Jayne Fresina (6 page)

* * * *

He spent the morning searching Norwich, making inquiries around the town. Unfortunately he had no clear description of her face, only her lips. As for her hair, there might be fifty women with red hair in the town and everyone had their own opinion as to what was red, what was ginger, chestnut, fair or auburn. He was whistling against the wind and he had work to do at home. Spring plowing and planting wouldn’t wait. Turning reluctantly to one last matter of business before he left Norwich, he drove his cart to the large, rambling house of Lord Winton, a notoriously slippery old character who owed him for several weight of good fleeces.

A harried servant finally came in answer to the seventh pull on the bell cord at the gate. Fortunately he knew John by sight, knew him to be a good fellow who always bought a round at the high street tavern on market day and who had, more than once, helped out in a fight. When John explained his purpose, the servant unlocked the gate and let him in, warning he’d be lucky to get a penny.

“Until after tomorrow,” he added with a sly wink. “Then I daresay the old man will be flush again for a while. Should come back after Friday, young feller, after the wedding.”

“Wedding?”

“Aye he’s to be married again on the morrow. Rich young lady with a weighty dowry.”

John shook his head. “I can’t wait here until Saturday. He’ll have to pay up today.”

The servant led him through the great hall, currently being decorated with bowers of greenery in preparation for the feast, and into a small, paneled chamber off to one side, where three busy, overworked tailors gave Lord Walter Winton a final fitting for his garish wedding clothes.

“Master John Carver is here, my lord,” the servant intoned solemnly. “A matter of business regarding fleeces.”

The old man didn’t need to be told. He knew who John was and why he was there, but when it came to matters of money he maintained a curiously frangible memory. Bills due had a tendency to cause sudden illness, but the old man was far stronger than he looked. His gnarled, trembling hands, the wrinkled skin thin as gauze, might seem feeble, unfit for any purpose, but it was all an act. Those claws held onto his money purse with the deadly grip of an iron-toothed mantrap.

Irritably regarding John’s arrival that afternoon as a great inconvenience, his eyes misted over, his back stooped and he snapped out for a chair, exclaiming he’d stood too long and his knees would no longer bear the strain. “I cannot think why you bother me with this today, of all days,” he muttered in John’s direction. “You young people have no sense of decorum, no manners, no respect for your elders.”

“I’ll be on my way and disturb you not a moment longer, Lord Winton, once you pay me what I’m owed for those fleeces, fair and square.”

“Fair and square indeed! You cheating young scoundrel. I know you look to overcharge me,” the old man grumbled, “and I suppose you come here today, thinking I will be in a charitable mood on the verge of my forthcoming nuptials.”

Accustomed to Winton’s delay tactics, he waited, saying nothing, looking down at his fists.

“Can you not see this is the very worst of times to come begging for coin, Carver? I have far more important matters at hand.” With a groan, clutching his chest, the old man stumbled back into the chair he was provided. A loud ripping sound caused one of the tailors to throw up his hands in despair and this too was blamed on John’s presence. “There, now. See? I split my dratted breeches.”

Stepping up to his chair, John leaned over the wrinkled fellow and hissed, “I’ll take what I’m owed, Winton. Or your tailors will have more to fix than that hole in your backside.”

“How dare you threaten me, you young rapscallion!”

“How dare you steal from me!” After the morning he’d suffered, John’s temper was easily baited.

“Steal?”

“To take without paying is stealing. You’re no better than a common thief.”

Now the old man shriveled in his chair, falling back on age and decrepitude. “To be so spoken to and threatened in my own home. What is this town coming to?”

John held out his hand, palm up. “The coin, Winton. Give it to me, as agreed yesterday, and I’ll be on my way.”

“I can pay you a third today and the rest at the end of the month.”

“I’m not coming all the way back to Norwich just to collect what you owe me.”

“Then I’ll send it.”

“As if I’d trust you again.”

The old man’s gaze turned sharp, greedy. His dry lips curled, showing small, pointy, yellow teeth. “A gentleman’s agreement, Carver. Is that not what you aspire to be these days, a gentleman farmer? Did you not vow to turn a new leaf? Your mother swears you’ve changed. The last time she pleaded for you, when you were up before me for brawling yet again, she promised you were a reformed man, tending the family farm, looking after her, ready to settle down. Did she lie, Carver? Did your mother perjure herself to me?”

Squinting, trying to restrain his temper, John straightened up, hands on his hips. Winton knew all too well what the mention of his mother would do.

“Take one quarter and you will get the rest when I have it,” Winton continued, spitting out his words, “when I am satisfied those fleeces are the quality you claim.”

“You haven’t looked at them yet?”

“I haven’t the time, Carver,” the old man exclaimed. “I have a wedding tomorrow.” Waving his hand weakly, he coughed. “Now get out of my house or I shall have you banned from trading in the market here. No one in this county will touch your wares, if I spread the word. I’ve ruined better men than you.”

He knew it was true. Winton was a foul, spiteful, cunning old wretch who must have made a pact with Satan to live this long. But he was also the local Justice of the Peace and it was not wise to make him an enemy. Although most folk in Norwich hated him with a passion, they avoided confrontation and simply waited for him to die.

“I’ll get my payment from you, Winton. One way or another.”

The servant held the door open for him and John swept out.

* * * *

Lucy thought she’d heard a door slam somewhere in the house, but none of the other women noticed. Seated in a small, tidy circle, bent over their embroidery, they worked without pause, occasionally whispering to one another, but mostly silent. Turning her head, she stared at the dull sky through the solar window, betaken with a sudden whimsical idea of leaping out and stealing a ride on one of those rippled clouds.

Even the pensive sigh she exhaled went unheard by her companions, or at least ignored. Her half-sister, Anne, kept her head bowed as she worked, her pretty eyelashes occasionally blinking, the only part of her, other than her fingers, that showed any movement. Lucy often wondered what went on inside Anne’s head and amused herself by picturing a world of bright rainbows and skipping coneys. Of course, it was more than likely that absolutely nothing went on inside that head, but there was always hope. Anne’s mother sat beside her, struggling with plump fingers to thread a needle. The other women, Lord Winton’s aged sister and two sour-faced nieces, huddled together, hands working in unison, never faltering, even when one of them flung a cold, resentful glance in Lucy’s direction.

Horses whinnied in the yard and wheels rumbled over cobbles.

Probably another tradesman bringing items for the wedding feast tomorrow.

She heard a curse, whipped out low and furious. It came from directly below the open window. Her companions remained undisturbed. She was apparently the only curious soul among them. Rising quietly, she moved to the window and peered down over the ledge. The window squealed violently as she pushed it further open, but the man below was too annoyed, too busy talking to himself, to hear.

She saw the top of his dark head, the broad musculature of his shoulders, his rough hands reaching for the reins of his horse. A brief gleam of blue was apparent, even from that distance, as he looked up, tracking the flight of a pigeon. On instinct she ducked aside. Had he seen her?

Her stomach tightened.

It was him. He’d come for her.

She ought to shout down a warning, tell him to leave, but nothing came out. Her tongue was too thick, blocking the sounds. Panicking, she turned away from the window too quickly, her kirtle knocking over her chair.

Anne finally raised her lashes and asked if she were quite well. “You look very pale, Lucy.”

With quaking hands, she set the chair upright and lowered herself to the seat. “It was naught,” she muttered, straightening her skirt. “Just a little dizziness.”

“Must be the excitement of your wedding,” Anne cooed, smiling foolishly.

“Yes. That must be it,” said Lucy, who had never been excited by anything in her life, except the man in the courtyard below.

He must have followed her there.

She was sick, her palms damp and hot.

He had come for her. It was sheer folly.

Ruth, her maid, silently passed the sewing she’d dropped and then, at the urging of one of the other women, closed the window.

“We don’t want you getting ill, Lucy dear, the day before your wedding,” Anne said. “Fresh air can be so very bad for one’s complexion and sunlight causes freckles.”

Lucy faintly heard her stepmother muttering that more freckles were one thing she didn’t need. Lord Winton’s nieces sullenly agreed.

Licking her lips, she glanced over at the door. Any moment now, all hell would break loose. Would her father arrive first, or would her lover dash in, sword at the ready, to fight for her? Just like a play.

What would she say? What would she do?

It was absurd. He was a peasant; she was the daughter of a wealthy, upward striving merchant and soon to marry into the nobility. She couldn’t possibly go with him. Was he mad to come there and try to find her?

Anne would say it was romantic, but then Anne was sadly quite stupid and desperately naive.

She watched the door, nerves stretched taut, expecting it to burst open, to hear her name shouted in fury.

The moments passed. Nothing. No footsteps charged down the corridors of her fiance’s house, no enraged voices were heard.

“Ruth,” she turned to her maid, “is there anyone in the yard?”

The maid checked and shook her head. “No ma’am.”

Her shoulders sank. Had she imagined him there?

“Just one of the tradesmen leaving on a cart, ma’am.”

Leaving.

Leaving her behind.

She picked up her needle. Well, that was it. Might have known. Men, she knew from observing her brother and father, never looked very far when searching for something lost. Never moved anything, or looked behind it, just stood and gazed about indignantly, expecting the missing item to reappear. It was always left up to a woman to find it.

Her chance was gone.

She supposed she could run after him, scream through the window. But what would she scream?
Oy, Plowman? Shepherd? Yokel?
She didn’t know his name.

No, it was wiser to remain where she was. At least she wouldn’t starve or freeze to death in some humble, drafty, stone cottage. Here she had a fire, warm clothes, plenty of food, music, dancing and entertainments, such as he probably never even knew existed. Everything here was predictable and safe. There were many folk in the world far less fortunate than she was. She’d watched beggars fighting for scraps outside her father’s gates in London.

And she’d had her night of fun.

If she ever wanted to experience another world again, all she need do was go to the theatre and watch a play, living love, tragedy and comedy all from a sheltered distance.

Much more prudent and practical.

She jabbed her needle into the cloth and pulled it slowly through. Another neat stitch in its place. Another moment of her life gone by. Years from now that stitch would be all that remained to prove she ever lived and breathed.

* * * *

Perhaps it was better this way, he thought. Evidently she didn’t want to know him. She’d made it clear what happened between them was for one night only.

Did she think of him at all tonight?

It felt a lot longer than twenty-four hours since he’d walked into a bedchamber and seen her there in her leather mask. Sometimes he still thought he might have dreamed it, but of all the women to conjure out of his dreams, why create one like her? Why not a gentle-tempered, demure, unquestioning woman who let him make all the demands, the way it was supposed to be? Plenty of pretty lasses at home competed for his notice, and there was Alice Croft, a good girl, just the sort he should find in his dreams, now he was reformed.

But instead there was this determined, deliciously abandoned creature, who had the gall to throw three sovereigns at him, supposedly in exchange for the services of his cock, probably another of Nathaniel’s jokes, and never wanted to see him again. She was the one who would haunt him forever; he knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise and set again tomorrow.

She was insatiable. Wildfire.

If only she’d stayed longer, he might have persuaded her to take off the mask. They could have talked, made better sense of it all. He’d never felt such a connection with any other woman, never really cared to know what they were thinking, what troubled them, what made them laugh, or what made them cry. With her it was all new.

He couldn’t get the vixen out of his mind. All the things they’d done, sometimes savage, sometimes gentle. He remembered the cries of wanton delight from her lush lips, the funny, refined way she had of saying “please,” once she’d learned what it won for her.

He concluded that this must be some form of self-punishment. His conscience tried to make him feel guilt for the lackadaisical way he’d treated women in the past. This curious event at Mistress Comfort’s proved how little he liked to be used and then forgotten. Women, he supposed reluctantly, must feel the same way when a man turned his back, or left the bed before they woke and never bothered to say goodbye.

Just as
she’d
done to him.

Shaking his head, he flipped the reins lightly, urging the horse onward and homeward.

“Red sky at night,” he muttered, looking up at the setting horizon, “shepherd’s delight.”