Free The Apple Blossom Bower (Historical Romance Novella) by Margaret Evans Porter

behavior. And that her father had been flung into prison for receiving and transporting contraband.
    Annis couldn’t imagine that he’d deliberately and ruthlessly set out to seduce and then abandon her. No man could be so false—or so predatory. Perhaps he’d quarreled with Miss Corston and had believed himself free to offer marriage.
    “Miss Kelland?”
    She crept out of the thicket. While spying she’d been spied upon herself, by Captain Harper of the Excise Service.
    “Why are you hiding?” he asked suspiciously. “Come out so I can see you. If you’re armed, throw down your weapon.” The officer stalked toward her purposefully, his bearing stiff and his face set in forbidding lines.
    Narrowing his eyes, he asked again, “Why were you lurking in the furze bushes? Have you concealed something there?”
    Her lover was lost to her, yet Annis laughed—is accusations were absurd. “No, Captain Harper. I paused here to gaze upon Harbourne Court. Arrest me if you must. It won’t be the worst thing that’s happened to me this day.”
    “Apparently I’ve no cause to arrest you,” he said testily. “If you’re bound for Orchard Place, I’ll ride with you—it’s on my way to Harbertonford.”
    He helped her mount her pony with more impatience than gallantry, and together they followed the winding hedge-lined roadway. Strangely, his company was not distasteful to Annis, she was glad to be distracted from her woes. In the hours and days to come she would have a surfeit of solitude in which to reflect upon them.
    “Have you been at the fair?” he asked as they rode side by side. “I wanted to go but was ordered to pass the entire day at the Bay Horse.”
    With a pang, she remembered Edwin’s lovely bay mare.
    He continued, “It’s the worst of the taverns in Totnes, storing and selling smuggled liquors.”
    “Is it? I didn’t know.”
    To her surprise, he chuckled. “Your father did, I’ll wager. Fortunate for me his heyday was over before I ever joined the Excise. By all accounts he was a slippery fellow. And a clever one.”
      A contrary pride in her parent’s reputation raised her sagging spirits ever so slightly.
    “’Twill be a clear night,” he predicted, “and tomorrow is like to be dry.”
    His ability to read the sky impressed her, countrywoman that she was. Curious about her enigmatic escort, she asked, “Are you a native of Devonshire, Captain?”
    “Nay, I’m Somerset born. Like Sir Edwin Page.” His speculative glance was as unwelcome as his allusion to the baronet, and he prevented her from introducing a less sensitive topic of conversation by adding, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me the real reason you were watching his house.”
    “I meant no harm by it.”
    “He’s your sweetheart, isn’t he? I guessed it the day we met on the road to Dartmouth, when I accused you of transporting contraband and he defended you so forcefully.”
    Her mind returning to that mild April afternoon, Annis recalled her anger at the gentleman riding beside her and her mortification when Edwin had appeared upon the scene.
    “He’s a good sort,” the Captain went on. “He and the squire are among the few landowners in this district who won’t condone or support the free-trading. But neither do they lay information against their neighbors. To be sure, it hampers my ability to carry out my duties, but somehow I can’t fault them for it.”
    At Orchard Place Annis parted from him cordially, despite his obnoxious profession. Her animosity had faded to the point that she could even feel sympathy for one whose work was as difficult and dangerous as it was unpopular.
    The barton was deserted. It was well past the dinner hour; the orchard laborers and stable boys had already abandoned their daily tasks. In her exhausted and emotional state, she wanted no witnesses to her return.
    She removed her sidesaddle and the cloth beneath it, and rubbed Pippin with a cloth. Going to the feed box, she drew