Jayne Fresina (14 page)

As he held the gate and she passed close, not waiting for him to move aside, her skirt grazed his legs and the knuckles of his free hand. That slight touch from a woman who generally resisted physical contact caused a tremor all the way up into his throat. “You look after these pigs well enough,” he muttered, hoarse, “and I’ll give you something for it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking for more, Master Carver.” She bobbed a shallow curtsey. “I’m in your debt already, sir.”

He closed the gate after her and leaned against it, arms folded, watching her wheel her barrow across to the dung heap. She was being facetious, of course. Slowly he smiled. He had the mouthiest, best-looking swine-herd in all of England.

And yes, whatever trouble she was in, he would protect her from it. He’d seen those stunning green eyes widen in fear, her hands clasp tightly around that shovel. Nathaniel’s Friday wench brought out his tender side, he realized somewhat resentfully, wondering why it wasn’t some other woman, a good, pure, honest wench, who drew his attention like this. Her step was lively now. Was she humming as she worked? Yes, her feet were tapping, her head bobbing.

Naturally, he reminded himself briskly, she wasn’t expecting this hardship to last long. Once Nathaniel returned from sea, she would go back to her pampered life and put all this behind her. Yet there was always a chance his cousin might not return. He felt a stab of guilt for thinking it, but Nathaniel might not come back to reclaim his wench.

Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled at him, granting him the full pleasure at last, and the pinches in his gut were soothed away. The ground pitched under his boots again.

Maybe he’d keep her.

As long as she made good use of herself.

* * * *

Later that day he returned home along the lane with the carthorses, and by some lucky providence, caught his longtime sweetheart Alice Croft and her friend Bridget Frye, just as they arrived at his gate. He bid them a hasty good evening while he scrambled for reasons not to let them in. Under no circumstances could they meet his swine-herd, he thought grimly. She required far too much explanation.

Had he not been so nervous, he might simply have let them in and introduced them to her. After all, there was nothing untoward going on, was there?

Instead he made up a hasty lie about his mother being sick, not wanting visitors. The two young women expressed concern, asking if there was anything she might need.

“She’ll be all right,” he muttered, ashamed of himself. “She’s just tired out lately and needs rest.”

“Poor Mistress Carver,” Alice exclaimed. “She needs help around the house.” And her eyelashes lowered, as if he might think her too bold and putting herself up for the job.

Meanwhile, Bridget’s watchful eyes ripped into his face like vulture’s talons. “That house is too large for one woman to manage. It needs a wife in it.”

He rested one hand on the bars of the gate. “I’ll pass your kind thoughts on to my mother, Alice. Bridget.”

He watched them go, guilt writhing alongside hunger in his belly. There were folk who thought he led Alice Croft on a chase. Sometimes he thought it too. She was a good girl and it was unfair to keep her waiting. He should’ve married her by now, even if it was just to help his mother out around the house. Yet, for all her teasing, his mother wouldn’t hear of him marrying for such a reason. Once, when he’d suggested it, she lost her temper, shrieking that she’d hang herself before she let him marry just to get her a nursemaid.

So he’d put it off. He’d waited, but for what he had no idea.

Slowly he unlatched the gate and led the horses inside for their well-earned feed and a good rub down. The windows of the house were not yet lit with candles. He was home earlier than usual tonight, eager to leave work behind for once.

Because of the Friday wench. The thought vaulted in, over his protests; it was fluid, fast-flowing, unstoppable.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t touch Nathaniel’s woman. Even if she was on loan to him and his cousin willing to share, John knew he couldn’t accept those terms. He’d want her all to himself.

In any case, she was the very last sort of distraction he needed in his life, so he’d better stop imagining it. She couldn’t cook, hadn’t even known how to draw well water until he showed her. A bee sting on her hand yesterday caused such an unholy ruckus one would have thought someone stabbed her through the heart with a knife. When he’d carefully spread his mother’s salve on the sting for her, she’d thanked him profusely, as if he’d saved her life. She spent a great deal of time daydreaming out of the window and playing with his dog. Even gave the animal a bath one morning, without his permission. Cleaning floors, however, was plainly something she’d never done before in her life; always forgetting to roll up her sleeves, she then seemed unduly surprised when finding them wet or dirty.

She argued with him too much, called him rude, arrogant, even thoughtless. There was, it seemed, much about him she disliked.

At night, while he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, making pictures out of the moonlit cracks, he thought of her across the narrow hall, mere steps away and remembered his mother’s words.
I daresay her talents lie elsewhere.

Lucy Friday was more tempting than a tree full of ripened chestnuts to a boy with a stick. The sooner Nathaniel returned from fighting Spaniards the better.

He paused a moment, breathed deeply and opened the door.

“You’re home early tonight, John,” his mother exclaimed. “Supper’s not even ready yet!”

Vince lollopped over to greet him in the usual way, and he took a moment to pet the beast before glancing shiftily at the young woman setting bowls on the table. She was humming a quiet, blithesome tune, not even looking at him. Already, it seemed, she was part of the household, part of his life. “Finished with work sooner than expected,” he mumbled, shrugging off his leather jerkin. “The next few weeks will be busy so I sent the men home early for a rest. It’ll do the horses good too. Let them play in the paddock a bit.”

Ah yes, all work and no play was bad for man or beast. That was his excuse tonight.

Moody, he slunk over to a chair, fell into it and stretched out his legs, forcing their house guest to step over them as she walked around the table. He wouldn’t move aside for her, even when she stopped and looked, waiting politely. Finally she lifted her skirt and stepped over, resuming her soft humming.

Fingers tapping against the arms of his chair, he stared at her slender waist as she bent over to reach across the table. Her skirt stroked his legs and that caress, however unintentional, sent a quicksilver flame up through his limbs. He ceased tapping with his fingers and drew them tight around the chair arms. The wench turned, still humming, and stepped back over his legs again, skirts lifted to show off a pair of shapely ankles and a lace trimmed petticoat, certainly more costly than anything his mother owned. He hoped the pigs appreciated a well-dressed swine-herd.

“Was that Alice Croft I saw at the gate just now?” his mother called out.

Vince sat at his side with a grunt and began to scratch. “Aye.” He watched Lucy walk to the sideboard for knives, cups and spoons.

“Why didn’t she come in?”

Distantly he replied, “She was just passing, Mother.”

“That’s not like Alice. She always calls in if she passes. Any excuse to see you, John.”

At the sideboard, Lucy’s attention was clearly caught. She turned her head slightly, listening. When she realized he followed her with his gaze, she got on with her work, clutching the cups to her bosom, bringing them back to the table, not looking at him.

“When are you going to put the poor girl out of her misery?” his mother teased, wiping her hands on her apron. “Are you going to ask her to marry you or not? This village has waited two years at least for a wedding.”

He watched Lucy banging the cups down, biting her lip.

“Why should it be of any concern to the village?” he replied placidly. “It’s no one else’s business who I marry. Or when.”

“Poor Alice.” His mother was grave. “She’s certainly been more patient with you than any other girl would be. This time last year I thought you were all but decided and then, this spring, after you came back from Norwich market, suddenly you wanted to put it off again. Suddenly you weren’t sure anymore.”

He caught Lucy’s eye, saw a blush color her face before she speedily returned her attention to the table, fussing unduly over the placement of cups and plates.

“I haven’t asked Alice yet,” he grumbled, “but I will. Soon. Depend upon it.”

Lucy’s lips drooped and when she resumed her quiet humming, the notes were a little off. Either she had no ear for a tune or she was agitated.

“Alice Croft is the right woman for me,” he added, fidgeting in his chair, cracking his knuckles. “Solid, honest, dependable.” He stopped when he saw the sly arch of Lucy’s brow and heard his mother snort with laughter. “What now?”

“I never heard a man count ‘solid’ as a female attribute.”

He would have snapped at his mother, but thought better of it, catching Lucy’s eye a second time. The Friday wench was probably marking down every time he swore in her hearing or spoke sharply to his mother. She would, no doubt, use the evidence next time they quarreled. So he bit down on the urge to quiet his mother’s teasing.

He shifted in his seat. “’Tis best to chose a wife for practical reasons. Alice was raised on a farm and she’s accustomed to a hard-working life.”

“Like a cart horse,” his mother agreed.

The Friday wench seemed amused by this. When she hummed with greater fervor, eyes smiling, he fell silent, watching her sulkily with a gaze fixed and stern, wanting her to feel it.

“I may as well wait to light the candles,” she said, addressing his mother rather than the man of the house. “The sun is still setting and the light is so pretty.”

Yes, indeed it was, especially the way it lit the high curve of Lucy’s milky white breasts when she bent over again before the window, reaching for the bread she’d placed on the ledge to cool. He bit down on his tongue and resettled his long legs, switching one ankle over the other. Those damned teasing bubbies would shortly spill right out of her gown. She wore no ladylike lace partlet and apparently no corset today. Well, that would have to change if she stayed much longer in his house. He couldn’t afford to have this sort of thing in his path tempting him intolerably. Just one more sway, one half inch further and that gown wouldn’t hold her in. It couldn’t take the strain any more than he could. It was ripened fruit ready for plucking, treasure left unguarded, risking plunder. He raised one hand to his mouth, fingers pressed on his lips as a hot surge of pure need spiraled through his body. New leaf be damned. He imagined grabbing Lucy by the waist, pulling her down into his lap.

He tasted the sweet warm skin on her neck....felt her squirm and laugh as he tickled her.

If she stepped over his legs once more…

* * * *

Realizing the bread was out of her reach, Lucy exhaled a short irritable breath and prepared to walk by him again, vaguely annoyed by his refusal to move his big feet, but not particularly bothered enough to give him the satisfaction of asking him to move.

She was poised to lift her skirt, when he leapt to his feet with such alacrity she almost stumbled into his arms. Without a word, he reached for the cooling bread.

Did he just growl at her or was he merely clearing his throat? His gaze was pinned to her bosom. The more she struggled to calm her breath, the faster it came and went, exaggerating the rise and fall.

“Thank you,” she gasped, taking the bread from his hands. “I made it myself.” She managed a smile, endowed with hope. “My first attempt. I’m not sure it’s edible.”

He was still not looking at the bread. “It will be,” he muttered, the words rolling together, little more than a grunt forced out between his lips. “Edible.”

Lucy drew a deep breath of honeysuckle blowing in at the window. “Perhaps I ought to light the candles after all.”

“I thought you wanted them out.”

Panic tightened around her heart. “What? Why…I never…it wasn’t…Why?”

He looked at her face now. “You said the sunset was so pretty.”

For one awful moment, when he mentioned her wanting the candles out, she’d thought he referred to their night at Mistress Comfort’s. Perhaps because she’d been thinking of it herself, unable to shake off the memory.

She set the bread down and hurried to the fire, to the safety of his mother’s side.

The next time she dared look at him, he was staring out through the open window, a gentle breeze blowing a dark curl from his forehead. And suddenly he snapped his head around and pinned her with those watchful eyes.

“Blow out the candles.”

“No. I want to see.”

She heard their voices clearly, the ghostly shadow of a conversation from two months ago.

“I’ll keep the candles lit.”

“Do as I say. At once! I’m paying you, remember? This is on my terms! Mine!”

Sudden understanding widened his eyes and then, almost immediately, his eyelids drifted downward, until there was only a sliver of color visible, but she knew he still watched her. His nostrils flared, his lips tightened.

Glad of any practical task, Lucy held the first bowl out for his mother’s stew, her heart somewhere around her ankles.

Chapter 10

He didn’t come home early from the fields again after that. For the next few days he was gone before she rose and back when she was abed. Lucy might have suspected he avoided her intentionally, if Mistress Carver hadn’t assured her this was the busiest time of year.

“We won’t see much of him for the next few weeks, until the harvest is over.”

Hoping she might one day win his notice for something other than a scornful comment, Lucy asked his mother to teach her cooking and brewing. Her first efforts left much to be desired, but she persevered. One day she’d win a genuine smile from him, even if it killed her.