“Oh. Oh.” She surrendered the napkin and staggered back onto her bench, her cheeks reddening, her glance averted.
There was an uncomfortable silence then, broken only by Azrael’s hungry meow and the crackling of the fire.
“I don’t suppose any of my braies are dry?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He sighed.
Then panic widened her eyes. “Don’t even think of it,” she muttered breathlessly.
“I wasn’t.” He might be at ease without his shirt, but the last thing he wanted to do was swagger about before her without his braies. “Maybe I’ll just retire for the night.”
She nodded.
He eased from the table, keeping the napkin bunched over the wet place that now clearly proclaimed him a man. Sidling between the dripping laundry, he made it to the refuge of his chamber and began stripping off his boots and braies.
After he was completely nude, she called him from the next room. “Oh, um, Nicky?”
God’s eyes, the maid was asking for trouble. “What?”
“Tomorrow. Will you be gone all day?”
He sighed. She wasn’t asking because she’d miss him. Nay, the little imp likely wanted to know how much time she had to wreak havoc on his household.
Desirée wasn’t fooling him for an instant. The woman was far too clever to accidentally burn his supper and dress his cat like a beribboned gentlewoman and wash his shirts in rosewater. She was trying to earn his wrath so he’d release her from their contract.
But she had a lot to learn about Nicholas Grimshaw. Despite his pretense of violence and volatility when he performed his duties as shire-reeve of Kent, he had the patience of a monk. He’d made a promise, and he wasn’t about to let a slip of a wench confound his good intentions. Desirée had a long battle ahead of her if she thought she could wear him down anytime soon.
“I’ll be in town,” he told her carefully. “I’m not sure when I’ll return.”
He could tell by her silence that his answer displeased her. But at least he’d rest easy on the morrow. After all, what mischief could she possibly make in half a day?
The next morn, after he’d gone, Desirée gathered the dry clothes from around the room, pensively biting her lip. What mischief could she make in half a day?
Nicholas had left her a list again, but she could tell by perusing it that the tasks would take less than a few hours to complete. Then she’d be bored again. If she happened to come up with her own deviously creative undertaking, she reasoned, it would be half his fault for not giving her enough to keep her occupied.
Maybe she’d use charcoal to decorate the newly clean white plaster walls with a lovely mural. Kittens frolicking in a field of daisies. Or butterflies flitting over gillyflowers and hollyhocks. Or a horned demon in a black hood with the face of the shire-reeve of Kent.
She sighed. Shirts draped across her arm, she stepped to the window and cracked the shutters. It was gloomy and overcast again, but there was no rain or snow. Though she’d been ensconced in the shire-reeve’s cottage less than two days, already she felt like a prisoner. While she languished in this isolated cell, opportunities for profit were wasting away out there, and she was losing precious time in her quest to discover the real culprit in the Torteval murder. Indeed, the killer might be halfway to Scotland by now.
She was restless. She needed some excuse to leave the cottage, to go into town, some reason to mingle with the villagers and seek out valuable information.
As she folded the shirts, Snowflake trotted across the kitchen to sniff at something on the floor. He gobbled it up at once. Desirée suspected it was a piece of bacon she’d dropped earlier, which gave her an idea.
Abandoning the shirts, she crossed the room to where the bacon hung on a hook above the counter.
“Did you like that?” she asked Snowflake. “Would you like more?”
She’d hoped it would take only a casual flick of her wrist to dislodge the hook from the meat, that she could make it appear like an accident. But she struggled for a long while with the thing, cursing it by every name she knew, before the bacon finally surrendered and dropped heavily to the counter.
With a casual whistle, she nudged it to the edge and pushed it over. It landed on the floor at Snowflake’s feet. Desirée shook her head sadly. “How unfortunate.”
The cat wasted no time. Licking his whiskers and giving her one cautious glance, he dove in.
She clucked her tongue. “I suppose I’ll have to buy another. Can’t very well make bacon pottage without bacon.”
She’d have to use the shire-reeve’s coin, of course, which meant acknowledging she knew about his cache. But surely he’d realize, leaving her home alone for two days, she was bound to discover his secret treasury.
Nicholas had left but an hour ago, so if she departed at once, she could probably be back before he returned.
She plucked out four pence from the little wooden chest and dropped it into her satchel.
“Of course, one can never be sure of the cost of bacon in a town like Canterbury,” she murmured, adding two more. The silver gleamed up at her. “Nor what other necessities one might stumble upon.” She quickly tucked two more coins into her purse, then a seventh. And an eighth.
Then, before she could get completely swept away by greed, she slammed the lid, donned her cloak, and set out for town.
The air was crisp and cold as she hurried along the streets of Canterbury, past bakeries and spice shops, alehouses and brothels, until she reached the lane of butcheries. Unfortunately, the village seemed to be deserted today, giving her little opportunity to cross paths with anyone, let alone anyone from Torteval.
She purchased a slab of bacon from the first butcher, inquiring with wide-eyed awe if he’d ever sold his goods to anyone of the noble class, perhaps the Lord of Torteval?
He hadn’t, but her flattering admiration earned her a discount on her purchase. Tucking the threepence bacon under one arm, she stepped out onto the street and frowned at the crowd gathering at the bottom of the lane.
Her thieving instincts were roused immediately. Where there was a crowd, there were purses to be picked. But without an accomplice and burdened by a slab of meat, she lacked the stealth to carry off any sleight of hand.
Still, she wondered what all the fuss was.
She narrowed her eyes and couldn’t help but shudder as her gaze caught on the distant stark timbers of the gallows, empty now, but still menacing. Had it been only a week since Hubert had been hanged there?
A trio of young lads scurried past her toward the town square, and she snagged one of them by the sleeve. “What’s going on?”
“A floggin’,” he replied, his eyes alight.
With a sigh of disgust, she let him go, and he skipped after his companions. Why people were so fascinated with public punishments she didn’t know. But she and Hubert had always managed to profit the most when cutting the purses of fools transfixed by some disciplinary spectacle.
Shaking her head, she turned to go back to the cottage, against the flow of the herd.
Then she froze.
If there was to be a flogging...
God’s blood! It would be Nicholas wielding the whip.
She spun back around, frowning down the lane, and before she realized it, she found herself swept along with the rest of the onlookers.
He was there, and for one stunning moment, her breath caught, and she blinked at the nearly unrecognizable figure prowling the village square. It was hard to believe the menacing official rolling his shoulders as he paced before the gallows was the same gentleman she’d supped with last night.
As he walked along, he let a whip slither through his gloved hand like a rogue snake, dragging it along the ground, then snapping it forward suddenly, as if testing its bite.
A fishmonger in the crowd raised his fist and roared, “Who steals from the fishmongers of Canterbury steals from Nicholas Grimshaw!”
His fellows che
ered wildly, and Desirée glowered at them. The poor wretch tied to the whipping post was nearly as thin as the post. If he’d stolen from a fishmonger, it was likely only to fill his empty belly.
Nicholas cracked the whip in the air above his head to silence the crowd. The villagers gasped at the loud snap, then giggled nervously. Stupid townsfolk, Desirée thought, half hoping someone was weaving through the crowd, cutting their purses.
“Eight pounds of fish,” Nicholas charged when the crowd was quiet. “Eight lashes.”
The victim sagged against the post, but the crowd had a mixed response to the sentence. A few cried out in satisfaction, but more grumbled, and the fishmongers voiced loud disapproval, demanding a harsher sentence.
Nicholas turned on them, snapping the whip against the stones of the square, demanding, “Think you ‘tis not enough?”
The crowd shrank back.
The constable assured them, “Eight lashes from Nicholas Grimshaw is like eight hundred from any other man!”
The villagers crowed their approval then, and Nicholas sauntered before them, taking his time, stroking the whip, until he stood directly behind his victim.
Desirée’s blood began to simmer with a mixture of disgust and anger and nausea. How could she have ever believed the shire-reeve had an ounce of mercy in him? Clearly he was as cruel and heartless as Lucifer.
She didn’t intend to stay for the flogging, but it began before she could turn away. Nicholas’s powerful shoulder raised the whip high and came down with a vengeance, as if he meant to drive a stake through rock.
Gasps rose around her, and the victim yelped in surprise as the lash landed. Desirée felt sickened by the blow, more so when she heard people around her calling for more.
Obliging them, Nicholas shook out his arm, then raised the whip from the other direction, slashing it in a backhanded motion.
Desirée bit the inside of her cheek. The townspeople around her were now transfixed by the performance. But she’d had enough. She wrenched herself away, but the close crowd wouldn’t let her move.
She elbowed the man beside her. His face aglow with fascination at the debacle before him, he hardly noticed the jab.
“Stand aside!” she barked.
Still no one made room for her, though they silenced at the third crack of the lash.
Now was her chance. “Get the bloody hell out of my way!”
The crowd finally parted, and she elbowed her way through the tangle, grumbling her disgust with every step.
She supposed she should have been afraid. After all, she was living under the same roof as that merciless minion of the devil. Worse, she was guilty of far more serious crimes than the man being flogged in the square.
But mostly what she felt was rage.
And suddenly she felt no remorse at all about filching eight pence for a threepence bacon.
Nicholas’s arm stuttered as he drew back the whip for the fourth lash. That voice...
From beneath his scowling brow, he scoured the breathless mob. There she was, his waif of a maidservant, shoving her way through the villagers, her hips twitching with anger.
Damn! What the devil was Desirée doing here?
His grip faltered on the lash, and undeserved guilt threatened to rear its ugly head. He felt like a toothless hound caught in a coop full of dead hens.
But he couldn’t afford to let his control of the situation slip, to let down his guard, for one instant. He was Nicholas Grimshaw, for God’s sake, fearsome shire-reeve of Kent, right hand and strong arm of the law. Besides, since his clothes reeked of roses, he had to make doubly certain no one mistook him for a softhearted fool.
So instead of dissolving into a pool of shame, which would do no one any good, he steeled his spine to finish the task ahead.
Thankfully, the crowd quickly reminded him of just who he was. They began chanting for blood. Nicholas walked in a slow arc past them, caressing the whip, using the time to steady his nerves.
The cursed lass. What was she doing in the town square anyway? He hadn’t given her permission to leave his demesne.
He cocked his head hard to the left, cracking his neck as he faced his victim once again. Between the deceptively loud snap of the lash and the cunningly violent movement of Nicholas’s arm, no one but the man at the whipping post could tell that the blows were feather light. It was all about the appearance of severity. His methods had always been more bark than bite. But Desirée didn’t know that.
Shite. Now he’d lost count. The damned wench had thrown him off his stride.
It didn’t matter. Raucous lads in the crowd inevitably called out the lashes.
He rolled his shoulder back, preparing to lay on another stripe. This time, as the lash kissed the victim’s back, Nicholas let out a loud bellow. The startled man jerked in response, rousing the crowd to a hearty cheer.
“Four!” someone shouted.
Only four more, then. The thief could survive four more. So could Nicholas. And then his victim would be free to rush into the tender arms of his weeping wife, who stood at the edge of the crowd, her face buried in her hands.
He took his time reclaiming the whip, letting it slide along the ground like a lazy eel, giving his victim time to recover and brace for the next blow.
It wasn’t his fault that Desirée had stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Bloody hell. If the lass hadn’t the stomach for a flogging, then, by God, she shouldn’t have come to the town square.
The day seemed to last an eternity. After the flogging was over, Nicholas had to elicit confessions from a pair of dishonest millers in the gaol. Once he separated the two, one of the millers was easily convinced by the mere menacing lift of Nicholas’s brow to admit his guilt. The other required a glimpse of Nicholas’s shirt, strategically stained with pig blood, and his instruments of torture, along with a fabricated but thorough description of what hideous persuasions Nicholas had employed upon his partner.
It was late afternoon when Nicholas packed up his unused instruments in his oversized satchel. He strode with dark menace through the streets of Canterbury, frightening away any daring lads stupid enough to consider throwing stones, and headed for home, eager to drown his fatigue in a cup of ale.
After, he amended, after he scolded his maidservant soundly for leaving the cottage.
It still rankled him that she’d come to the flogging. But it troubled him more that she’d stalked away from it in fury. Even if he’d given the man a sound whipping instead of merciful strokes that left no mark, Desirée had no right to condemn him for his livelihood, especially considering what she did for a living, the little cheat. His labor put a roof over her head and paid her wage. How dared she stand in judgment over him?
By the time he arrived home, bursting through the cottage door, tearing the singed cloak from his shoulders, and tossing it down on the table where Desirée sat, slicing a loaf of bread, he no longer felt shame for what she’d caught him doing. He was primed for a fight.
“You know, ‘twasn’t half as bad as it looked!” he blurted out. “The lash didn’t even leave a mark.”
Then he scowled. Why the devil had he said that? It was a completely defensive statement and not at all what he’d meant to say. Bloody hell. He couldn’t tell her the truth. If she found out he wasn’t as fierce as he pretended to be, it would be the ruin of his reputation.
“Indeed?” she replied coolly, proceeding to cut a thick slice from the crusty maslin. She shrugged, but her voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Well, perhaps you can strengthen your arm, so next time the crowd can enjoy his screams.”
“Damn it, wench!” he barked, dropping his heavy satchel to the ground. “That’s not what I meant.”
What did he mean? Why was he trying to excuse his behavior? He owed her no explanation. What did he care that she might think him a villain? Everyone else did.
“You know what I think?” she bit out nastily, sawing more vigorously at the bread. “I think you relish every moment of it
. The blood. The shrieks. The applau—“
“You know nothing!” he bellowed, his frustration flaring like straw on the fire.
The woman should have recoiled in terror. His roar left grown men quaking in their boots. But the maid only pierced him with her narrowed green eyes, her fist clenched pointedly around the knife.
He had to admire her. She was fearless. But it was a dangerous thing for Nicholas. Fear had always been his method of control. If he couldn’t inspire fear in his own maidservant...
“What were you doing in town?” he growled.
She smirked. “Why? Am I a prisoner here?”
“I gave you chores to do.“
“Which I’ve done.”
“And so you came into town for what? To spy upon me?”
She frowned and stabbed the knife hard into the remains of the bread. “Spy upon you? Why would I need to spy upon you? It was a public spectacle. You were performing for all to see.”
The way she said “performing” grated on his ears.
“If you can’t abide the sight of blood,” he bit out, “then you should stay away from my workplace.”
She arched a sardonic brow. “And how will I do that? Isn’t your workplace all of Kent?” She rose and moved to the hearth, where something savory bubbled in a pot.
“I told you I’d be in Canterbury today.”
“Ah. Then perhaps tomorrow I may venture out?” she said with false deference. Wrapping a heavy cloth around the bail, she lifted the pot off the fire. “Unless you conduct your gruesome little displays on the Sabbath, as well.”
Displeasure flared in him. “Why must you venture out at all?” he demanded, regretting his rash words as soon as he voiced them. After all, he didn’t intend to make her a prisoner, no matter what she thought. She could come and go as she pleased...
As long as she returned to fulfill her household obligations.
And as long as she let him know where she was.
And as long as she didn’t get herself into trouble.
Lord, it was a challenging task, watching over a woman with a will of her own.
Danger's Kiss Page 9
