Red Wolf

by Rachel Vincent

  “Don’t you need my help here?”

  “I think your sister can manage the figs. Can’t you, ma chérie?”

  “Of course!” Sofia, that little traitor, looked thrilled by the idea of so much responsibility.

  “Well, I . . .” I could feel half the crowd watching me, and I knew Grainger would hear about this within the hour.

  “I promise not to keep you long.” Max extended his arm, bent at the elbow. “If you would do me the honor.”

  “Of course.” But only because there was no polite way to get out of such a request. Yet I did not take his arm. “That’s our cottage, over there.” I pointed across the square as I led him away from the crowd. “My mother is the village baker, so it’s always quite warm inside.”

  “And I would imagine it smells nice.”

  “Like rye bread, mostly. But she also makes sweet breads and tarts, and the occasional meat pie.”

  “That all sounds amazing, after three days of eating stale flatbread and dried squirrel.”

  “It took you three days to get here from Ashborne?”

  Maxime nodded, and a lock of dark hair fell over his forehead, shading his bright hazel eyes. “About half of that spent in the dark wood. We can’t go very fast in the forest, of course.” Because neither he nor the merchant could see beyond the fall of their lamplight. And the path to the north meandered quite a bit, according to Gran.

  “Monsieur Girard lives down that way, where you can see sawdust spilling out onto the path. And just down there, on the edge of the village, is the sawmill.” I pointed at the water wheel, where we could see two men with pickaxes breaking up ice in the race, which diverted water from the river to power the mill. On the edge of town, more men would be punching through the river ice to expose the current beneath—back-breaking labor the village depended upon. “I suspect you’ll see quite a bit of both the carpenter and the sawmill.”

  “Should we head that way, then?” Maxime started down the path, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. Grainger would hear about the newcomer soon enough. I’d rather not have him see me escorting another boy around the village.

  “Later. Down this way we have Monsieur Paget, the thatcher, and Monsieur Martel, the blacksmith.”

  “I feel like your entire village is staring at us,” Maxime said as I led him out of the square and down the path, toward the smithy.

  “They are. We don’t get many strangers in Oakvale, and a winter visitor is especially rare because of the danger of the dark wood.”

  “It’s much the same in Ashborne,” he replied. “And my friends will no doubt stare even harder when they see such a beautiful woman on my arm.”

  I stopped, heedless of the slushy mud sliding beneath my shoes, and turned to glare up at him. “You’re making quite a few assumptions, Monsieur Bernard.”

  Finally, his crooked grin faded. “I apologize, Adele. Mademoiselle Duval. I—” His mouth snapped shut while he studied my expression, evidently reassessing his approach. “I’d assumed your mother had explained why I’m here.”

  “To apprentice with Monsieur Girard.” I tilted my head and stared up at him with my most innocent expression. If he’d truly come here to court me, he could at least declare his intentions properly. “Is there no carpenter of sufficient skill in Ashborne?”

  Max flinched as if I’d slapped him, and guilt settled into the pit of my stomach. “My father is an excellent carpenter. As am I. I am here to assist Monsieur Girard, not to apprentice with him. But that’s not . . . I mean, again, I’d assumed your mother had explained . . .”

  “Pardon me. I shouldn’t have teased you.” I pasted on a smile, trying to pass off my jab as a joke while guilt continued to eat at me. I hadn’t intended to insult his father. “I know why you’re here, and I promised my mother that I would give you a chance. But you should know that someone has already asked for my hand. Here, in Oakvale. So, I’m really only doing this for my mother. Because I promised.”

  Max blinked, and a flicker of uncertainty passed over his expression. “Well, I am glad to hear that you’re a woman of your word,” he said at last.

  A second wave of guilt washed over me at the irony of his sentiment; whatever I had promised my mother, I couldn’t believe that anyone but Grainger would have a place in my heart.

  I cleared my throat and started forward on the path again. “Two of our most skilled alewives live down this way. Of them, Madame Gosse, the potter’s wife, makes the best brew.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “And after a mugful, you can almost abide her company.”

  Maxime’s laugh brought out that dimple again. His hazel eyes sparked with a mischief that said he wasn’t going to let me change the subject. “Adele. I didn’t realize I was coming to Oakvale to compete for your hand, but I relish the opportunity.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I am burdened with a bit of a competitive streak.”

  “Wonderful,” I said, and he chuckled at my lack of enthusiasm. “But this really isn’t a competition. I promised to give you a chance, but I never said it would be a good chance.”

  A somber determination took over his features. “I must admit, I’d hoped you’d be as eager to meet me as I was—as I am—to meet you.”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, but as I understand it, you’ve had a bit longer than I have to get used to the idea of our . . . betrothal.” The word still felt strange on my tongue.

  “Oh, I see.” He took another long look around the village before turning back to me. “When, exactly, did your mother explain all this to you?”

  “Last night,” I admitted, and somehow the sympathy that took over his features irked me even more than his over-confidence had.

  “Well, that is unfortunate, but I think I understand. From your perspective, this other man’s interest in you predates mine.”

  It wasn’t only an issue of timing, but . . . “And from your perspective?” I was honestly curious.

  “I’ve looked forward to making your acquaintance for three years.” He captured my gaze with an intensity that made his hazel eyes look more green than brown. “I learned about my mother’s mission when I was sixteen, just like you did, and that’s when she began preparing me to meet you. To start our lives together and move forward with our destiny.”

  Our destiny?

  “And?” I found myself oddly captivated by the earnest note in his voice. “Now that you’ve met me, what do you think?” I spread my arms, inviting him to truly look at me for the first time. “How do I measure up with . . . whatever you imagined?”

  “You are beautiful. And fiercely outspoken,” he added, without taking his focus from my eyes.

  “And that disappoints you?” Of course it would disappoint him. What man would want a woman with a tongue sharper than her bread knife? Wasn’t that why I was taking him to task so adamantly, even having just met him? To foster his disinterest?

  “Not in the least.” Max smiled. “I expected your tongue to be as sharp as your hatchet, your will as strong as your . . . fighting form. I haven’t seen you in action yet, but—”

  “You want to see me fight?” Surprise thickened my voice, and I started walking again, drawing us farther from the square full of my friends and neighbors.

  “Of course. I understand you’ve only just had your trial, but I look forward to seeing what you bring to our union. Our potential union,” he amended.

  And for a moment, I could only stare at him.

  “What I bring to this potential union . . .” I mused, repeating his words as I started us down the path again. “What I bring to your entire village, I suppose.”

  “That is our hope.”

  “But it’s my understanding that your village doesn’t know it needs my help. As my own doesn’t know.”

  “That’s true. But I know. My family knows. So I suppose you’re our hope. Though I didn’t realize our arrangement was in such doubt.”

  I let a moment pass in silence. “And what is it you bring to this pot
ential union?”

  “Whatever you need.” He said it without hesitation. And with a crooked smile that could only be called charming. “An ally. A partner. A confidant. I’ve built us a cottage in Ashborne. It’s small, but it is quite well made, if I do say so myself, and there’s room to build on, should you need more than I’ve accounted for.”

  I considered that in silence. A cottage was no small thing. Most newly married couples had to stay with family until arrangements could be made for a home of their own, which often took years.

  “And children,” Maxime added at last. “I will give you children. Daughters, hopefully. But I wouldn’t mind a son, as well. If you’re willing.”

  “Monsieur Bernard, I’m afraid we take what we’re given, in that regard.”

  He laughed loudly enough to draw more stares our way, from the square now in the distance. “I meant, if you’re willing to give me children,” he said. “I don’t want to make any more assumptions.”

  Again, I responded with silence. But this time my pause felt . . . thoughtful. He wasn’t horrible, this Maxime. A little too sure of himself, but definitely not horrible. Maybe he and I could still be friends, after Grainger and I wed.

  Eleven

  By the time we made it back to the village square, my mother and sister were near the front of the line at the merchant’s cart. When we joined them, Mama began introducing Max to our neighbors as the son of a childhood friend she hadn’t seen in years, and everyone seemed eager to talk to him. After he’d shaken hands with half the village, she insisted that I show him the bakery and give him something to eat, promising that she and Sofia would join us shortly.

  I waited for him to politely decline, but instead, he thanked my mother for her hospitality. Leaving me with no choice but to show him my home.

  “This hinge is loose,” he noted as I pushed the front door open. “I could fix it for you.”

  “I’m sure Mama would appreciate that,” I said as I gestured for him to take a seat at the table. He sat, eagerly studying the room around him while I served him a hunk of bread and a bowl of last night’s vegetable stew, which had been kept warm over the banked fire all night.

  “Did you bake this?” Max asked around a bite of bread. He’d bitten off a huge chunk, without bothering to soften it in his stew like any normal person.

  “Yes. Several days ago. Careful, or you’ll break a tooth.”

  “Nonsense. It’s wonderful,” he insisted.

  I laughed. “You’re a terrible liar, Maxime Bernard.”

  “Okay, it’s a little stale, but that has nothing to do with the skill of the baker and everything to do with the passage of time. And anyway, I was practically raised on stale bread and pottage—”

  As was I, and everyone else in our little village.

  “—so I find this quite a comforting meal.”

  “I’m glad, because dinner will look about the same.” There was rarely much else to eat in the winter.

  Max’s grin grew. “Are you inviting me for dinner?”

  “No, I—” My face flushed. “I assume you’ll be with the Girards by then. I just meant . . . I was trying to be polite.”

  “Monsieur Girard did offer me housing for the length of my stay, but I’ve already accepted another invitation.” Max carefully watched for my reaction. And suddenly I understood.

  “You’re staying here? With us?”

  “In the cowshed,” he said, still watching me. “At your mother’s insistence.”

  Of course my mother had invited him. Which explained why she’d been so eager to introduce him to our neighbors as a proper acquaintance.

  I poured myself a bowl of stew, hoping that a full mouth might prevent my tongue from lashing out in exasperation.

  “I should introduce myself to Monsieur Girard this afternoon,” Max said, dipping his bread into his bowl. “But I would like to go into the wood with you soon, if you’re amenable.”

  “To watch me hunt?” Why did that thought suddenly make me nervous? I didn’t want Maxime. I wanted Grainger, no matter how kind and accepting Max was of my destiny. Yet suddenly the thought that I might be a disappointment to him felt like a paralyzing weight on my chest.

  It was one thing for me not to want him. But it would be another thing entirely—an embarrassing, shameful thing—for me to prove myself unworthy of protecting the village of Ashborne.

  “Yes,” he admitted with a shrug. “And to meet your grandmother. Is it true she lives in the dark wood?”

  “What do you know about my grandmother?”

  Max blinked at me. “Madame Emelina Chastain is a legend. At least among her fellow guardians.”

  “Around here, she’s considered more . . . eccentric.” Mad, actually. I’d once heard Grainger’s father say that Gran was too damn stubborn to die, even living surrounded by monsters.

  At the time, I’d thought he was right.

  “So, she truly lives in the dark wood?” Maxime prodded.

  “She truly does,” I said with a soft smile as I scooped another bite from my bowl. “I’m going to see her next week. She has a cabin in a clearing, about half an hour’s walk from the edge of the forest. Which she evidently beats back with a hatchet, chopping seedlings the moment they take root. I only learned the other day that her cottage wasn’t in the wood at all, when it was built. Evidently her parents—”

  “Adele?”

  I spun on my stool to find Grainger standing in the open doorway, his brows arched in disappointment to find me in the company of a strange man. Which was when I remembered that I’d offered to bring him the very lunch I was now eating with Maxime.

  “Grainger! Oh, I’m so sorry! I completely forgot about lunch.” Though the spoon in my hand seemed to be making a liar out of me. I dropped it in my bowl and stood, then I found that I had nothing to do with my hands.

  “And you would be?” Grainger stepped into the room, his wary gaze trained on Max.

  “Maxime Bernard.” Max stood and offered Grainger his hand.

  Grainger shook it without even glancing at me. “You’re one of the merchants from Ashborne?”

  “Actually, I’m a carpenter, here to assist Monsieur Girard with some woodwork. I only hitched a ride with the merchant. You’re a friend of Adele’s?”

  “I’m sorry.” I forced my hands to stop twisting together before I broke my own fingers. “Max, this is Grainger Colbert. He’s a member of the village watch, and he works at the sawmill when they need him.”

  “The watch.” Max glanced at me in surprise, an almost imperceptible wariness in the arch of his brows. The very same sentiment shined in Granger’s eyes as the two studied each other.

  “Yes, the watch.” Grainger’s focused shifted to me, then back to Max. “How do you two know each other?”

  “My mother and Madame Duval are well acquainted from childhood,” Max said, his lunch evidently forgotten. “Which makes me a friend of the family.”

  “And yet I’ve never heard your name.”

  “Adele hasn’t mentioned you either,” Max returned. And suddenly I felt like I was choking on silent aggression, thick as smoke from a bonfire, as the two of them seemed intent on staring each other down.

  “Actually, Maxime, I did tell you about him. Just not by name.” My words felt so sharp they threatened to cut my tongue on their way out. “Grainger, would you care for some stew?”

  “Thank you, I—”

  “Well, hello!” My mother pushed past Grainger to enter her own home, which suddenly seemed terribly crowded. “Grainger, I see you’ve met Maxime?”

  “I have.” He stepped closer to me to make room for Sofia, who came in carrying a clay pot of honey, our empty fig basket hanging from her arm.

  “Let me take that.” Max relieved my mother of the sack of salt she carried, leaving her with only a folded stack of nettlecloth. The merchant had obviously approved of the cheese that had been wrapped in it.

  “Thank you. Just put that on the shelf over the o
ven, if you don’t mind.” She set her cloth on the larger table usually used for baking, then turned to survey the room with both hands propped on her hips. If she weren’t my own mother, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the subtle tension in the line of her jaw. “Well, aren’t we a crowd today?”

  “I’m not staying,” Grainger grumbled. “I have to get back to the sawmill. Adele, will you walk with me?”

  “I . . . Of course. Won’t you take some stew on the way?” I handed him my own bowl without waiting for his reply, then I added a hunk of bread to it.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, and as I followed Grainger out the door, my mother drizzled honey onto a large hunk of bread and handed it to my sister, who eagerly dove into a treat that was probably intended to keep her tongue too busy to wag.

  “So, Maxime is a friend of your family’s?” Grainger said, scooping a spoonful of stew from his bowl as we headed down the muddy path.

  “Yes. Though I only met him this morning.”

  “Your mother likes him,” he said around another bite.

  “She likes you as well,” I insisted, nerves buzzing around my insides like a hive of agitated bees.

  “Do you like him?”

  I shrugged, clasping my hands at my back. Wishing I’d grabbed my cloak. “I hardly know him.”

  “That isn’t an answer.” He tore a hunk of softened bread off with his teeth.

  I couldn’t really blame him for feeling threatened, considering the reason that Max had come to Oakvale. “He seems nice enough. In fact, he’ll probably make a fine husband—for someone else.” I smiled up at him as I took his arm.

  Grainger’s scowl slowly faded as he dipped his bread into the stew. “When you didn’t come by the sawmill at noon, I worried that something was wrong. I didn’t expect to find you having lunch with another man.”

  “The morning didn’t go how I expected either. I’m sorry that our lunch slipped my mind, but it would have been rude of me not to offer him something to eat, while he was a guest in my home.”