Free Castles Ever After 02 Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare Page A

hedges and parting dense clusters of mums to search the ground.
    At last they found Ellingworth, lying flat on his belly beneath a rosebush.
    The bulldog seemed too fatigued to go anywhere.
    “I’ll have to carry him in,” Rafe said.
    “Wrap him in this first.” She slipped the shawl from her shoulders. “Or you’ll be covered in mud.”
    “I don’t want to ruin your shawl.”
    “It’s only an everyday shawl. Nothing special.”
    Without entertaining further argument, Clio draped the length of printed cotton over the sleeping bulldog. Rafe scooped him up.
    The distant thunder rumbled again. Only this time, the thunder wasn’t so distant, and the castle was even farther away.
    “We’ll never beat the rain,” she said. “Come this way.”
    She led him toward an old stone tower standing sentinel on the castle’s northeastern border.
    The storm broke just before they reached the structure. Rain spattered the ground in heavy drops. They ducked inside the tower, breathless.
    “What is this place?” Rafe asked. Despite the muting force of the rain, his voice rang through the gutted stone silo.
    “A watchtower, once,” she managed. “It’s been used to store hops for the past hundred years. I thought this would be helpful for Ellingworth.”
    She tugged an old hopcart out from the shadows. The wooden, hand-pulled wagon was just the perfect size for the bulldog. “There. Won’t that suit him? We’ll pull him back to the castle once it stops raining, then store this in the carriage house. This way, the servants can take him on walks.”
    “Not bad, but it’s lacking in pillows,” he said gravely. “It needs at least a dozen.”
    She ignored his teasing. Mostly.
    Once he’d deposited the dog in the cart, and she’d arranged her shawl as a blanket, Rafe stood and surveyed her appearance. “You’re wet.”
    “Just a little.” She hugged herself.
    He shrugged out of his coat and draped its weight about her shoulders.
    “Thank you,” she said, looking out at the rain. “I suppose we should stay here until it stops.”
    Clio gathered the lapels and pulled the coat tight about her. The thing must have weighed ten pounds, at least. The wool was still warm with the heat of his body. But the best part was how it smelled—intensely wonderful and intensely Rafe. She inhaled deep, surreptitiously breathing in the scents of coffee, leather, oil of wintergreen. And that faint musk that was uniquely his. She’d never been so thoroughly enveloped by another person’s scent before. It felt intimate somehow.
    Almost like an embrace.
    She laughed at herself.
    Says the girl who’s never once been embraced.
    She said, “I’ve been conferring with the land agent ever since the property came to me. We’re planning to convert this tower into an oast.”
    “An oast.”
    “You do know what an oast is, don’t you?”
    “Of course I know what an oast is.” He crossed his arms and regarded her. “You tell me what you think an oast is, and I’ll judge if you’re correct.”
    She shook her head. Even to a relative innocent like Clio, sometimes men could be so transparent . At a moment like this, it was comforting.
    “An oast is a tall, round building for drying hops and malt,” she said. “To convert this tower, we’ll need to build a great kiln here on the ground floor. Upstairs, there’d be a flat platform for drying. Then a vent at the top to draw the heat upward. There, now. How was that definition?”
    “Acceptable.”
    “And that’s just the beginning. Not only is the soil in this region ideal for hopfields, but we’ve a river with clear, crisp water that runs straight through the property. Once we complete the oast, we’ll start building the brewery.”
    His head jerked in surprise. “Wait, wait. A brewery?”
    “It’s as I told you last night. I mean to do something with the place.”
    “You want to run a brewery.” His gazed raked her. “You.”
    “Yes. Twill Castle is a touch far from