides howled at his nearness. How her eyes, having accustomed to the dark, watched his outline, his manner with avid intent.
“Shall I do it for you?” His perfectly level tone nearly made Anne think he requested her to partner him in a quadrille.
“Do what?”
“This. Aaaaa-oooooooooo! OOOOOOoooooooooo—”
And the imbecile howled at the missing moon, howled like a jolterheaded idiot, loud and long, tickled her serious side until she started to giggle. She, Anne Athena Larchmont, long in the tooth, short on charms; a lonely, nearly-but-not-quite engaged spinster; covered in dried blood and child-bearing muck; sad, tearful Owen on her conscience; dead, skinny cat not far from her frozen feet, began laughing so hard she couldn’t stop.
Not until she choked.
Coughed.
Made herself lightheaded from lack of air. And still she laughed.
Until she cried.
Then quieted.
Slipped her tingling fingers free.
Swallowed. Became her typical somber self, doing what needed to be done.
Spying it beside his feet, she bent and tugged the heavy, hated shovel back into position. “Thank you for that. Your wickedly inappropriate mirth. ’Twas a lovely respite from a horrid day. My chest aches anew but, for once, not with sorrow. I have not laughed that hard in an age. Now, really, you must be gone. I have a hole to finish and precious little energy remaining to see it to completion.”
“Come now, Maryann,” he all but barked at her, any modicum of amusement hardened into derision. “Do you not see the folly of continuing tonight? I thought you possessed more nobby wits. Show some sense, woman.”
That odd noise rumbled and roared from the dark, louder than before. She leaped toward him—even as she began her own chastisement—aimed securely his direction.
“How dare you malign my efforts! That poor, sweet boy… His entire family has suffered enough today! Evil Lord Spier demanding Mr. Timmons join him on an overnight excursion with his wife’s time so near. Her, having to suffer birthing assistance from a near stranger—and novice. Losing a child today. Having two newborn babes to care for—another to bury? And sweet Owen who braved the unknown, seeking help for his mama when she went into labor this morning—while trying to dig this very blasted hole? For the cat she raised from a kitten! All because her son’s beloved Lord Grayson died during the night? You have no right to criticize me, Mr. Edwards, no right at all!”