But Orville was a coward, Lucy remembered. Emile had warned her never to show weakness to a coward.
She leaned forward and smiled straight into Orville's narrowed, ugly eyes. "Will I fail, do you think? Oh, take care, Tavernkeep. Take care lest I throw a spell on you, too."
Orville's narrowed eyes widened.
With her own smile blossoming, Lucy turned away. She straightened her collar as she started down the hill. Her spirits lifted for the first time in three days.
There. She had decided on an abode, a mode of earning a living, and defeated the competition all within a matter of five or ten minutes. Ignoring a pang beneath her breastbone, Lucy strode right past the wooden cross where no body lay.
She did not need Emile. She had just proven so. She had taken care of herself. The way she always had. Lucy walked out of the churchyard, straight and dignified in her widow's weeds. She did not need Emile. She never had.
~~~
"What do we do with this?"
Moll jumped as Gawain swept a tray of fruit tarts and cheese under her nose. "For the love of—" she snapped before catching herself. Turning away from Gawain, she applied her rag to a tavern table littered with the remains of the bereavement feast. "I am sorry," she said softly. "You startled me."
Gawain set down the tray. "You are being nice to me." He paused. "What is the matter?"
Faced away from Gawain, Moll's mouth twisted. "A man has died. Perhaps I am grieved."
Gawain snorted. "What grieves you is that I know your secret now."
Moll's rag hesitated. 'Grieved' was not the word for what that did to her. So she skirted the subject. "I thought you had come to like the master. Yet even in death, you find no charity for him."
"Perhaps especially in death." Gawain's answer was in an odd, dry tone. He sat on the end of the table Moll was wiping. "Come, let us leave the subject of Emile. I care not for it. You are angry with me. Yet you behave all—" He waved a hand, his nose wrinkling. "Subdued."
Moll stared at a wine stain on the bench below her. "I have to be nice to you now."
That took a moment for him to digest. "What?" he finally whispered.
Moll lifted a shoulder. Couldn't the idiot see? "You made yourself at home the other morning." Indeed he had done so, sitting at her table, reciting bible—exciting, colorful stories Moll had never dreamed were in that book. He had directed conversation, corrected table manners, and even charmed Prudence, the children's nasty old nurse.
Gawain shifted on his tabletop seat. "It seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances."
A helpless laugh escaped Moll. "You told John you would teach him to read." Yes, and in her eldest son's eyes Moll had seen a desire she had never known he owned. He wanted to read.
"And I will," Gawain said.
Moll looked up. In Gawain's clear, gray eyes she read sincerity and truth. Integrity. This was what her children had seen, what had drawn them. It might even have drawn Moll if she did not also see a great deal more. "I will not sleep with you."
Gawain raised both brows.
Moll took a step back. "I will not expose them to that, so you can dismiss the notion. You can discard any ideas you have in that direction."
Gawain continued to gaze at her, curious and steady. It was unnerving how a thread of integrity somehow ran through the skein of a most lustful desire.
Moll refused to be unnerved. "I won't be your mistress."
"Good." A smile twitched his lips. "I would much rather you became my wife."
Moll went as still as the salt pillar Gawain had told them about. She could not believe she'd heard that. "Your wife?"
Despite the unbelievability of the idea, truth and honesty shone from his eyes.
Moll laughed. It came out sounding strangled. "You cannot be serious."
His eyes simply watched her.
Deep inside, Moll felt a very strange shift. Like a blanket, heavy and protective, being dragged off of old and tender emotions. She spun on a heel and paced away. Desperate, she tried to pull up the blanket again.
"Those children," she flung out. "Where do you think they came from?"
Gawain did not miss a beat. "I think they came from God."
"God!" Moll whirled. "God, a married farmer, and one passing royal courier. That's where they came from!"
She could not believe it. The man smiled. It was the most infuriating, gentle smile. "You think you own the whole market of sin," he remarked.
"I own a great deal more of it than you do."
Smiling still, Gawain shook his head. "We are all sinners, equally damned before the Lord."
Moll's eyes widened. "A pithy notion. But there is somewhat of a difference between you and me."
Gawain shifted off the table. "There is not."
Moll backed away. "Yes," she insisted. "There is."
Gawain simply looked at her. "Marry me."
Moll was breathing fast. "You want my body, that is all." Panicking, she completely reversed her earlier pronouncement. "You can have it. Enjoy it all you want."
"I will," Gawain promised. "After we are married."
Moll was grasping for another obstacle to throw into his path when the sound of hoof beats intruded on the tavern's uncharacteristic silence.
Gawain's expression changed as the sound grew louder, a regular troop of horses. They clattered at a good clip straight into the courtyard.
"Guests?" Moll queried. But there was an urgency and a purpose to the sudden milling of horses outside the door that did not sound like guests.
Gawain's mouth went grim even before the sharp knock rapped on the front door.
"Officers of the Queen!" a shrill voice proclaimed. "We demand immediate entry!"
Moll shared a look with Gawain.
Beneath his calm, he appeared to feel the same flash of terror she did. But he walked to the door with dignity. Gawain opened it wide.
Soldiers holding lances and spears crowded the porch.
Gawain did not waver, as though he were used to such sights. "We offer no resistance to the Queen. What seek you?"
Horror swirled in Moll's stomach as the short officer in front glared at Gawain and then led a pouring of soldiers clattering into the room.
A bench turned over. One soldier's lance knocked a pitcher from a shelf. It landed with a crash.
"What?!" boomed a voice from the stair. The sound echoed against the walls with familiar authority. Lucy strode down the stairs, barefoot and tying a robe around her waist. "What in the name of heaven is going on?"
The little soldier whirled to face her. "You are Lucy Fox, née Simple?"
Lucy pushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. "I am."
The small soldier lifted a rolled parchment in one hand. "Due investigation having been conducted—"
Moll had to admire her mistress' poise, her absence of alarm, even as the small soldier declared,
"—it is my duty to arrest you, Lucy Fox, for the murder by spells and witchcraft of your husband, Emile Fox."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In a dirty pair of hose and a torn shirt, Emile plunged his shovel into a high pile of horse manure. His bare toes sought purchase on the mucky floor of the stall.
"Fish's shirt suits you." Perched on the wall of the stall, a pistol cradled in one arm, Carver picked at his teeth.
Emile grunted and tossed his shovelful of manure out of the stall.
Carver gave a raspy chuckle. "You really thought we were going to kill you."
Turned away, Emile rolled his eyes toward the rafters of the barn. The brigand would never tire of repeating the story.
"I thought you were going to piss in those lovely breeches of yours." Carver heaved a melancholy sigh. "Breeches so unfortunately left behind by the side of the stream."
Emile planted his shovel spade down. He pointed at Carver. "Go on. You made a pile of money from my doing so."
"Hss!" Carver slit a look to one side, then the other. "Stone isn't to know about tha
t little side arrangement of ours. That was the deal."
Smiling, Emile plucked up his shovel again. "Stone was not to know about the purse of money I had on me or that you split it up amongst the four of you."
"In consideration for the purchase of various articles of our clothes," Carver added with a righteous nod.
Emile's smile became a smirk as he drove his shovel deep into the manure. The money in his purse had not gone to the purchase of a sorry pair of hose and a useless shirt. It had been a bribe. Carver and his fellows had taken the money in consideration for letting Emile leave his fine clothes behind. He'd made sure to leave them in the precise manner and place to do the job.
"You wanted to look dead," Carver observed. After giving one more glance around to make sure they were alone, he leaned against the post behind him. "Though why you would want to do that escapes me."
Emile put his back into lifting a high stack of horse droppings. "Considering your knife and Stone's determination to see me...work for him again, it did not seem like I would be coming back."
Carver's moustache curved as he picked at his teeth. Dark eyes regarded his prisoner shrewdly. Carver probably figured there was a scheme of some kind. This was Emile the Fox, after all. Obviously fishing, he asked, "How did a prigger like you manage to get married, anyway?"
Emile shrugged. "No one else wanted the female."
"With a dowry like that?" Carver waved one hand in front of his face, as though it were too hot in the room for him. "They must have been standing in line."
"And you must not have cooled your heels long enough in Bonham to hear the whole story." Emile grinned as he hefted his shovel. "She was cursed."
"What? Cursed?"
Emile paused with his shovel full of horseshit. "Impotence. For any man foolish enough to cross her path."
Carver's jaw dropped. Then his gaze dropped, too, to the region of Emile's crotch. "But you—?"
Abruptly, Emile turned. He tossed his load into the center aisle of the barn. "I cured her." He stood for a moment, staring at the pile he'd produced.
Meanwhile, Carver laughed. "Not a bad day's work, I am sure, for the sum of twenty thousand pounds."
Emile shook his head, shaking away the image of sunlight glinting off a stream, a woman lying half-naked on her kitchen gown, her eyes dewy with desire. "Oh, it didn't take all day. Just ten minutes or so."
Carver blinked and then exploded into laughter. Wiping tearing eyes, he said, "You might have managed the deal, too, got yourself married and living in the lap of luxury, if Stone had not been so keen to see you humbled."
Emile's smooth action with the shovel hitched. "Perhaps it was a lesson I needed."
"Oh, aye." Carver nodded his dark locks sagely. "A street rat like yourself acting the grand master."
Emile ran his shovel into the manure as if it were a sword. "It was bound to end in disaster."
"Bed sport will only get you so far with a woman."
Emile's lips pulled back from his teeth as he exerted his muscles. "Easy come, easy go."
"That's the way it is with our kind."
With a grunt and a shrug, Emile indicated his agreement.
"So." Carver stroked the barrel of his pistol. His eyes narrowed. "All the more mysterious, those clothes left behind, the sham drowning."
A sweat broke out under Emile's ragged shirt, but he made sure his face expressed nothing.
"I know!" Carver sat up straight. "You fell in love with the wench!"
Emile nearly dropped a load of fresh horseshit on his toe. He guffawed.
"You did." Carver gloated. "And you faked your death so your pretty little wife would not think you had abandoned her."
This time Emile's snort was fully genuine. Dust and old hay flew up as he dumped his load. The one thing he knew for certain was that Lucy understood perfectly well she had been abandoned. Those clothes folded neatly above the whirlpool would not have fooled her. Not for an instant.
Emile had understood that, panicked and rushed as he'd been in the forest that dawn. What he had not understood was how deeply he would end up regretting the gesture, so high-minded and heroic.
"Do you think to return to her?" Unwittingly shrewd, Carver waved a hand. "Miraculously rise from the dead?"
Only day and night. Only with every breath and heartbeat. Emile laughed. "They have already held a funeral over me, I imagine. She has property now. And will have plenty of marriage offers."
Carver's knowing smile faded. "Then you are not in love with her. You were only being...thoughtful." He spat the word.
Emile's smile was bitter. He had only been an idiot. Giving Lucy her freedom, allowing her to move on. And at the same time, giving her every motivation to do so by showing himself a faithless husband and a deserting rat.
He had thought to act the hero. To be selfless and generous.
But he was no hero. In the cold light of day, Emile had no such high principles. He wanted her back. He wanted it so much his teeth ached.
Emile leaned on his shovel. It was the only way to hide the sudden trembling in his hands. "Speaking of thoughts, how much longer do you think Stone intends to keep me at this game?"
"Why?" Carver embraced his weapon. "You have somewhere else to go?"
"Out of this stinking horse stall."
Carver chuckled and patted his pistol. "After this, Stone wants you to clean out the chicken coop. And then the bear pit."
"Anywhere there's shit," Emile translated.
"That's the way of it."
And everywhere a man with a pistol watching Emile's every move. The game master was serious about getting his pound of flesh.
"And wherever there's shit," Carver was good enough to remind Emile, "more will always grow."
Picking up his shovel, Emile fought back a falling weight of despair. He tried not to think about how Lucy must feel about him now, knowing he'd abandoned her. He tried not to think about how she would feel about him weeks hence, having decided she could live very well without him. Instead, he tried to imagine a miracle.
Over his shoulder, Emile slid a glance toward the man with the pistol.
Carver was cleaning his fingernails. Absorbed in his task, he nearly let the pistol slip out of his hands. He caught it at the last moment, however, and met Emile's eyes with a crafty smile.
Emile smiled back. Sooner or later, one of them was going to get careless.
Sooner, of course, would be better than later.
~~~
After her indictment for murder, an odd phenomenon would happen to Lucy. She would imagine Emile. She did not want to imagine Emile. He was the last person on earth she wanted to think about. But in her mind's eye, she would imagine him riding into town on a black charger. A silly image, that. Emile could barely hold his seat on a broken-down nag.
But she could not stop the visions. They popped into her head all by themselves as she sat alone in her gaol cell.
Emile galloping into town, throwing himself off the back of the steed, a long steel blade in his hand and half armor making his chest appear enormous.
"Where is she?" he would bellow, throwing a fiery eye upon the gathered crowd. Slashing a sword through the air, he would ask, "Where have you put my wife!"
Somebody would point, and Emile would come storming through the guardhouse.
She would jump off her stool and face him as he burst open the door.
They would stand a long moment, staring at each other. Then slowly, Emile would shake his head. "I did not want to leave," he would say. "I was called away by the queen. Secret mission, fate of the country. But she promised when I was through, I could come back to you."
In Lucy's imagination, there were tears in Emile's eyes. After his speech, he would rush forward and take her in his arms.
"Never again," he would whisper. "I love you, and I will never leave you again."
In Lucy's gaol cell, her mind deep in the fantasy, it almost made sense when the bolt of the heavy door suddenly slamme
d open. Startled, she jumped to her feet.
The frog-like face of her guard appeared in the door opening. "His lordship," he croaked.
Lucy brushed her gown, her heart still beating shamefully fast. She disliked the fear that had lived with her ever since the guard had seized her at the tavern. She did not like the desperation that drove her to these ridiculous fantasies, fantasies of Emile, of all people.
And so she presented to the well-dressed man now filling the door opening the same picture she had adopted since the terrible night of her arrest, a picture of offended dignity. Hands clasped, back straight, Lucy faced Charles, Lord Mitford—the man she had once felt so honored to entertain in her tavern—as though she, and not he, were the presiding magistrate.
"Relax," Mitford sighed. In a red velvet cape and trunk hose, he strolled into the room. "I'm on your side."
Lucy closed her eyes hard and then opened them again wide. "Excuse me, my lord. But you are on my side?"
Scowling, Mitford swished back his cape before making himself comfortable on the stool Lucy had vacated. He waited until the guard had closed them in alone together. "I had to indict you. Given the evidence, I had not any choice."
"Evidence," Lucy scoffed. "Your sweating brother-in-law claiming I filled his tavern with sulfurous smoke and made my eyes glow green."
Mitford pointed a finger at her. "In the churchyard you threatened to throw a spell. Everybody heard you."
Lucy pressed her lips together. This had, admittedly, been foolish.
"And then there is this business about a curse. Most unfortunate." Lowering his finger, Mitford released another sigh. "I have no animosity toward you. On the contrary, I will do everything in my power to help you. Anything to make sure that worm, Orville, does not get his way in this."
Lucy crossed her arms and sniffed although inside her a little flame of hope stirred to life. Surely this was good news, to have the local magistrate on her side, whatever his reasons.
"Of course, it won't be easy." With his fingers laced behind his head, Mitford leaned back against the wall. "The prosecuting counsel gave me a look at the evidence he has collected. Did you really tell your husband you had no use for him? Publicly? At the top of your lungs?"
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