Wagers Gone Awry’s Release Countdown!

I’ll be posting an excerpt each week until the release, just to whet your appetite! 

Fate unites opposites, a country spinster, Brooke Culpepper and one of London’s finest peers, Heath, Earl of Ravensdale, in this Regency romance filled with humor, sacrifice, honor, and unexpected love. 

Even when most prudently considered, and with the noblest of intentions,

one who wagers with chance oft’ find oneself empty-handed.

Wisdom and Advice – The Genteel Lady’s Guide to Practical Living

CHAPTER ONE

Esherton Green,

Near Acton, Cheshire, England

Early April 1822

Had I been born under an evil star or cursed from my first breath?

Brooke Culpepper suppressed the urge to shake her fist at the heavens and curse The Almighty aloud. The devil boasted better luck than she. My God, two more cows struggled to regain their strength?

She slid Richard Mabry, Esherton Green’s competent steward-turned-overseer, a worried glance from beneath her lashes as she chewed her lower lip and paced before the small fire in the study’s hearth. The aroma of wood smoke combined with linseed oil, old leather, and the faintest trace of Papa’s pipe tobacco bathed the room in a soothing scent.

Her sensible, gray woolen skirts swishing about her ankles, she whirled to make the return trip across the once bright green and gold Axminster carpet, now so threadbare, the oak floor peeked through in numerous places. Her scuffed half-boots fared little better, and she hid a wince when the scrap of leather she used to cover the hole in her left sole this morning slipped loose again.

From his comfortable spot in a worn and faded pea-green wingback chair, Freddy, her aged Welsh corgi—his muzzle propped on his stubby, white paws—observed her progress with  soulful brown eyes. Two ancient tabbies lay curled together so tight on the cracked leather sofa, determining where one ended and the other began proved difficult.

Brooke clamped harder on her lip and winced when stinging pain slashed the offended flesh. Should she venture to the barn to see the cows herself? What good would that do? She knew little of doctoring cattle. The animal’s care she left in Mr. Mabry’s capable hands. Her strength lay in the financial administration of the dairy farm and the ability to stretch a shilling as thin as gossamer.

She cast a glance to the bay window, and despite the fire’s warmth, rubbed her arms against the chill creeping spider-like along her spine. A frenzied wind whipped the lilac branches and scraped the rain-splattered panes. The angry tempest threatening since dawn had finally unleashed its full fury, and the fierce gusts of winds battering the house gave the day a peculiar, eerie feeling—as if something ominous portended.

At least Mabry and the other hands managed to get the cattle tucked away before the gale hit. The herd of fifty—no, sixty thus far counting the newborn calves—chewed their cud and weathered the storm nestled snug as rats in a bundle of wool inside the old, but sturdy barns.

A shingle ripped loose from the farthest out-building—a retired stone dovecote. After the wind tossed the slat around in the air for a few moments, the wood twirled to the ground where it flipped end over end before the piece wedged beneath a gangly shrub. Two more shingles hurled to the earth, this time from one of the barns.

Flim flam and goose-butt feathers.

Brooke tamped down a heavy sigh. Each structure on the estate, including the house, needed some sort of repair or replacement: roofs, shutters, stalls, floors, stairs, doors, siding … dozens of items required fixing and seldom could she muster the funds to go about it properly.

“Another pair of cows struggling, you say, Mr. Mabry?”

Concern etched on his weathered features, Mabry wiped rain droplets from his face as water pooled at his muddy feet.

“Yes, Miss Brooke. The four calves born this mornin’ fare well, but two of the cows, one a first-calf heifer, aren’t standin’ yet. And there’s one weak from birthin’ her calf yesterday.”

His troubled gaze strayed to the window. “Another pair of ladies is in labor. I best return to the barn. They seemed fine when I left, but I’d as soon be nearby.”

Brooke nodded once. “Yes, we mustn’t take any chances.”

Already reduced to a minimum by disease and sales to make ends meet, she needed every shilling the herd’s milk brought. Losing another, let alone two or three good breeders…

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. Why do you think Brooke is so concerned about the calving and the cows?