“You’re too kind, gentlemen,” she replied.
One lad took the pike. “I’m John.”
The other took the pie. “I’m John, as well.”
“Indeed? Good morn, John and John-as-well.”
“And what’s your name, m’lady?”
“I’m Desirée.”
“Desirée,” the first John repeated carefully, as if he meant to memorize it.
“Do ye live nearby?” the second John asked. “I haven’t seen ye in Canterbury before. Have ye, John?”
“Nay, haven’t seen her before.”
“Me neither. How long have ye been here?”
“Not long,” she replied, “a fortnight.”
“What business do ye have in Canterbury?” the first John asked gruffly.
The second John scowled at him. “Ye’re goin’ too fast.”
“Sorry.”
Desirée furrowed her brow. Going too fast? What did he mean by that?
“’Tis a lovely day, isn’t it?” the second John asked.
Desirée glanced about the streets, still gloomy with fog. “Is it?”
“But then, any day would be lovely, walkin’ beside a maid such as yourself.”
Desirée resisted the urge to smirk.
“I’m surprised ye don’t have an escort,” he said. “Is there no one who’s—“
“Have ye got a husband?” The first John apparently disliked mincing words.
“John!” The second reached around her to shove the first.
“What? Isn’t that what ye want to know?”
“Pardon my friend,” John the second said. “He’s got no manners.”
“You’re pardoned,” she said. But she didn’t answer his question. In fact, she became suddenly wary of their interest. Before, she’d always had Hubert to intercede if men took too much of an interest in her. Now she was on her own.
She stopped in the lane. “Perhaps I should continue on myself.” She reached for the pike.
He pulled it away. “Nay, m’lady. John didn’t mean no harm. Besides, ye don’t want to walk these streets alone. They’re dangerous. All manner of thieves and scoundrels roam about, ready to pounce on a lady all by herself.”
An inner alarm warned Desirée the Johns shouldn’t be trusted. After all, only yesterday, Odger and a pack of urchins had cost her the greater part of a savory meal. She didn’t want it to happen again.
“Give us another chance,” he urged. “John won’t say another word, will ye, John?”
“I s’pose not,” he said unhappily.
“See? And we’ll take ye home, safe and sound...to your husband.” He hesitated, obviously waiting for her to confirm or deny his statement.
She refused to take the bait. Perhaps if they suspected she had a husband, they’d leave off their pursuit. “Very well.” She resumed walking.
“I told ye she was wed,” the supposed-to-be-silent John said.
“And I told ye to be quiet! Besides, she didn’t say if she was or wasn’t.” He winked at Desirée. “Maybe she prefers to...leave her options open.”
Desirée smiled, wondering what the lads would say if she told them she was maidservant to the shire-reeve of Kent.
As they traveled on through the fog, straying farther and farther from the crowded center of town, she realized, of course, that she would have to mislead the lads. She didn’t want them to know where Nicholas lived. So as John the second continued on with his prattle, asking her questions that she answered as vaguely as possible, she picked out a walled demesne along a side street and stopped before it, indicating it was her home.
John the silent scratched his head. “Here? The shire-reeve lives here?“
“Fool!” John the not-so-silent cuffed him.
Desirée glanced between the two men. They glanced back, their eyes alarmed and guilty. Now on high alert, she clenched her hands around the jug of wine, ready to use the thing as a weapon, if need be.
“What did you say?” she asked.
John the second tried to laugh off the situation. “He didn’t say nothin’. He’s just addled in the head.”
She wasn’t fooled for an instant. “What did you say about the shire-reeve?”
The first John sputtered an unintelligible response, then his eyes went wild with panic. He dropped the pie and lunged forward, seizing her around the waist.
Desirée clung to the claret. She wasn’t about to lose a second jug of wine.
“John! What are ye...?” the second John spat, glancing about to see if there were any witnesses. “Stop it! What the bloody hell...”
But John the first wasn’t about to let go, and Desirée was having a hard time fighting him off, since she was desperate to hang on to the claret. “Let go of me, you son of a—“
John number two clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shh, lass. It’ll be all right. I promise.”
She bit down hard on his fingers.
“Ow!” He yanked his hand back, but as soon as she took a breath to scream, he dropped the fish and attacked her from behind, locking his arm around her throat.
Desirée had no choice but to sacrifice the wine. She gave the first John a swift knee to the groin. While he sank to the ground with a bloodless face, she swung the jug up over her shoulder and bashed John the second in the head.
To her delight, the jug didn’t break, and her assailant was rendered dizzy by the blow.
The first John looked up from where he was doubled over in pain. “Ye’re not the shire-reeve’s wife, then, are ye?” he wheezed. “Ye’re his whore. Right?”
Desirée gasped in outrage, then drew back her fist and punched him hard in the nose. He staggered backward, moaning, one hand cupping his crotch, the other cradling his nose.
“Ye fool,” the second John groaned, holding his cracked brow. “This isn’t her demesne. She just said that to get rid of us.”
The first John’s words were muffled by his hand. “Then she does live with him.”
Desirée had had enough. Her knuckles ached, and her supper lay in disarray upon the ground. Confounded by their questions and incensed by their assault, she tossed her head and shouted, “Aye, I live with the shire-reeve!” She narrowed her eyes at John the first and gave him a nasty smile. “And when he hears that you attacked me...John...”
His eyes grew round with fear. With a sound that was half-gasp, half-squeak, he lurched off down the lane, still shielding his injured parts.
“John! Come back here!” his companion called. “Coward!”
Desirée turned on the remaining John, advancing on him with her jug raised until he was backed against the wall of the demesne. “Who sent you?”
He gulped. “Nobody.” He blinked nervously. “John didn’t hurt ye, did he? If he did, I swear I’ll—“
“Who. Sent. You?”
He lifted his palms in a defensive gesture, clearly afraid to lay a finger on her, lest the shire-reeve come after him. But neither did he want to answer her.
He needed more incentive. Unwilling to risk breaking the jug, she quickly set it down, simultaneously scooping up the pike from the ground. Then she hauled back and slapped him full across the face with the fish.
He sputtered in shock, reeling from the blow.
“Who sent you?” she repeated.
He shook his head. “I told ye, no—“
She smacked him with the pike on the other cheek.
“Ah, God.” He made a moue of disgust. “Prithee, m’lady, don’t—“
Smack!
“Oh!” This time the odor of the fish hit him full force.
“Tell me,” she warned.
“All right,” he choked out. “All right. Just don’t hit me with that foul thing again.”
“Well?”
“‘Twas Odger, master of the mews at Torteval.”
“Odger?” Desirée lowered the fish. “What did he want?”
“He wanted to know what the shire-reeve was to ye.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps he wanted to court ye?”
“I doubt that. I showed him the sharp side of a blade yesterday.”
He looked at her in horror. Apparently, Odger had omitted that fact when he’d enlisted these men to do his work.
Now that she had him cornered, she figured she might as well question him. “You live at Torteval?”
He clamped his lips shut.
She raised the fish.
He winced.
She repeated, “You live at Torteval?”
“Aye.”
“Where were you at the time of the murder?”
His brows shot up. “The murder? Ye mean the lawyer?”
“Aye.”
“I was sleepin’ with the hounds. I’m the houndskeeper.”
“And did you see anything?”
He shook his head.
“What about the other John?”
“I didn’t see him neither.”
“Nay. Did he see anything?”
“He sleeps in the stables.”
Desirée pensively bit her lip. Why she bothered to pursue the incident, she didn’t know. After all, Hubert was dead. According to Nicholas, he’d wanted to be hanged for the murder.
But something wasn’t right about the whole thing. She still didn’t believe her old companion was capable of killing, not even accidental killing.
“Why do ye want to know about the murder?” John asked.
She pierced him with eyes of frost. “My grandfather was hanged for it.”
John froze, and his eyes slowly widened. “Bloody hell. Ye mean, ye’re the granddaughter of a mur-...of a mur-...”
With a desperate lurch, he shoved her out of the way. Then he tore from the wall and hurtled down the lane as fast as his legs could carry him, never looking back.
For a moment, Desirée stared pensively after the man as he disappeared into the fog.
Something curious was going on at Torteval. What was Odger up to? He’d clearly sent someone else to do what he hadn’t the courage to do himself. But why should he care about her relationship with Nicholas?
Unless, she mused, he wanted to get rid of her permanently and needed to make sure he wouldn’t incur the wrath of the shire-reeve for doing so.
She shivered, suddenly wishing she’d told them Nicholas was her lover, her very possessive lover. Then again, the three assassins she’d met thus far had proved to be clumsy, cowardly, and dim-witted. She supposed she hadn’t much to fear from them.
Brushing off her new skirts, hoping she hadn’t ruined them in the altercation, she scanned the ground. The jug of wine was intact, but the pie had landed upside down.
“Piss.”
The pike had come halfway out of its wrapping, and though it looked decent enough despite its bout with John, she needed to tuck it back in its package to carry it. Otherwise, she’d arrive home smelling like a fishwife.
Unwilling to give up the pear pie, she shoved the rewrapped pike under one arm and carefully scooped up the linen-covered pastry. It wasn’t soiled. It was only smashed. And she’d be damned if she was going to have another supper ruined.
Nicholas hadn’t felt this good in a long while. He strode home in the fog, a lightness in his step, a faint smile upon his lips.
He knew what he’d done wasn’t right. But it was just. And the satisfaction he felt as he left the town of Sturry was well worth the loss of his fee.
He wondered what his little cheat of a maidservant would have said about his deviation from the law. He shook his head. Desirée was definitely a bad influence on him.
The deception had been easy to pull off. Desirée was right. Distraction was a useful tool.
He’d unhooked the freshest carcass in the smokehouse and dressed it in the young man’s clothing. Then, together with the lad, he’d beat it to a pulp with the tools he’d brought. The careful cut he made in the lad’s hand provided a bit of fresh blood to make the scene believable.
He’d made the lad hide in the straw while he ruefully explained to the authorities that once he’d learned the lass and her babe had been brutally murdered, he’d lost his mind and...
When he revealed the bloody mess on the smokehouse floor, no one questioned his actions. Nicholas Grimshaw, after all, was known to be a vicious individual with a ruthless temper. Who could blame him for taking out his rage on the lad?
The miller couldn’t complain. As far as he knew, Nicholas had only expedited the lad’s inevitable execution. And the town had been saved paying an executioner’s fee.
Naturally, Nicholas had given the lad a stern warning. No matter how unjust it seemed, no matter how tempting it was to seek retribution and mete out punishment to the miller, it would serve no purpose. Nothing would bring back the lass and her babe. He was to forget about vengeance, leave Sturry at nightfall, and never return. By the time Nicholas finished speaking with the lad, he was confident the grateful boy would take his advice.
However, now that Nicholas had taken the law into his own hands, to good effect, it would be a terrible temptation to do it again. It was far more satisfying to right a wrong than to carry out unfair justice.
He saw now how difficult it must be for Desirée to resist the urge to lift a purse here or roll a weighted die there when the winnings were lifted off of scoundrels who probably deserved to lose their coin. Still, he didn’t plan to make a habit of bending the law. And he had no intention of letting Desirée know what he’d done.
By the time he pushed through the garden gate, it was late afternoon. Smoke wafted from the chimney, and even from the yard, he could detect the pleasant smell of roasting fish. His mouth watered, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since wolfing down the cocket and ruayn cheese this morn.
Desirée was fast spoiling him. He was growing accustomed to coming home to a warm supper. Not since he was a lad had anyone cooked for him. Most evenings, too tired to cook for himself, he dined on a slab of smoked meat, a stale hunk of bread, and several cups of ale. It was hard to think about returning to that kind of existence again.
So he decided not to think about it. Tomorrow, he’d begin to plan for Desirée’s inevitable departure. But tonight, he intended to celebrate...his newfound sense of justice, Desirée’s delicious supper, the cat’s successful capture of a mouse, all their victories, big and small.
The moment he stepped through the doorway to the pungent smells of galentyne sauce and peppered pike, Desirée whirled toward him. “You’re home!”
Her look of pure pleasure he’d hold dear to him long after she was gone, he knew. That one memory alone could serve to warm him for weeks.
She clucked her tongue. “I suppose I’ll have to give Snowflake the bad news.”
He’d scarcely pulled back his hood when she came up to unfasten his cloak. “Bad news?”
“It looks as if he won’t get your share, after—“ She stopped abruptly, staring at the middle of his chest.
He glanced down. Bloodstains marred his shirt. He’d forgotten.
He quickly clenched the fabric in one hand, as if he could cover the evidence. But it was too late. An unmistakable shiver of revulsion went through her.
“’Tisn’t what it seems,” he tried to explain.
She averted her gaze then, but though she attempted to maintain her smile, it grew brittle before his eyes.
He made a second try. “’Tis only—“
“Perhaps you could change your shirt before supper,” she said lightly, but her gait was stiff as she turned to walk toward the hearth.
His shoulders sagged. He should have known better. Though this once he’d done the right thing, his reputation as shire-reeve had been a part of his life for too long to erase it with one good deed. He couldn’t expect Desirée to overlook years of being an enforcer. He was no better than Azrael, bringing in a dead mouse, thinking to impress him.
Discouraged, he ducked into his bedchamber, hauling in his bag of tools. Thankfully, he’d stopped to wash them before making
the journey home. At least she’d be spared the sight of gore-covered blades.
The hard truth was that his existence was too harsh for a maid. Not only was his life on the road grueling, but as much as he managed to avoid violence, he did traffic in meting out punishments. He had no right even imagining he could share such a life with a woman, any woman.
He took off his shirt and crumpled it into a ball, stuffing it behind his pallet, out of sight. He’d launder it later himself. He wished he could discard it, toss it into the yard for the crows, the way he had the mouse.
Desirée knew she should say something. The silence between them was thickening like overcooked frumenty, and if she didn’t say something soon, they’d never be able to slog through a conversation.
“I bought us a jug of wine,” she called gaily from the next room, trying to pretend she’d forgotten all about his bloody shirt.
“Ah.”
Curse it all! She hadn’t meant to act so repulsed. It was only that for a moment, she’d forgotten what he did for a living. To have the evidence of the violence he’d perpetrated today displayed so vividly caught her off guard.
She knew it was part of his work. Indeed, Nicholas coming home with a bloodstained shirt was no different than a dyer coming home with woad-stained hands. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what spilling all that blood did to a man’s soul.
Perhaps she could make amends for her response and distract him from his burdens by telling him about her adventures today. At least part of her adventures.
She poured him a cup of wine. “Nicholas, you’ll never guess what I...” She turned at his entrance and promptly forgot what she was going to say.
Nicholas hadn’t bothered to tie his shirt. It hung loosely about his throat, exposing a delicious triangle of skin and imparting an air of danger to his appearance. But it was an intriguing sort of danger, one that made her want to tangle her fingers in the garment and tear it asunder to get to the tempting man beneath.
“Aye?” he asked.
“I...I...like that shirt,” she finished lamely.
“This?” He furrowed his brow.
She felt like a half-wit. It was only a linen shirt, after all, just like all his other linen shirts. It wasn’t the shirt so much as what was in it. Flustered, she crossed the room and shoved the cup of wine at him. To her horror, it sloshed over the edge and would have spilled onto him if he hadn’t stepped backward.
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