Never Kiss A Stranger (27 page)

The bonfire was no grand flame now, but its coals were lively and licking in a wide bowl that radiated a welcome heat onto Tiny’s shins and face as she sat on a log, Layla on her shoulder. She was scraping the last cold, congealed
dregs from a forgotten bowl with her fingers when Layla started, shrieked, and leapt away into the shadows. Tiny jumped to her feet, the bowl tumbling to the ground, and looked around for what could have startled the animal. She saw nothing.

“Oh, bugger!” Tiny huffed. She bent at the waist and tried to peer into the darkness. “Layla! Layla, come here, you naughty monkey!” She would be switched for certain now, being down from the tree at night alone,
and
having lost Lady Alys’s pet. She heard a rustle behind a nearby tree and crept toward it.

“Layla!
Oh mercy, you’re going to get me switched! Come out right now!”

She was just about to peer around the wide gray trunk when a hand reached out and jerked her forward, spinning her around so that she could not see the face of the person who held her. One arm braced across Tiny’s chest and a hand gripped her upper arm, while another hand clapped over her mouth. Tiny could smell heady cologne and then a voice whispered in her ear.

“I have no desire to harm you, child.” It was a woman’s voice, and finely accented. “But I cannot turn you loose for obvious reasons, and you do seem quite frail. So if you struggle, it is likely that I will break your arm. Do you agree?”

Tiny nodded. The arm across her chest was draped in a rich, heavy cloak material, and Tiny could see part of the massive hood out of the corner of her right eye. The woman holding her was not large, but her captor was right—Tiny was frail. With one twist, her arm would separate from her shoulder with a familiar snap.

“Good. Now, listen to me, very carefully, and you need only nod yes or nay: Lady Alys Foxe, she is still here, yes?”

Tiny hesitated, but then nodded.

“But she is to leave soon? With a man?”

Tiny was motionless. She didn’t know who this strange woman was, or in what kind of jeopardy Lady Alys would be placed if she answered the questions.

As if the woman could hear her worried thoughts, she offered. “Had I ill intent, I could have acted any number of times she strayed to the fringe of the village.” She paused, letting the fact sink in that the woman had known Alys had been residing at the village, had possibly been watching her for nigh on a week. “Now, is she to leave?”

Tiny nodded.

“On the morrow?”

She nodded again.

“Good. Well done. Now, I will remove my hand so that you may speak aloud your next answer. If you betray me, everyone in this village shall pay for your mistake. Do you understand?”

Tiny nodded.

“To where do Lady Alys and the man hie?”

The hand slowly eased away from Tiny’s mouth, just enough for her lips to move, and the hooded head leaned closer, pressing into the side of Tiny’s face.

“L-London,” she whispered.

The woman seemed to give Tiny a squeeze, and instead of the hand clamping back across her face, it disappeared for a moment.

“Good girl,” the woman whispered. “The lady’s pet has scampered up the tree where she is sleeping. You are safe from your parents’ wrath as long as you don’t turn ‘round until I am gone, and then you scurry up to your own bed. Tell no one I was here, and you may keep this for yourself.”

Tiny’s wrist was seized and a hard, flat object was forced beneath her fingers.

With a rush of cold air and snow, Tiny was free. She closed her eyes and counted twenty before turning around, and even then, she only cracked one eyelid at first.

She was alone.

Her heart began beating so fast in her chest that she thought her ribs might break, and she began to cry quietly. She swiped at her face and then looked down at the object in her hand.

She stared at it for a long time, the wind chilling her until she shivered. Then she began to walk slowly to her family’s tree, to go to bed as she’d been told.

Piers was already dressed and moving about the frigid tree house when Alys awoke the next morning. She opened her eyes and he was the first thing she saw—folding his new clothes and placing them carefully in his pack, which he had set on the edge of the cot.

She lay there for several moments, watching him silently. He was dressed in his old tunic once more, and as he put the fine costume away, Alys couldn’t help but feel a sharp stab of fear—it was as if he was already putting away the days and nights they had shared on their long journey together. But she would not yet give up. She was still to travel the remainder of the way to London with him. Perhaps it was only a matter of days before a brighter, easier future was laid out surely before them both.

His eyes caught a glimpse of her watching him and he paused in his chores.

She gave him a little smile. “Good morrow.”

“Sleep well?” he asked lightly.

“Not really,” she said and felt a strand of her hair being pulled.

“I’d set out as soon as you are ready,” he said, cinching
up the straps of his pack and then glancing beyond her shoulder. “Little wonder neither one of us slept—that cot is hardly big enough for two, let alone three.”

Alys realized the pulling on her hair was Layla. She turned her head. “Hello, traitor,” she said in a cool voice.

Layla reached out with lightning speed and tweaked her nose—hard.

“Ouch! The thanks I get for saving your life. Ungrateful little beast.” She turned a smile to Piers, hoping he would be amused by her play, but he had already turned away, throwing the straps of his bag over one shoulder.

“I’d seek Ira before we depart,” he said. “Come down when you’re ready.” He walked to the flap in the sidewall.

Alys sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders and knocking Layla from her perch. She pushed the long strands of hair escaped from her plait from her eyes. “Piers?”

He paused, turned his face halfway to her, his eyebrows raised in question.

Alys swallowed, tried to keep her voice light. “We’re going to be alright. Aren’t we?”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you below.”

Then he sidled through the wall and was gone, leaving Alys alone with a monkey in her lap and the cold, cold wind in her ears.

Piers’s heart sank lower with every rung of the rope ladder he descended. Suddenly, he dreaded London, and all that it stood for: the uncertain as well as certain paths of his future. A future without Alys.

Ira was waiting for him at the bottom of the tree, as Piers had known he would be. The old man had terrible disapproval in his eyes.

“You’re a fool and an idiot,” was the old man’s greeting.

“Good morning, Grandfather,” Piers said lightly, as he reached the ground and turned to face Ira. It was obvious Ira suspected that he and Alys had spent the night together in an intimate manner.

Around them, the woodland village was alive with the chores of the day, and people tended their work as they must, but Piers caught their furtive glances of curiosity. They, too, suspected. Even Tiny, assisting her mother at the fire, stared at him, her small brow wrinkled with worry.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Ira accused.

Piers dropped his pack to the ground. “She will send for her sister once we reach London.”

The old man’s hairy eyebrows shot up. “She agreed?”

“It was her plan before I mentioned it. She acknowledges that she must answer the betrothal.”

Ira’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot imagine it was that easy.”

Piers sighed. “Let it be, Ira. What is done is done, and we will not know the outcome of it until I have my audience with Edward.”

“Very well,” the old man acquiesced. “But I would speak my mind to her all the same. Is her ladyship dressed to receive visitors yet?” he mocked.

Piers leveled a look at his grandfather. “Ira, I warn you now—nothing untoward happened between Alys and me last night, and you will say naught to upset her. I ken that the pair of you are not fast companions, but that is largely your own fault. Whether you believe it or not, Alys is a good woman, and this journey has not been an easy one for her. She deserves your respect. If not for her, the two of us may not ever have met.”

“Until Edward dubs you a knight of the realm, you don’t command me, pup,” Ira said gruffly. “And even if
he did, you still wouldn’t! I’ll speak my thoughts to whom and as I please.”

“You heard me, Ira,” Piers said. “I do not jest.”

“And neither do I,” Ira growled, leaning toward Piers and squinting one eye at him. “You’re just like your mam—always making excuses for ‘em.”

Piers stared at the old man, his expression set.

Ira eased off. “It is a fair thing to have a bit of her returned to me.”

Piers caught glimpse of the girl, Tiny, making her way ever closer to him, casting her mother furtive glances. It was as if she was trying to catch Piers’s attention, and he thought it strange that she did not simply walk to him and greet him as she normally would.

Ira had already started climbing the ladder, like an ancient yet still nimble spider—all bony joints.

When Piers looked around once more, the small village girl was nearly upon him.

“Good morrow to you, sir,” she called out gaily, and rather loudly, Piers thought. “Are you readied for your journey?”

“Good morrow to you, Tiny. I am all but,” he replied with a faint smile. It amazed him how this small, frail girl had managed to survive these many years in the hard wood, let alone thrive.

“Is Lady Alys about yet?” she called, with a bit more put-on nonchalance than was necessary. Everyone in the village knew how the girl worshipped Alys.

“Ira’s speaking to her now. I expect her shortly.”

She came to stand before him, looking around her pointedly and swinging her arms at her sides. “Oh, that’s grand. Grand!” Tiny turned a wide smile to him, but Piers could see the purple shadows under the girl’s eyes. “Can
you keep a secret?” she whispered, the smile falling from her mouth and her eyes darting side to side.

Piers raised his eyebrows. “I suppose I can, yes.”

“A deep secret,” Tiny emphasized, and her brow furrowed. “If you told anyone, I—I don’t know what would happen.”

“Alright,” Piers said, growing serious at the girl’s desperate tone. “What is it?”

“Swear to me,” Tiny insisted. “Swear you won’t tell. Papa would switch me to ribbons.”

He crouched down. “I swear. What is it, child?”

Piers saw the slight tremble in her chin—the girl was terrified. “A stranger came into the village last night, looking for Lady Alys.”

Piers’s heart skittered to a halt. “You saw him?”

Tiny nodded hesitantly. “‘Twas a woman, but I didn’t see her face. She kept behind me. I snuck down with Layla to see what was left of the feast, and she came upon me.”

“What exactly did she say?” Piers asked, trying to keep his voice level.

“She asked if the lady was still here, with you, and when she was leaving.” Tiny glanced around again. “She asked me where the pair of you were going and”—her chest hitched, her eyes welled—“I told her. I had to, else she would have broken me arm.”

Piers’s heart was beating again, now in triple time. “You told this woman that Lady Alys and I were going to London?”

Tiny nodded, as if the motion pained her. “I’m sorry, Piers. Truly. I was so frightened though. Please tell me that you won’t let her harm Lady Alys!”

“I wouldn’t let
anyone
harm Lady Alys, Tiny,” Piers said solemnly. “And you did the right thing in coming to me. Did she say anything else?”

Tiny shook her head. “No. But she gave me something, in payment for my answers.” The girl looked around once more before digging her hand into her apron pocket and pulling out her small fist. She held it toward Piers, and he took it without allowing the object to see light while stretched between him and the girl.

Once Piers had the item close to his chest, the girl looked relieved. “You can keep it,” she said, her mouth turned down with distaste. “I don’t want a traitor’s payment. It’s filthy.”

Piers frowned, and then looked down at his hand as he uncurled his fingers.

A gold coin lay in his palm, its likeness he had seen before in Alys’s own embroidered purse. An ornate F curled handsomely on the backside of the coin.

Piers gripped the coin in his hand, closed his eyes, and breathed a sigh. He opened them again after a moment and held the coin back to the girl. She shrank away.

“Don’t fear it,” Piers said easily. “Take it in good conscience, child, and be glad. This coin came from no one who would harm your friend—see this here?” He pinched the coin between his fingers, and a figure of Edward stared at him as he showed Tiny the other side. “It’s an F. For Fallstowe.”

Tiny’s worried face softened and her eyes raised to Piers’s. “Lady Alys’s home?”

Piers nodded. “The woman who visited you was likely Lady Alys’s own sister. Neither you—nor Lady Alys—have anything to fear from her.”

He saw the girl’s flat chest rise and fall. She snatched the coin from Piers’s fingers and it disappeared back into her apron pocket.

“But it should still be our secret,” Piers warned. “Lady
Alys would be upset that her sister is following her, even with good intentions.”

Tiny nodded. “And my Papa would still switch me for being down from the tree.”

Piers nodded solemnly and held out his hand. “A bargain?”

Tiny shook his hand. “Indeed.” Then the girl unexpectedly threw her other arm about Piers’s neck and embraced him. “I do hope you return soon, Piers. And Lady Alys with you.”

Piers patted Tiny’s back awkwardly. “Run along now.”

She released him, and Piers rose to stand as the small girl ran on swift feet back to her family’s fire.

Sybilla Foxe was following them.

Piers turned and looked up at the underside of the tree house, where Alys was hidden away with his grandfather. He had heard no shouts, and no body had been tossed to the ground as of yet. ‘Twas just as likely though that the two were simply engaged in the slow process of strangling each other to death simultaneously.