Jayne Fresina

by Once a Rogue

  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.”

  Chapter 5

  What a curious color the sky was this evening, almost blood red. In an unusual, day-dreamy state, Lucy stared out of her bedchamber window, watching a slow, hot blush spread above the rooftops and chimneys. Finally she focused her drifting gaze on her stepmother’s face, crookedly reflected there beside her own in the leaded glass, and then she came back to earth with a thud.

  “Truly, it matters not to me,” Lucy exclaimed. “You need not fuss.” She brushed away her stepmother’s plump hands, where they hovered around her shoulders like two nervous, over-fed sparrows. “I don’t need the necklace in any case.” This woman had never been motherly, and her last-minute attempt to be so now made Lucy’s skin crawl.

  “But I wanted to give you something for the wedding, Lucasta.”

  “I’m sure Anne will get more use out of it and besides, she has the bearing and the beauty for fine jewels. I would only lose it, no doubt, or break it.”

  In the window, she watched her stepmother turn away, wringing her hands, making an extravagant show, when, to be sure, there was never the slightest intention of giving Lucy her necklace.

  “I really don’t mind,” she repeated firmly. “Anne should have it when she marries. I would never do it credit.”

  But when her stepmother suffered guilt, she talked herself from one lie to the next and there was no stopping her. “I always meant for you to wear the necklace when you married.”

  Lucy smiled wryly, turning away from the window. “I thought you expected me to die an old maid.”

  Her stepmother feigned affront, as if the idea of Lucy remaining a spinster, financially reliant on her father, never once occurred to her. “I knew you would marry eventually, Lucasta, of course, despite that willful temper.”

  “As soon as father found someone desperate enough to take me on.”

  Although she should be accustomed to Lucy’s sharp tongue by now, her stepmother made a show of being shocked and appalled by it. “You should not speak so, Lucasta. If only you might have learned a little softness, for I fear that cold tone will not please Lord Winton. It makes you sound ungrateful and churlish.”

  God forbid. “Keep the necklace until Anne marries. Is there anything else you wanted?” After the exertions of the previous evening, she looked forward to her bed, her last night of freedom. Her stepmother being all “concerned” for her only multiplied the dread of what tomorrow would bring.

  “Well, I’ll bid you goodnight then, Lucasta.” The woman finally retreated.

  No sooner had the door closed behind her then there was another loud knock. She thought it was Anne, come to make certain that necklace was still hers, but it was not her half-sister, it was her elder brother, Lancelot, in a cheerful mood, eager to pinch her cheeks and tease.

  “I don’t know why you ever agreed to it, Luce,” he exclaimed, pushing his way in. “I thought you’d die an old maid.”

  She knew this was exactly what they all thought, although only Lance would have the impertinent guts to say it. Her brother might wonder why she now agreed to go like a lamb to the slaughter, but Lucy understood the way the world worked, even if she didn’t agree with it. Unless she married, there was no use for her. It was so for all women and the older she became, the narrower the pool of potential husbands. As her father had kindly pointed out, Lord Winton’s might well be her last offer.

  She’d had her share of suitors over the years, most attracted to her bridal purse, none pleasing enough to encourage. With one cool, imperious glance, one sniff of contempt, she erected a set of forbidding, barbed walls before which even the bravest of knights would fail. She had exhibited no desire to please her suitors, showed none of the meek subservience expected of a wife, and was often reprimanded for a “smug and superior” facial expression. Few men would tolerate her disagreeable manner, when there were other women, younger, more pliant, biddable and willing, not to mention grateful. In the eyes of many she was an old maid
now, a liability and a burden on her father, whose patience she’d worn beyond its limits. Not that he’d ever had much for her in any case. Finally, since she’d continued to hold suitors at bay with her icy demeanor, he’d chosen a husband for her.

  Lucy’s dowry would compensate Lord Winton for the inconvenience of marrying her and he was willing to overlook her many failings, as long as she was a virgin. Ironically, this man in his sixties considered her, at twenty-six, too old for him. She’d heard he kept a mistress, so it was unlikely he would share a marital bed with her very often, if at all. Thank the Lord!

  All things considered, she didn’t expect this marriage to trouble her unduly. She would survive in a loveless union, she supposed, as other women in her shoes managed. If they did it, so could she. Her choices, she believed, were practical, made with a cool head, no fanciful expectations of the slightest happiness. Once married, her life wouldn’t change much from what it was now, except she would have her own home to manage and no longer be obliged to witness her father’s disapproving face each day, or hear her stepmother making loud, awkward excuses to all and sundry for why she remained unwed.

  Neither would she need to put up with her brother’s teasing.

  Striding across the room, Lance asked if there was any advice she might need for the wedding night. Seven years her senior, he often took it upon himself to counsel her, whether she welcomed his “wisdom” or not. Tonight she was tempted to reply that there was nothing he could tell her. After her romp at Mistress Comfort’s, she was certainly no longer a blushing innocent. The memory of it brought a slight smile to her lips, which, fortunately, Lance, who could be extremely straitlaced and disapproving, didn’t see. Throughout the day, she’d caught herself reliving the previous evening’s adventure and smiling stupidly. But then something would intrude to bring her feet back to earth and her lips would straighten at once into the somber expression she usually saw staring back at her in any reflective surface.

  Why had her mystery man come to Lord Winton’s house that day? Fearful of rousing suspicion, she daren’t ask anyone about him, and her maid had been unable to find anything out.